She’d asked Griffin that very question before leaving the stationhouse. They’d had to notify him about the search and provide a copy of the warrant. His face had turned green. He’d stared at her in blatant horror while the document shook violently in his hands.
“What will we find when we go inside your house?” Josie had asked him again.
He hadn’t responded, so she’d repeated the question several more times until he finally looked at her with pleading eyes and said, “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
It was a miracle Josie hadn’t thrown up on the drive over. Even now, the urge to vomit behind the nearest shrub was almost irresistible.
Many Quail Hollow residents had gathered in the street, despite the heat of the day. Their faces were curious and disapproving in equal measure. This was not the kind of place police showed up en masse to raid a home. The houses were opulent, their landscaping so pristine, any one of their front gardens could be on the cover of a magazine. One month after Dani had followed Turner to Denton, Griffin Holt had moved out of a one-bedroom apartment and purchased this six-bedroom luxury home in one of the most exclusive developments in Denton. So exclusive, it even had what locals referred to as a moat, which was really just a stream that curved around almost the entire development. Normally, its banks were painstakingly cultivated to rival any botanical garden. Now, the summer drought had brought the water level down considerably, and the once-grassy banks were brown and brittle.
Given the rising voices of Griffin’s neighbors, they’d just realized that eyesore was the least of their first-world problems.
The radio affixed to Josie’s tactical vest squawked. Dougherty’s voice announced, “Everyone’s in position.”
Griffin’s home was redbrick with black shutters and a colonial-style portico over its front door. It had a few more acres than most of the houses on his street.
“We’re going in,” Gretchen said into her radio as she and Josie joined Brennan and Conlen at the front door.
Two officers were watching the rear of the house, two were out front, and Josie was about to lead Gretchen, Brennan and Conlen through Griffin Holt’s house to clear it before they began the actual search.
All of them were desperate for this. It had already been six days since Dani and Cassidy were taken. Too many. Thequestion taunted her again.What will we find?She mentally herded it into a cage and stowed it on the top shelf of her mental vault. Right now, she had a job to do. One she’d already done hundreds of times. The best thing she could do for Dani and Cassidy—and Turner—right now was to remain detached and professional.
Judging by Griffin’s chilling answer to the question of what they would find here, Josie knew that something awaited them inside. Hopefully it wasn’t the remains of the two people Turner loved most in the world. The image of Cassidy standing before them in the great room at the stationhouse flashed through her mind. All sass and brash confidence. She had a hardness to her, just like her father, and Josie suspected she used it the same way—to hide her vulnerable parts.
“You ready?” Gretchen said, snapping Josie from her thoughts.
Her body had already switched onto automatic pilot, moving to the side of the front door, gripping her pistol at the ready. Gretchen, Brennan and Conlen were lined up behind her.
“Let’s go.”
After using the keys Griffin had handed over, they filed through the door into a large foyer. Josie went first, her pistol held out in front of her. Once over the threshold, she moved to her right, scanning the section of the room that was her responsibility. She didn’t need to look back to know that Gretchen had gone to the left to secure the outermost portion of the area on that side. Brennan and Conlen followed, fanning out so that every part of the foyer was monitored by one of them. They began calling out as they cleared the first floor, announcing themselves and instructing anyone inside to make themselves known.
They continued through the first floor like a well-oiled machine except for when they were nearly through and falteredas one. It was a minute pause, a blink, but they all felt it. From somewhere behind her in the kitchen, Josie heard Conlen mutter, “This is one creepy bastard.”
She was surprised the roar of blood in her ears didn’t drown him out, but she saw his point. There wasn’t one item of furniture on the entire first floor. All of the cavernous rooms were completely empty. Griffin Holt had lived here for almost eighteen months and kept it like a rental property, waiting for his ideal tenants to come along.
Doing her best to shake off the way her skin crawled and dread sat heavy in her stomach, Josie led the team through the rest of the house. The only furnished room in the place was the primary bedroom, which was clearly where he spent all of his time. The urge to stop and really study the few things they came across was almost overpowering, but Josie managed to carry on at a careful, measured pace. Barely. The need to rush, to run, to frantically tear through the house was a steady buzz under Josie’s skin. From the moment they stepped into the place, they’d been calling out for anyone inside to make their presence known. So far, they hadn’t heard a thing, but oftentimes victims were too scared to come forward right away. They could still be alive. Anxiety and hope warred in her chest like a couple of MMA fighters in a cage match.
Then the house was secured and she was picking her way carefully back down the stairs into the basement, praying that what she had seen when they were clearing it didn’t mean what she thought it did.
Lush white carpet covered the steps. Halfway down, the drops of blood started. They were small but they might as well have been neon and glowing for how starkly they contrasted with the rug. Carefully, she avoided each one. She knew that behind her, Gretchen was doing the same. Josie’s heartbeat was at a full sprint now.
The basement was finished, the carpet continuing throughout the space. There were still divots where furniture had once been, deep imprints from the legs of tables and the bases of what looked like two couches and two recliners. It was cavernous but clean with pale gray walls and recessed lighting overhead. Overall, even without furniture, it was pristine and inviting. A few faded crayon and marker scribbles on the lower parts of the walls here and there made her think the previous owners had used it as a playroom for children. Which probably explained why the door at the opposite end of the big room had a lock on the outside.
The door had already been partially open when they cleared it. Now, Josie was able to fully process the details. Recessed lights in the drop ceiling cast a dull glow over the room. The floor was concrete. Like every other room in the house, it was unfurnished. Josie took two steps inside and stopped, willing her galloping heart to slow down. A trail of blood droplets began in the center of the room and led to a couple of rumpled sleeping bags in one corner. A couple of pillows, stripped of their cases, and water bottles lay next to them.
This was where he’d kept them.
Josie walked alongside the path of the blood until she found where it had started. Between the two sleeping bags it pooled, congealing. Another surge of dizzying dread made her head spin, but she walled it off quickly and dropped into some discreet 4-7-8 breathing. No one but her could see her emotional turmoil or even guess that she was using her breathing exercises. To everyone else, she’d just look like she was standing there, analyzing the tableau before her.
Gretchen drew up beside her. “One of them was injured here. With what, it’s impossible to say, but someone used the pillowcases to staunch the wound. Then that person was either marched or carried up the steps. That’s my guess, anyway.”
“That’s why there are only a few drops on the steps and nothing in the rest of the house,” Josie said. “There’s not enough here to indicate a grievous injury, at least not while they were here. Enough to subdue one or both of them. Hummel can type the blood on-scene and we should know if any of it matches Dani’s and Cassidy’s blood types.”
Gretchen sighed. “He’d only need to injure one of them to scare the other into compliance. Just like he did when he took them.”
Hurting Cassidy would ensure that Dani did whatever he said.
Blood pounded in Josie’s ears, and she had to work even harder to breathe, to maintain her equilibrium. Having been abducted and raised by Lila Jensen had taught Josie that mothers were cruel and vicious. That they’d sacrifice your well-being, your innocence, hell, even your life if it benefited them. The women who came after her—Lisette, her biological mother, and even friends like Misty—had shown her what true motherhood looked like. It was fierce and terrifying in all the best ways. On the other hand, though she was only an honorary aunt to Harris and a guardian to Wren, she now knew that the ferocity came with weakness. That weakness was the fear that Noah had mentioned. Dani Schwarber would have done anything to protect her daughter. Her fear would have driven her to do anything Griffin Holt told her to do—even if it meant following Cassidy to their deaths.
