Her Silent Cry: An absolutely gripping mystery thriller Read online

  HER SILENT CRY

  AN ABSOLUTELY GRIPPING MYSTERY THRILLER

  LISA REGAN

  BOOKS BY LISA REGAN

  Vanishing Girls

  The Girl With No Name

  Her Mother’s Grave

  Her Final Confession

  The Bones She Buried

  Her Silent Cry

  Available in Audio

  Vanishing Girls (Available in the UK and US)

  The Girl With No Name (Available in the UK and US)

  Her Mother’s Grave (Available in the UK and US)

  Her Final Confession (Available in the UK and US)

  The Bones She Buried (Available in the UK and US)

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Hear More From Lisa

  Books by Lisa Regan

  A Letter from Lisa

  Vanishing Girls

  The Girl With No Name

  Her Mother’s Grave

  Her Final Confession

  The Bones She Buried

  Acknowledgements

  For Dot Dorton, for changing my life.

  ONE

  Their argument crashed in angry waves against the door between us, slamming against the wood, pooling on the floor and slipping underneath where I could hear every word. Most of the time, I didn’t understand what they were saying or even why they were fighting. I only understood that she was about to get hurt; the silent way, or the screaming way. I was never sure which was worse.

  No matter how badly he hurt her, she always found her way back to our room eventually. She’d lower herself into our creaking bed, hissing her breaths through gritted teeth, and reach for me. I learned to be very careful when I moved under the covers. Sometimes even the slightest pressure would make her gasp with pain. As gently as I could, I would curl my back into her stomach and wait for the trembling fingers skittering over my scalp to eventually fall into a slow, soothing rhythm.

  I had so many questions, but I didn’t ask them. I didn’t want the man to hear me, to remember I was there too. When the ragged edges of her breath smoothed out, she’d let out a soft sigh that meant that she had reached a point where her pain was bearable.

  “It’s okay,” she’d say. “It will be okay.”

  She was always a bad liar.

  TWO

  Little Harris Quinn’s shrieks carried across Denton City Park’s playground, piercing Josie’s ears. As she chased him from the swings to the slide, she looked around to see if any of the other adults were bothered by his high-pitched sounds of delight, but no one even noticed. All the other adults were similarly focused on their own children as they sprinted back and forth, calling out excitedly.

  “Mom! Watch me!”

  “You can’t catch me.”

  “I want to go on the see-saw!”

  Josie followed Harris over to the jungle gym in the center of the playground. It was shaped like a castle with a long, curved bridge that led from a set of low-slung steps to a large slide on the opposite side. Harris climbed up the steps and raced across the bridge.

  “Careful,” Josie called after him, but he was already at the top of the slide. She narrowly missed bowling over two toddlers as she raced to the bottom of the slide before he flew off the shiny end into the dirt. She scooped him from mid-air at the base of the slide and he squealed. “JoJo!”

  She planted a kiss on the top of his head before he began squirming. “JoJo, down! Again!”

  Reluctantly, she set him back down and watched him run back to the steps. It was best to stay at the bottom of the slide, she thought, to catch him. For just a few seconds, while he was on the bridge, he was out of her eyeline. Her heart pounded in her chest until she saw the flash of his blond hair and bright blue dinosaur shirt at the top of the slide. As he sat down and pushed himself forward, a little girl pushed in front of Josie and started climbing up the slide. In her mind’s eye, Josie saw the disastrous collision about to take place. The little girl had to be six or seven years old based on her size—almost twice as large as Harris. She had on white sneakers, stretchy blue pants and a sparkly pink top decorated with a unicorn. On her back, she wore a small backpack in the shape of a butterfly. Her sandy hair, like corn silk, was tied back in a loose, messy ponytail. Josie opened her mouth to speak, to tell the little girl to stop going up the slide, or to tell Harris not to start down the slide, but the words lodged in her throat.

  Moving closer to the slide, her hands reached out to grab Harris before he slid straight into the butterfly girl. A woman suddenly appeared on the other side of the slide. “Lucy,” she barked firmly. “You know you’re not supposed to go up the slide that way. Get down before someone gets hurt.”

