Where the Blame Lies

by Mia Sheridan

  “That’d be great.”

  Josie stood, picked up the laundry basket, and scurried inside. At the window that looked out to the side of the house, she took a moment to breathe deeply, the apron of the porcelain farmhouse sink cool beneath her palms, grounding her. A dead girl. Chained. Raped. Starved. Branded. She closed her eyes. This was the last thing she’d expected today. The last thing she’d expected . . . ever.

  **********

  Zach looked up as Josie emerged from the house, a tray with a pitcher and two glasses held in her hands. She set it down on the round wicker table and handed him a cold glass, beaded with sweat. Their fingers brushed and her eyes snapped to his and then away. He took a long sip, the liquid cold and sweet. “This is great. Thank you.”

  She nodded, taking her seat again as she picked up her own glass. He noticed pale pink marks on her wrist and knew immediately what they were: the faded scars from the shackles she’d once worn. God. He watched her as she took a sip, a strange feeling overtaking him. He felt like he knew this woman, and yet he didn’t. There was a surreal feeling about sitting and talking to her, because when he’d seen her through hospital windows briefly and so long ago, and in crime scene photographs, he’d only seen an utterly distraught version of herself. He couldn’t seem to stop watching her, marveling at her. Josie Stratton had been barely twenty years old when she’d escaped that warehouse, and she was twenty-eight now. Beautiful. Poised. Seemingly well adjusted. That was apparent, despite how shaken she was by the information he’d just given her. And despite the scars she still wore. What had he expected? A broken shadow of a person? Maybe he had. Maybe that’s why the real woman, up close and three-dimensional, was throwing him for such a loop. Something about her pulled at him. Strongly. It was almost a physical sensation.

  As she glanced at him over the rim of her glass and their eyes met, realization hit him: he’d thought the memory of her eyes had come to him now and again over the years. But he’d been wrong. Josie Stratton’s eyes had never left him at all. They’d lingered inside him all these years, holding him captive.

  That damn hero complex his sister accused him of having. Maybe Betsy wasn’t so far off. And maybe that’s what Josie Stratton brought out in him—made surge to the forefront—a need to protect. Exact justice. Somehow right an appalling wrong.

  “Where did you live before you moved to Oxford? Before your aunt’s death?”

  Josie took another drink. She gave him a look that he read as her wondering what these questions had to do with a copycat murderer. He wasn’t sure they did, but it couldn’t hurt to know who she associated with, what her life was like, if someone who she’d come across at some point in time had decided to recreate the crime she’d been a victim of. But he also couldn’t deny that he wanted to know about this woman he was so mesmerized by. “I rented an apartment in Mount Adams. Worked from there too.” She looked off behind him as though seeing into the past. “One of my case workers got me a job transcribing for a lawyer she knew. It was work I could do from home.” She looked down, fiddling with her hands. “After the crime, I didn’t go out a lot. I was . . . doing what I could to look into my son’s disappearance.” She cleared her throat. “I got some referrals, enough work to pay my rent, eat . . .”

  “So you never finished school?”

  “No. I never went back. Anyway,” she said after a moment, and there was more life in her voice. She’d gathered herself, moved away from those memories of the dark days following her escape, the trauma she must have been suffering. “I did that for seven years. My aunt fell ill five years ago, and she couldn’t visit me anymore. It motivated me to buy a car.” She pointed to the driveway where a white beat-up compact car that looked as if it was on its last leg—or wheel as the case may be—was parked in front of his city-issued sedan. “And I began driving to Oxford to visit her in the facility she’d been put into.” Her lips curved upward and the sweetness of her smile made Zach’s lungs feel overly full. “I moved into this house last year. She’d closed the bed and breakfast years before. I think her illness had begun long before she let anyone know, and it was just too much for her. When she first got sick, we talked about how when she got better, we’d open the bed and breakfast again, run it together.” Her smile faltered. “She never recovered, but she left it to me, and now I’m doing what I can to get it up and running. I’ll need to if I’m going to remain living here.”

