Save Her Soul (Detective Josie Quinn #9)(11)

“JoJo!” Little Harris Quinn came barreling toward her from the kitchen, his arms open.

The dogs made way as he leapt into her arms. She laughed and stood up, twirling him around and planting a kiss on his blond scalp. “What’s going on?”

“Your hair is all messed up,” he observed.

“I’m in here!” Misty called from the kitchen.

Harris gave Josie a serious look. “Mommy is stress-baking.”

Josie laughed as she carried him into the kitchen. The dogs followed. “Stress-baking?”

Misty turned away from the open oven and smiled at Josie, then gave a little eye-roll. “His grandmother said it and now he won’t stop telling everyone that’s what I’m doing.”

Josie looked around the kitchen. Two pies cooled on the counter. On the kitchen table were two loaves of bread swaddled in dish towels. From the oven, Misty pulled a tray of cookies. She deposited it onto the only open space on the kitchen counter and pulled off her oven mitts.

Josie raised a brow. “Well, it is just the four of us here. I’m not sure we’ll finish all this.”

Misty shook her head. “Don’t be silly. This is for the first responders. I’m going to make baskets and drop them off at the command post.”

Both dogs sniffed the kitchen floor from one end of the room to the other, looking for any scraps Misty might have dropped. But Misty was one of the cleanest, neatest people Josie had ever known. It wasn’t the first time she and Harris had stayed with Josie. They’d formed an unusual friendship over the years. After Josie and Ray separated, Ray had begun frequenting the local strip club with his buddies where Misty was a dancer. They started dating. Josie had despised her at first, letting petty jealousy get the best of her and projecting blame for the disintegration of her marriage onto Misty. Over time, she realized that Misty had had nothing at all to do with the end of their marriage. She’d grown to accept that Ray had fallen in love with Misty before his death. After he died, Misty gave birth to Ray’s son. Josie had thought it would be difficult to even lay eyes on Ray’s child. When she and Ray were married, they had made a conscious decision not to have children of their own. Their childhoods had been so traumatic that they were terrified of bringing a child into the world together. They couldn’t escape the fear that they might make terrible parents. But the moment she saw Harris and held him in her arms, she felt a surge of love and protectiveness she had never experienced before. She had known in that moment that she would take a bullet for this child, and she’d vowed to do whatever she could to help Misty raise and care for him. Misty had moved on from dancing to working as an intake counselor at the local women’s center. She worked long hours and had no family nearby. Along with Ray’s mother, Josie was one of Harris’s primary babysitters.

“Why is your hair all yucky?” Harris asked, pulling at one of her stringy locks. “You didn’t brush it today?”

Josie set him on the floor. “I got soaked in the rain,” she told him. “I didn’t have a chance to comb it out yet.”

Harris, apparently accepting her answer, asked his mother if he could play a game on her tablet. Misty said, “For a half hour but that’s it. Go ahead; I left it in the living room.” Once he was out of the room, Misty said, “I saw you on the news. That scared the hell out of me. I thought you were going to stop doing crazy dangerous stuff.”

Josie laughed. “I never said that.”

Misty’s face turned serious. “Was it a body?”

Josie nodded.

“I’m sorry,” Misty said. “That’s terrible.”

“Misty,” Josie said. “When Ray was alive—”

She saw Misty’s shoulders tense. Even after all these years, the topic of Ray was difficult for Misty. Josie understood why. For Josie, Ray had been her best friend, high school sweetheart, and then her husband. He had been her lifeline. Misty hadn’t known him nearly as long as Josie, but she’d fallen hard for him. Before his death, Ray had done some morally questionable things, and Josie knew that Misty struggled just as much as she did reconciling the love she had felt for him with the man he’d turned out to be. Any discussion of him always stirred up those conflicting feelings.

Misty leaned her narrow hip against the counter and folded her arms over her chest. “It’s okay,” she said. “Ask me.”

Josie pushed a mess of tangled hair behind one of her ears. “When Ray was alive, did he ever talk about high school?”

“No, not really. You two were together in high school, so it wasn’t something we talked about much. He really couldn’t talk about it without your name coming up. It was kind of awkward at the time.”

Josie gave a pained smile. Misty was right. Josie couldn’t talk about high school without talking about Ray either. So why didn’t she remember what happened to his letter jacket? “Did he ever talk about baseball?”

Misty nodded. “Oh, well, yeah. He was the starting pitcher for the state championship game in his junior year. I had to hear that story about a million times, especially after he’d had a few drinks. So almost nightly.”

Josie laughed drily. “Right. What kinds of things did he say about that time?”

Misty narrowed her eyes. “Josie, I know enough about your job by now to know that whatever it is you’re working on—whether it’s that body you found today or something else—you can’t tell me details. At least not now.” She lowered her voice and did an impression of every police officer Josie had ever seen on the news. “We can’t comment on an ongoing investigation.” Then she smiled. “So just ask me what you need to ask me.”