by Mia Sheridan
“I’ll come with you.”
“Oh, you don’t have to—”
“Ma’am, with all due respect, it’s my job.”
Josie nodded. “I didn’t realize you guys would be staying at my house today as well. I hope you’re not too bored.” She gave him a small, nervous laugh. She felt awkward. Was she supposed to entertain him somehow?
“I hope I am bored,” he said, smiling. He had an endearing gap between his front teeth. “That’ll mean you’re safe and sound.”
“True enough.”
“And you just go about your business today. I’ll stay out of your hair. I’m here in a just in case capacity.”
“Okay then. Thank you, Detective.”
“Jimmy.”
“Jimmy.”
He sat beside her as she drove into town, the sun rising in the sky, the morning clear and already beginning to warm. She’d advertised her garage sale starting at noon but she’d realized she had forgotten to buy stickers to use as price tags, so she needed to make the trip quickly, and get back so she could get everything out and labeled.
Josie pulled into the twenty-four-hour grocery store parking lot. “I’m just going to run in real fast—” But the detective was already climbing out of the car. Apparently she had a shadow today. It was awkward, yes, but she couldn’t say it didn’t also bring relief. If he wasn’t there, she’d have been jumpy all day, unsettled. The visual of that rat forefront in her mind. As it was, Jimmy’s large presence brought comfort. Safety. And she appreciated it because it was important she focus on other things, namely earning a small amount of cash. She’d come a long way since the days when she could barely leave her apartment without jumping at her own shadow, but it’d also been a long time since she didn’t glance over her own shoulder repeatedly out of habit alone.
She located the package of round stickers she needed and took them to the self-checkout lane. As they were heading out of the store, Josie caught sight of the flyer she’d put up two weeks before advertising the sale. Her footsteps stalled and she frowned, walking over to the large bulletin board where community members posted things under the headings the grocery store management had put at the top of the board: For Sale, Help Wanted, Coupons, etc. Next to her flyer, was pinned the printout of an old newspaper article. Josie’s heart stalled and her mouth went dry. The headline read: Missing College Student Escapes Torture Chamber, and the subheading under that: Raped, starved and impregnated, Josie Stratton begs public to help find her missing son. The accompanying picture of her was jarring—expression vacant, eyes huge and haunted in her gaunt face, hair unkempt. It was a still photo from the news conference she’d given from her hospital bed, begging the public to come forward with any information they might have. She’d tried to clean herself up, thought she’d looked halfway decent, but looking at it now, she saw that in actuality, she’d looked like a raving lunatic. That day came back to her in all its wild desperation. A vise gripped Josie’s ribcage and squeezed. She let out a labored breath, pulling the printout down, including the flyer for the garage sale she’d planned, the flyer that included her address.
With both pieces of paper clutched in her fist, she walked quickly out of the store. Blood roared in her ears, but somewhere in the back of her mind, she registered the heavy footsteps of Jimmy following along behind her. She didn’t dare glance at his face, didn’t want to know if he’d read the article printout before she’d snatched it down. Hated that he might have seen the picture, but hated even more that half the world had once seen her that way.
She got in her car and so did Jimmy. To her great relief, he didn’t utter a word, just sat with his big hands resting on his thighs, staring straight ahead as she started her car and pulled out of the lot. She drove the few blocks to the town library, and though it wasn’t open yet, she got out of her car and walked to the window where various flyers were hung on the inside of the glass, including hers. Just as at the grocery store, the same article printout had been placed right next to the flyer, overlapping it slightly so that it would be impossible to look at one without also looking at the other.
Josie’s heart sank like a piece of lead.
Why?
In a daze, she turned, walking back to her car. Jimmy followed, head hung slightly, his hands in his pockets.
She drove to the end of the main street where people regularly hung flyers on a telephone pole and parked next to it. She got out of her car, swallowing down a small sob as she tore the flyer she’d hung along with the same article.