  Zach read between the lines. The old woman had left the property to Josie, but that was all she had to give. Josie had barely made ends meet for the past eight years, so it was doubtful she had much of anything in savings. Now she was trying to fix up this old farmhouse on her own with few resources, so she could run a business from it and afford to remain there. His admiration for her increased. “Any other family in the area?”

  “My mom lives in Cincinnati. We’re not close. My dad”—her eyes lowered—“left when I was a kid. I haven’t had any contact with him since. I have a cousin who lives nearby but that’s the extent of family in the area now.” Her mouth did a strange little thing at the mention of her cousin, and Zach wondered what that meant.

  “Detective Murphy mentioned that you used to call him every year to check in, but that you hadn’t this year. That because of moving out here?”

  She stared at him for a moment. “How is Detective Murphy?” she asked.

  “He’s good. Same old Murphy. Needs to cut back on his wife’s cooking.” He smiled and Josie’s eyes went to his mouth.

  She looked away, but then looked back, giving him a small, nervous smile. “He’s a good man. He . . . cared.”

  “Very much,” Zach agreed.

  Josie looked at her hands in her lap for a moment. “I suppose the reason I didn’t check in this year had some to do with moving out here.” She paused. “But it was also just . . . time. At first, I felt almost . . . obligated, you know? It felt like a small sort of giving up, and I was just never ready before. And I haven’t . . . given up. But that call, it only served to hurt me really. Maybe I almost needed that for a while, but I don’t anymore.” She smiled at him again, a sad one, and his heart squeezed.

  She was honest, even when it was painful, which meant she was strong. Possibly stronger than she realized. That pull again. Christ.

  Creases appeared between her wide brown eyes. “Detective . . . do you think this copycat has any interest in me? Do I have any reason for concern?”

  “I have no concrete reason to think so. But he is mimicking your case, at least in a few ways. It’s part of the reason I came to speak to you, to let you know what’s going on.” He hated to put fear into this woman who’d already dealt with so much and seemed to be in a good place emotionally, but he also wouldn’t risk her safety. “I have a few friends who work for the Oxford police, and they’re going to have a uniform car drive by your home every hour, just to be on the safe side, and so you have no cause for worry. You’ll probably see them. They’ll drive slowly and canvas the area. They won’t intrude. They’ll just check out the house and surrounding areas and make sure there’s no suspicious activity, during the day or at night.”

  “For how long?”

  “Until we determine there’s no longer a need.” Until we solve this case and catch the motherfucker who not only killed a woman but is causing you to emotionally experience your own crime again. Bastard.

  Zach drank the last of his tea, setting his glass down on the tray a little harder than he’d meant to and removing a business card from his pocket. Josie took it from his outstretched hand. “If you think of something that might help with this new case, or if you need anything at all, don’t hesitate to call me on my personal cell phone.” He tipped his chin toward the card in her hand.

  She nodded, that crease still present between her brows. He had the ridiculous desire to reach up with his thumb and smooth it out. “Thank you for your time and the information.” He looked around at the porch, swept clean, not a cobweb to be seen, but the railing saggin
g slightly and in need of repair, the furniture old and cracking, pieces of the wicker broken away. “And good luck with getting this place up and running.”

  She stood and gave him one last smile. “Thank you, Detective,” she murmured, glancing at his card.

  He gave her a nod, their eyes lingering for a heartbeat, before he turned and jogged down her steps, pulling out of her driveway, and moving away from her farmhouse. When he glanced in his rearview mirror, she was still standing on the porch, watching him as he left.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Before

  Marshall knelt beside her, cleaning up the wrappers from the fast food he’d brought. He seemed quieter than usual that night. Different. He’d fed her, given her water, cleaned her wound, changed out her waste bucket—which was a particular indignity on top of all the other indignities she suffered—and now he looked to be packing up to leave. Her heart beat hollowly in her chest.