  Little Lucy kept climbing, but the woman’s hand shot out and gripped her arm, stopping her. “Look at me, Lucy,” she said. “What did I say?”

  Lucy froze in place and looked up at the woman. Instantly, Josie saw the strong resemblance; the same heart-shaped face, periwinkle blue eyes and narrow nose neatly flared at the nostrils. The woman’s hair was perhaps two shades darker than the little girl’s, but they had to be mother and daughter.

  Lucy bit her bottom lip, relaxed her grip on the slide and, in a jumble of thin, gangly limbs, began to slide slowly downward on her stomach. “Sorry, Mom,” she mumbled. Once she reached the bottom, her mother took one of her hands and dragged her out of the path of Harris, who slid down seconds later. Quickly, Josie scooped him up again, holding onto his wriggly body tightly.

  Lucy’s mother caught Josie’s eye and smiled. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Oh, it’s fine,” Josie said. “I’m just glad no one got hurt.”

  The woman laughed. “Who knew playgrounds could be so dangerous, right?”

  “Seriously,” Josie replied. The truth was that taking Harris to the playground took years off her life. There were far too many opportunities for him to stumble and hit his head on something; to fall off something and break a bone; to be inadvertently hurt by another child running too fast or climbing up the slide the wrong way.

  “How old is he?” the woman asked as Lucy tugged at her mother’s hand, trying to pull her away to another part of the playground.

  “Two,” Josie answered. “Almost three.”

  With a wistful smile, the woman said, “Oh I remember when mine was two. What a great age.”

  “Oh, he’s not—” Josie was about to explain that she wasn’t Harris’s mother, that she was only watching him for a friend, but Lucy whined, “Mom! I want to go on the carousel!”

  Harris stopped wiggling in Josie’s arms. “Me too!” he said. “JoJo, horses again!”

  Josie shifted him in her arms. “Again?” she said. “We already went on three times.”

  Just the thought of it made the acid in her stomach churn. She’d been feeling peaky on and off for a week now, and three rides on the spinning carousel had certainly not helped.

  “Mo-om,” Lucy said, now tugging her mother away from the slide and toward the opposite end of the playground where the shiny new carousel had been installed weeks earlier, thanks to the machinations of the mayor.

  An amusement park a few counties away had gone out of business, and Mayor Tara Charleston had seen an opportunity to “enhance Denton’s lovely public park” as she phrased it when she convinced the city council to spend an exorbitant amount of money to have the carousel deconstructed, transported to Denton, and rebuilt inside the city park. At least the city had saved money by having art stu dents from Denton University restore it. Now its bright carnival colors flashed in the afternoon sunlight as it spun, its horses rising and falling in concert with the jubilant music that played while it went round and round. Just looking at it from the playground area made Josie’s stomach turn.

  “JoJo, please,” Harris tried again, squirming in her arms.

  Before she could try to talk him out of it, a man’s voice said, “You’re Josie Quinn.”

  Lucy and her mother stopped and turned back, watching as the man walked up from behind Josie and extended a hand. Josie had seen him in the park when they arrived, walking around the perimeter of the playground, talking on his cell phone. He was lean and tan with salt-and-pepper colored hair. In a blue polo shirt, khaki shorts and a pair of loafers, he looked as though he should be on a golf course rather than a playground, but the late April weather was warm enough for his light-weight clothing.

  “I’m Colin Ross,” he told her, his hand still extended.

  Josie shifted Harris in her arms so she could shake the man’s hand. Lucy and her mother walked up closer. Lucy’s mother looked from Colin to Josie and back. “Colin,” she said. “You know this woman?”

  He turned to her and smiled. “Amy,” he said. “You don’t recognize her from the news?”

  Tension knotted Josie’s shoulder blades. As a detective for the Denton Police Department, Josie had solved some of the most shocking cases in the state, many of which had made national news, but she still wasn’t used to her celebrity. Or notoriety.