She got in her car again and pulled from the curb, her tires spinning and then squealing as she jammed on the accelerator too hard. They drove in silence for a few minutes before Jimmy asked quietly, “Any idea who would do that?”
Josie sucked in a shaky, labored breath. She felt so damn breakable. Exposed. Skin peeled back, soul showing. She’d had so much hope that this move was going to be good for her, just what she needed. A place to settle. A purpose. She’d felt almost like a caterpillar finally shedding its cocoon, ready to spread her wings and fly. Here, even though it was less than an hour away from the city where the crime against her had occurred, she didn’t think people knew her name, or if they did, it only registered as something that might sound familiar, something they couldn’t exactly place. After a while, she’d dared to hope she’d just be Josie, the woman who ran the bed and breakfast outside town. She’d escaped Marshall Landish almost a decade before. She could finally be anonymous. Or so she’d thought.
This morning, that dream had crashed and burned.
“Josie?” Jimmy prompted. Her mind snapped back to the detective sitting in the seat next to her. Any idea who would do that?
She shook her head, relaxing her hands on the wheel. “My cousin maybe. He’s the only one I can think of who has a reason to make me hate my life here.” Make me want to run away far and fast.
The detective didn’t say anything, but she noted that his body seemed more stiff than it’d been on the ride into town.
She pulled into her driveway and they both got out of the car. She smelled roses, and the fresh scent of the grass she’d mowed two days before. The trees swayed and the old sign at the end of the driveway for the B&B creaked quietly as it moved in the breeze. Josie took momentary strength from it all. She’d faced worse than a vindictive cousin and some old dredged-up news articles meant to shame her. She stomped toward the house. She could cry later, but damn it all, right now she had a garage sale to set up.
**********
By all measures, Josie’s garage sale was a complete failure.
Jimmy had helped her cart the things from the garage that she’d been bringing up from the basement, down from the attic, and from within the house over the past month. She’d set up tables for the smaller items and placed stickers with prices on everything. When she’d stood back, she was impressed with how it looked. Her aunt had been a pack rat, and though Josie didn’t need half of what her aunt had accumulated, many of the items she was selling were nice, and either practically new, or vintage enough to appeal to that crowd. She had a good selection and she hoped most of it would go quickly.
The day was full of sunshine but not too hot, a pleasant breeze moving the air around and with it bringing that scent of roses and cut grass. She’d had hope.
Maybe no one had seen those old articles anyway. Maybe Archie—if it had been him—had put them up long after people had seen her flyer and planned to come to the garage sale. Or maybe if people had seen the articles, they had seen the posting of them as something cruel and inappropriate. They’d come out in droves to attend her sale in a show of support.
Yes, she’d had hope. But then no one had shown up at noon, or even at twelve thirty. One rolled around and Josie’s heart sunk further. A little later, a few people showed up, and her mood had lifted slightly, but then they’d picked at a few things as they watched her from above their sunglasses, whispering to each other covertly, clearly there to gawk at her. They left withou
t buying anything.
Jimmy sat on her porch, a pair of dark sunglasses on as he scrolled his phone. His head stayed down, but she had the notion he was watching her through his tinted shades. It only made her feel worse, embarrassed, and twitchy.
At two, she decided she’d had enough humiliation and it was time to pack it up. She’d take a load to the Salvation Army that week and consider it a win that she’d helped people worse off than her. Because, yes, they did exist, and she wasn’t so wrapped up in her own tragedy that she couldn’t acknowledge that.
She heard a car and the crunch of gravel and when a petite woman with dark red hair exited her minivan with a smile, Josie called out to her, “Sorry, I was just packing up.”
“Already?” She opened the back door of the van, lifting a toddler out and taking his small hand in hers as they approached. The woman smiled, her blue eyes dancing. “I’m Rain, short for Rainbow.” She held up her hand. “I know, you don’t need to ask. My parents were hippies long after hippies were a thing and I paid the price. My middle name is Love.” She rolled her eyes and despite her miserable morning, Josie smiled at the peppy woman with the warm smile. Rainbow. The name fit her, with her bright personality, rich mahogany hair, and vivid blue eyes. “I live down the road. I just bought the old Halloran place?”