  “What are they saying about me?” she asked. Her voice sounded rusty from lack of use. The only time she spoke was when Marshall came to feed her and do . . . other things. He seemed to be staying for shorter and shorter times. She’d wondered often how her friends and family were reacting to her disappearance, what the police were doing to find her, but hadn’t asked Marshall about it. Maybe some part of her was afraid to know.

  She was surprised when he leaned back against the wall next to her, his masked head hitting the cement behind them. “That r-roommate of yours is raising holy h-hell. She calls the police every day. She has a command central going on from your apartment. Other students roaming in and out.” He made a strange chuffing sound. “Printing off f-flyers, making calls until all hours of the m-morning.” He paused. “I volunteer there.” He turned his head as if gauging her reaction to that bit of news, and then turned away. “Your aunt Mavis is there all the time t-too.”

  Mavis. Her aunt. Her father’s sister who lived in Oxford. Josie closed her eyes, feeling tears burning behind her lids. She lived in a picturesque old farmhouse in the country. It was a shining beacon of light in her mind. She pictured standing in the field that overlooked the house, where her aunt had brought her to pick wildflowers, and the longing to be there, wide-open sky stretched out around her, hit her so hard it was like a punch to her gut. Josie had loved it there as a kid when her dad took her out. But once her dad left for good, her mom didn’t take her anymore. She said Mavis was weird and kooky, and a bad influence. Which was laughable coming from her mother. The woman who was biologically a mother anyway, though Josie thought of her with no fondness. No, she’d been her first abuser. The person she should have felt safest with . . . but hadn’t.

  “And my mother?” Josie whispered, turning her eyes away. She didn’t care. She told herself she didn’t care.

  When she looked back at Marshall though, his eyes were narrowed as he studied her. He shook his head. “Your mother hasn’t come by.”

  “So you . . . spend a lot of time there? Volunteering?” she asked. She somehow knew he did, thought he probably got off on it. Walking from his apartment to the second floor where she and Reagan lived, acting all concerned, making calls maybe, his stutter growing worse as he spoke to strangers, passing out flyers . . . Leaving to feed her, rape her, returning with her still on his skin to comfort the people who actually cared for her. A shudder went through her.

  “As much as I c-can. I have to w-work too, you know.”

  “Where do you work?”

  He barked out a laugh. “Oh right, you c-care about me now, d-do you?”

  She ignored his sarcasm and he let out a sigh. “I’m the n-night manager at a store.”

  “What do they think happened to me?” she whispered.

  “That some s-stranger nabbed you.” He made a small sound that might have been a humorless laugh. “It’s n-never the stranger, though, is it? It’s always s-someone you know, s-someone you should trust that h-hurts you the worst. Isn’t that t-true, Josie?”

  There was something strange in his voice that made a chill go down her spine. Was he talking about her? How her rejection had hurt him? It was all she could think of. The only reason that could explain this. “That’s what the statistics say,” she said softly. “It’s usually someone the victim knows.”

  He laughed, a real one, though she heard meanness in it. “Is that what you are? A v-victim?” He reached over and used his fist to pound on the wound on her thigh. She cried out in pain, drawing her leg up.

  “Both,” she said on a strangled breath. “I’m both. Aren’t we all?” Tears streaked down her cheeks, though she tried to hold them back. “Sometimes the victim, sometimes the perpetrator? None of us are one or the other. We’re all both to different degrees.”

  She bent her head and used her knee to wipe her nose, her tears drying. She’d been thinking about that a lot lately, considering her life, her choices, the reasons behind them. Thinking about her past and how it affected her present. Maybe any self-reflection was pointless considering she’d most likely die in that warehouse room, but what else did she have to do? She was constantly terrified, alone, all her raw emotions right at the surface. She wasn’t sure she could stop her mind from spinning if she tried. She’d had no choice but to look at her feelings, and all the time in the world to examine each and every one.

  “T-tell me, Josie, tell me about the b-bad things you’ve done,” he said after a minute.

