Josie turned her palm up and gathered his fingers in hers.
“If Wren admitted she doesn’t trust us, I’d ask her what else we can do to earn her trust,” he went on. “Although I’m not sure there is anything we can do but be consistent and show up for as long as she lets us.”
She felt a small pinch in her chest because he was right about this, too. In a lot of ways, Wren was out on a choppy sea, alone in a weathered boat while Josie and Noah were on shore, helpless to bring her in. She had to get there herself.
A shadow fell over the table. With a little squeeze, Josie let go of Noah’s hand and looked up to find a woman in a sharp black pantsuit and perfectly coiffed sandy-colored hair staring down at them, hands on her hips. Despite the fact that it was the middle of the night, her makeup was flawless, even her vibrant red lipstick. It was bold and unexpected, lending her a decidedly don’t-fuck-with-me vibe while also giving her an air of intrigue.
Josie was mesmerized.
“You must be Fraley and Quinn. I’m Detective Annette Miller.” She lifted her chin in Josie’s direction. “Scoot over.”
Annette slid into the booth beside Josie and lifted a manicured hand to flag down one of the waitresses. “Karen, honey, I’m gonna need some of that rocket fuel, please.”
Noah waggled an eyebrow at Josie. She knew what he was thinking. Annette Miller hadn’t been trying to kill them by suggesting they meet here. This was her usual haunt.
“Oh my,” said Annette, eyeing the cup of coffee Noah had abandoned. “You’re not wasting this, are you? Something wrong with it?”
“Yeah,” Noah said. “It’s rocket fuel.”
She tipped her head back and laughed, her smile transforming her entire demeanor from commanding to warm in an instant. The waitress came by and set a steaming mug before her.
“I have to say,” Annette said as she stirred sugar into her coffee, “I wish we weren’t meeting under these circumstances. Tell me. What’ve you got? Where are my girls?”
Josie and Noah ran down the leads they already had as well as all the dead ends. Annette nodded slowly as they spoke, lipsfirming into a straight line. The skin at the corners of her eyes tightened. With one long red nail, she scooped a glob of mascara from under one eye.
“When I talked to Shitbird, he could barely form coherent sentences.”
“Shitbird?” Noah said.
Annette raised a brow. “The jerk who married my beautiful niece and then broke her heart.”
Did Turner just collect demeaning nicknames from every woman whose path he crossed?
“He said you worked together,” Josie prompted.
“Yeah, we did. For a lot of years. I got him the job here because Dani asked me to. They were in some place south of Philly and she wanted to come home.”
“Your family is from here?” Noah asked.
Annette nodded. “Not too many of us left in the area. My sister and her husband—Dani’s parents—moved away. It was a shame, really. As soon as Dani came back, everyone else left. I called them an hour ago to let them know what was happening. I didn’t think Shitbird was in any condition to do it.”
“You were willing to get Turner a job despite the fact that he’s a shitbird?” Noah asked.
“He wasn’t always a shitbird.” Annette sipped her coffee, frowned, and stirred more sugar into it. “We got along great. I always liked him. Loved him, even. He was a great dad, good husband. Easily distracted by work, but aren’t we all?”
Noah gave Josie a pointed look, but she could see the humor in his eyes. She’d been obsessive about the job for as long as he’d known her. While he often teased her about it, he’d never held it against her. He had always taken her just as she was, flaws, idiosyncrasies and all. He was the perfect calm sea to her cyclone. The trauma of his abduction hadn’t robbed him entirely of his easygoing nature and for that, she was incredibly grateful.Each time life knocked them down, they staggered back to their feet—together—and Josie thought they were stronger for it.
She understood that every marriage was different, and she knew that Turner’s marriage was immaterial for the purposes of finding Dani and Cassidy, but she couldn’t stop herself from asking.
“What happened?”
Annette tried her coffee again, giving a curt nod of approval as she set it back down. “What happened to Shitbird? He turned into a shitbird. The escort case messed up his moral compass, screwed with his head. We got the conviction but after that, he just changed. I don’t suppose he mentioned his girlfriend, did he?”
“You mean Zara?”
Had Turner lied to her about his relationship with the former escort? Why? He knew she already had a low opinion of him, that she knew he was separated from his wife and had been on the outs with her and Cassidy for a long time. What difference did it make if Josie knew he’d had an affair?
The waitress returned to the table to take their orders, interrupting the conversation.