Josie shook her head. “I’m sorry, I haven’t been here long. I’m not familiar with all the surrounding neighbors.” She knew the couple next to her and the family who lived across the way from visiting her aunt over the years. But beyond that, she hadn’t met anyone. And now she wasn’t sure she’d muster up the courage to take a walk beyond her own property and introduce herself as she’d planned to do at some point. When she’d gotten the place cleaned up.
“I’m not either. Yet. I saw your flyer for the garage sale earlier this week and looked forward to meeting you and picking up a few things for our house.” She reached down and moved a lock of flaxen hair off her toddler’s forehead. The little boy was clinging to her leg and looking up at Josie shyly. He had his mother’s bright blue eyes. Josie’s heart gave a small empty thud and then constricted tightly with longing. Her own boy would be eight now. She’d missed this stage, and there was no way to ever get it back. Grief, stronger than she’d felt in a long while, gripped her and made her knees feel weak. “I’m recently divorced, so Milo and I here are sort of starting fresh, trying to make new memories.” She put her palm over her toddler’s ear not pressed against her thigh. “My ex is a d-bag,” she whispered.
“Oh, I’m . . . sorry about that,” Josie said.
But Rain smiled and shook her head. “Don’t be. We’re better off. But um”—she looked over Josie’s shoulder at the larger things she hadn’t yet moved into the garage—“I see you have a kitchen table and chairs, which is at the top of my priority list.”
“They’re yours if you want them,” Josie said, watching as Rain walked over to the pieces, looked at the stickers, and gave Josie a smile.
“Right in my price range,” she said. “It’s my lucky day.”
Jimmy approached them. “Need help lifting those into the van?” he asked, directing his question to Josie.
“That’d be great. Thanks,” she said.
Josie and Jimmy carried the pieces to the back of Rain’s van and loaded them inside as she stood back with Milo. She ended up purchasing several pots and pans, a set of glasses, and a standing lamp as well, and once she was all packed up, she put her little boy in his car seat and climbed up into the driver’s seat, rolling the window down. She reached over and wrote something on a scrap of paper from her console and handed it to Josie with a smile. “Like I said, we’re right up the road. My address and phone number are on there, if you need anything or feel like visiting.”
“That’s very nice of you,” Josie said. “Likewise on the visit.” She waved as the woman backed out and turned on the road, driving away. A raindrop hit Josie’s cheek and she walked toward the rest of the items that were still out, needing to get them back inside before the rain really started coming down.
And she supposed she’d need to set up her pots and pans under the inevitable leaks.
Despite the way the morning had started, she was grateful that she was ending the whole debacle on a positive note. All right, so the garage sale hadn’t failed by all measures, just most. The woman named Rainbow had brightened her day a smidge, and she’d met someone new who, for a few minutes, had made her feel normal, unbroken.
She’d take it.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The elevator dinged and Zach stepped off, walking toward the door with the placard that read, Archibald Phillips, Financial Services. The luxurious office he stepped into was empty except for a receptionist sitting behind a wide stone reception desk. Soft music played through overhead speakers and a massive fish tank took up a wall on the opposite side of the room, the sound of the bubbling water adding to the peaceful ambiance. “Hello, sir, may I help you?”
“I’m here to see Mr. Phillips.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
Zach unclipped his badge and flashed it at the young woman with a black pixie cut, and eye makeup that swooped upward at the corners so she appeared catlike. “Detective Copeland. And no, I don’t have an appointment. But I’m hoping he can make time for me. It’s important.”
The woman, who seemed flustered, stood quickly. “Of course. I’ll just let him know you’re here.”