  She turned her head, swallowed, unsure what he wanted to hear. He’d told her he knew everything about her . . . He didn’t look back at her, his masked face pointed forward, staring at the wall in front of them.

  She let out a breath, her shoulders drooping as she looked away. “I had an affair with a married man.”

  “I already knew that. You’re a whore. It’s w-what whores do.”

  Was she a whore? Obviously not using the classic definition, but that’s not what Marshall meant anyway. He meant that she was promiscuous. She flaunted herself. She made men want her, and then she rejected them, or used them for her own selfish purposes. She knew that’s what he thought of her, and those thoughts were exacerbated by whatever madness ruled his mind. Because he had to be mentally ill. No sane human chained another person to a cement wall and raped them repeatedly. No one sane carved words into another person’s flesh. No one sane killed another person or left them to die, and somehow Josie knew that’s where this was all heading for her. “I’m not a whore,” she said calmly. “I loved him.” I thought I still did, only I haven’t thought of him much since I’ve been down here, and that’s probably very telling.

  Marshall laughed. “You loved him? He wasn’t yours to love. Other people must have loved him too. They probably waited for him to come home, but he didn’t. Because he was busy fucking you.” He spoke quickly, fluidly, anger lacing his tone and making his voice deeper.

  “I know,” she said, and her voice was small. But not as small as she felt. “I know, because I’ve been the one waiting too. My father cheated on my mother repeatedly. They fought, he’d leave, and then she’d take out her rage and helplessness on me. I know about that part too.” She wondered why she was telling him this, and why he was listening. Would it make any difference if he knew something about her? The times she’d hurt like maybe he had hurt? Would it make her human in his eyes? Make him decide to spare her life? She didn’t know, and she didn’t dare hope, but even so, the things she was saying needed to be said. Not for him as much as for her. She needed to voice these truths, express her contrition, because if she was going to die, she wanted to do it with a partially cleansed soul. It was the only thing she had left for which she was in control.

  “So you did it to someone else to g-get back at your father? Your mother?” He sounded genuinely interested.

  “No,” she said, turning her head toward him. “No.” She stared forward again, considering. She’d met Vaughn Merrick—Professor Vaughn Merrick—in her English class. She’d fallen for his striking looks and his boyish smile, the way he held his cla
ss spellbound with his passion as he quoted Shakespeare and Hemingway, Austen and Dickens. She’d been leaving in the rain after class one day when he’d offered her a ride. There was an old-school Police song with lyrics about that, wasn’t there? God, she was such a cliché. He’d driven her home, turned his usual flirtation up a notch, and she’d invited him in. He’d made love to her all afternoon as the rain pounded outside her windows. Later, they’d lain in bed together, their legs entwined as he’d quoted poetry to her. It was the most romantic and sensual thing she’d ever experienced. A month later, she found out he was married as she stood frozen in an art gallery watching him with his wife, hands clasped, the wedding ring he didn’t wear to class glinting on his finger. There were two pre-teen girls next to them, giggling softly at whatever he’d bent to whisper in their ears, gazing at him adoringly. The perfect family.

  All those old feelings of intense rejection had slammed into Josie. She was an outsider. Again. It felt horribly, heartbreakingly . . . familiar. An insidious association between pain and love that she didn’t know how to untwist.

  Josie had confronted him later. He and his wife were on the rocks, he’d said, but didn’t they all? When she’d pointed out that it didn’t look that way at the gallery, he said it was where she worked, and they had to pretend for her co-workers. His wife wasn’t ready or willing to deal with the gossip that surrounded a separation. And they hadn’t yet told their daughters. He’d said that the only time he felt like he was truly himself was when he was with Josie. She had given him hope that true love—the kind the poets wrote about—was possible. If his story had been a novel, the reviews would say it had plot holes ten feet deep, but she’d chosen not to explore them, not to listen to her gut. She’d chosen to suspend disbelief and learned the hard way that suspended disbelief has no place in real life.