  Amy stared at Josie with uncertainty until, finally breaking the tension, Josie extended a hand. “He’s right. I’m Josie Quinn. I’m a detective with the police department.”

  Amy’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my God, you just solved the Drew Pratt case!”

  Josie nodded, noticing that Colin was beaming at her. “My team solved the case, yes.”

  Colin said, “She’s fantastic. Do you know who her father is?”

  Josie opened her mouth to say that her father was dead but before she could, Colin said, “Christian Payne.”

  A year ago, Josie had found out that she’d been kidnapped as an infant. Her real family believed she died in a fire. She had only been recently reunited with them. It was still hard to get used to having an entirely new family. “You know him?” Josie asked.

  Colin smiled. “We both work for Quarmark.”

  “Right,” Josie said. “Big pharma. Do you work in marketing as well?”

  “No, I’m on the team that develops the pricing structures for new drugs Quarmark rolls out onto the market.”

  “Fun stuff,” Amy remarked.

  “Daddy,” Lucy whined. “I want to go on the carousel.”

  “JoJo,” Harris said, pointing over Josie’s shoulder. “Swings!”

  Josie was relieved he had changed his mind. “Just a minute, buddy.”

  Amy placed a hand on her husband’s back. “Honey, Lucy wants to go on the carousel. Do you want to go on with her or should I?”

  Colin smiled down at his daughter. “Maybe all three of us could go on.”

  “Which horse will you go on, Daddy?” Lucy asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I have to have a good look at them before I choose.” He shot Josie another smile. “It was great to meet you.”

  “You too,” Josie said. As the Ross family drifted off toward the carousel, Josie set Harris down on the grass and he raced off to the swings. As she helped him into one of the empty swings and began pushing him lightly, she saw that Amy and Lucy Ross had gotten on the carousel. Colin stood just outside the fence, talking on his cell phone again. So much for a family carousel ride.

  “Higher!” Harris cried. “Please, JoJo?”

  Josie smiled down at his crown of golden blond hair and pushed a little more forcefully, even though sending him a fraction higher caused a small uptick in her anxiety. She didn’t know how his mother, Misty, brought him here all the time. It seemed so fraught with danger. To Josie, Harris still seemed so small and fragile. She couldn’t help but fear that he’d break a bone or crack his skull with one bad fall. In her mind she heard Misty, her own mother Shannon, and her grandmother, Lisette all laughing at her—which they frequently did when she fussed too much over Harris’s safety. They all said the same thing: “Kids are more resilient than they look.”

  As another wave of nausea rocked Josie’s stomach, she wondered how mothers handled the whole parenting thing. The more independent Harris became, the scarier everything seemed. She was watching his grip on the chains on either side of the swing when she first became aware of Amy Ross’s voice in the distance. She was calling out for her daughter.

  “Lucy? Lucy!”

  Josie looked over at the carousel and saw Amy still on the ride as people were slowly making their way off the platform and out of the metal fence that surrounded it.

  Her tone became louder and higher-pitched. “Lucy! Lucy!”

  Colin stopped pacing and pulled his cell phone slightly away from his ear, as though tuning in to the panic in his wife’s voice.

  “Lucy!”

  Amy raced round and round the platform, weaving in and out of the horses, more frantic with each passing second.

  Without realizing it, Josie had stopped Harris’s swing. “JoJo?” he asked, looking up at her.

  “It’s okay, buddy,” she mumbled, scooping him out of the seat and walking toward the carousel.

  People continued to spill out of the perimeter as Colin tried to walk in through the exit. The teenager who had been monitoring the ride stood by the entrance gate, gawking at Amy. The line of people behind him waiting to get on stared as well. As if sensing so many eyes on her, Amy stopped moving and looked at them. “Did anyone see my daughter? She was just here. She was on the blue horse. I was on the purple one. She got down before the ride stopped. Did anyone see her get off? Lucy?”

  No one answered. Colin, phone still in hand, was now on the platform, working his way through the horses and stopping to look inside two chariots with red velvet seats facing one another. “Where the hell did she go?” he asked.