Zach gave her a tight smile and moved away from the desk as the woman’s heels sounded in the hallway beyond. He heard murmured voices and took the moment to look at the wall hangings. A diploma from UC, a few licenses related to financial planning. Zach turned when the heels sounded in the hallway again, this time accompanied by a second set of footsteps.
“Detective Copeland?” Archibald Phillips was a brawny man with broad shoulders and a high forehead. His hair was slicked back and when he offered Zach a smile, his teeth were large and obviously capped. Zach disliked him on sight. He had shyster written all over him. Plus, he’d harassed Josie. “A detective with the CPD? This is a surprise. What can I help you with?”
“Is there somewhere we can talk?”
Archibald’s eyes narrowed a fraction. He glanced at his receptionist. “Of course. Follow me.”
Zach followed the man down the hallway and into a large office near the end. It’d been raining off and on all afternoon and raindrops still stuck to the large window that offered a view of downtown Cincinnati. Archibald Phillips indicated a chair across from his desk and then sat down in the swivel chair behind it, rocking slightly, appearing impatient. Or maybe it was nerves.
Zach pulled back the chair next to the one Archibald Philipps had indicated, taking his time sitting, removing a card, and setting it down on the desk in front of him. “Mr. Phillips, can I ask where you were last night? About ten p.m.?”
Archibald’s low brows got even lower. He really was quite the Cro-Magnon-looking dude. “Why do you need to know?”
“It’s in relation to a crime.”
“A crime? What sort of crime?”
“Burglary.”
“Burglary? I have no idea—”
“Mr. Phillips, if you could answer my question about your whereabouts last night, we might be able to clear this whole thing up.”
Archibald Phillips looked annoyed, slightly hostile, as he sat back in his chair. “I was home alone. Working.”
“I see. Would you have anything that might corroborate that? An email with a timestamp perhaps? A saved file?”
The man’s eyes turned to slits. “No. I was working on some correspondence in a Word document. I didn’t finish until well after midnight, which is when I last saved the file. Now, Detective, if you’ll forgive me, I’m a busy man and I need to get back to work, so unless you have something—"
“I hear you’re interested in purchasing the property your mother left to your cousin.”
At that, Archibald Philipps looked taken back. He paused,
then leaned forward, his elbows on his desk. “Who told you that? Josie?”
Zach didn’t answer.
Archibald let out a slow breath. “That woman has issues, Detective. It’s true that I made an offer on the property, but only because I feel sorry for her.” He leaned forward more. “Do you know who my cousin is?” He lowered his voice as though what he was about to say was almost unspeakable. “She’s the woman who was held prisoner by that sicko nine years ago. The one who chained her up and raped her for a year. She had his baby. How disgusting is that?”
Zach’s vision turned red, a slow simmering anger boiling through his blood. He detested Archibald Phillips. He’d known guys like him all his life. He was mean and self-centered and he used his size to intimidate, to bully. But the minute you came for him with any kind of fight, he’d become the victim. Zach would have disliked him in any scenario, but the fact that he was adding to Josie’s stress at the very least, and the idea that he might have broken into her home and placed a bloody, dead rat on her kitchen table, made him feel violent. “I’m aware of the crime perpetrated against Josie Stratton,” he said slowly, his words controlled.
Archibald nodded, sitting back. “Then you understand why she has the mental problems she does. And a woman alone trying to fix up that ramshackle old place?” He made a disbelieving hissing sound. “She doesn’t stand a chance. She’ll be bankrupt and out on her ass in no time. I was simply trying to do her a favor.”
Zach forced his lips upward. “How benevolent of you.”
Archibald narrowed his eyes, assessing Zach, realizing Zach wasn’t buying what he was selling.
“What’d you offer her?”
“A fair price.”
“Really? Half a million dollars? Because that’s what it’s worth. Acreage like that in the area she’s in. I looked it up. But I think you already knew what it was worth, didn’t you, Cousin Archie? And my guess is that you lowballed the hell out of her. Tell me, did it make you angry when she refused?”