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“Alone?”

Noah snorted as he turned onto his side and wrapped himself around her. “It’s for Turner’s safety. There is no way the two of them could spend hours in a car together without Gretchen snapping.”

Josie’s fingers continued to glide through his hair as he rested his head on her stomach. “Hmmm. That’s true.”

“I looked into the pastor today. He’s in the clear,” Noah said. “He told me there were a couple of children in the daycare whose grandfathers used to pay Sylvia a lot of attention. Gretchen and I checked them out. Nothing there. I don’t know. We’ve only ever focused on Sylvia. To the exclusion of all else, actually. I think we need to go back to the first victim, Alanna Jarrett. She’s where this all started. Serial killers tend to commit their first murder in their comfort zone. He might have been closer than everyone thought. Yeah, he taunted Sylvia for years and he came back for her⁠—”

“But she was the one who got away,” Josie filled in. “And taunting her gave him an outlet for all the years he wasn’t killing.”

“Yeah,” said Noah. “I’m not saying he didn’t worm his way into Sylvia’s life but we’ve spent so much time on dismantling every aspect of her life to find this guy and come up with nothing. We need another approach.”

Josie smiled as he slid up her body, burying his face in her neck and inhaling. “Like with Wren.”

Noah gripped her hips and planted kisses along her jaw. “Like with Wren.”

As her body responded to his touch, Josie turned all her attention to how good it felt to have his hands and mouth on her, letting thoughts of work and Wren drift away.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow, they’d try again.

Except, when Josie and Noah woke, Wren was gone.

Forty-Eight

“Tell us again,” Noah said.

“Don’t leave anything out,” Josie added.

Drake held Trinity against his chest. The four of them stood in the middle of the kitchen. Trinity’s voice wobbled. “Trout’s barking woke us up. We thought it was weird that he would be in her room just barking. I got worried that something was really wrong so I went out into the hall and knocked on her door.”

“We called her name a few times,” Drake said, rubbing Trinity’s back. “Nothing but the little guy barking his head off. I thought maybe she couldn’t hear us over his racket so we went inside. She wasn’t there. Trout bolted out and down the steps. I went after him but he just had to go out. I checked this floor to see if Wren was down here but she wasn’t.”

“That was when I woke you guys up,” said Trinity.

Josie and Noah had slept through the commotion since their bedroom was on the opposite end of the hall as Wren’s, on the other side of the room Trinity and Drake used when they stayed. Once they were woken up, they had immediately searched the entire house. Twice. Plus the backyard. But Wren wasn’t there. Josie paced the length of the kitchen. “Her phone is here but her messenger bag and sketch book are gone.”

“She left,” said Noah.

“Didn’t anything show up on your security app?” asked Trinity. “I thought you guys upped the number of cameras you had since the Polaroid Killer case.”

“We did,” said Josie.

She and Noah had checked the app right after they realized Wren was truly gone. The last time any of the alarms tripped was when Wren let Trout out to relieve himself at around eight thirty the night before. How had she left without any of the cameras picking up the movement? Josie had been certain they’d eliminated all the blind spots. Climbing out of her bedroom window would have resulted in broken bones. The height was too great.

“Where would she go?” Noah asked.

“I sent a group text to everyone while you guys were searching out back,” Trinity held up her phone. “Misty, Erica, Cassidy and Mom and Dad. None of them have seen her.”

“She wouldn’t go to someone we knew,” Josie said. “That would defeat the purpose of her running.”

“Dex’s old house,” Noah suggested.

“That’s an hour away,” said Josie. “She’s too young to drive. She doesn’t have a car or a rideshare app on her phone.”

“That didn’t stop her from showing up on our doorstep after he died,” Noah pointed out.

Back then, Wren had used the rideshare app on Dex’s phone to come to their home. He’d given her their address right after he told her that he was giving custody of her to Josie and Noah. Two complete strangers.