by Mia Sheridan
“Also,” Josie went on, “if it was the same guy, he’d not only have had to impersonate Marshall Landish like some professional actor worthy of an Oscar, but it would have meant he staged Marshall’s suicide, planted evidence that would tie him definitively to the crime, lay low for eight years, and then resurfaced to take up abducting girls and starving them to death.” She was talking fast, obviously emotional, and Zach reached over, put his hand on her knee to offer comfort.
“Hey,” he said, “it’s our job to explore every avenue, no matter how implausible.”
“I know.” She nodded, took a deep breath. “I know, and I want to be part of it. I want to help if I can. If there’s something—other than just the copycat aspect—that ties this suspect to Marshall Landish, I want to help you find it. Maybe he knew him . . . maybe he”—she bit at her lip—“is avenging his death somehow.” She paused. “I don’t know. But as far as them being one and the same?” She shook her head. “No, Zach. It was him. It was Marshall Landish. I don’t have the smallest speck of doubt.”
But the uncertain expression on her face as she stared out the car window, belied her words.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Before
Caleb’s wail filled the room, his limbs flailing angrily as he pulled away from Josie’s breast. Josie bounced him in her arm, trying desperately to get him to latch on again. He rooted, latching on once more, content for a moment before he realized no milk was coming. Josie let out a miserable sob. Her milk was drying up, before it had even fully come in. Pain radiated through her abdomen, gripping her insides and twisting, traveling all the way up to her ribs.
She groaned, deep in her throat, drawing her knees up, still bouncing Caleb in her one free arm, in the only way she could. She wasn’t able to move from the mattress, couldn’t walk the floor with her baby as other mothers did, could offer him no solace other than from her own body, and now it was too sick to nourish him.
It was so cold, so, so cold, and she could barely keep herself warm, let alone her tiny baby boy. One quilt. I’m still in my tank and shorts, rank with months of wear. Filthy with blood. And I’m so cold.
Caleb found her nipple again and began to nurse, being soothed for the moment by the sucking motion alone. Josie drifted, her head fuzzy, pain pulsing in waves, made more intense with each suck from her baby’s mouth. Despite the frigid room, a bead of sweat rolled down the side of her face. Thirst overwhelmed her and she reached her tongue out to draw in the moisture her body was losing.
As Caleb’s eyes drifted shut, exhausted for the moment from his bout of crying, Josie’s head lolled on her neck. Her gaze snagged on the box of rat poison in the corner. She wondered dully if she could use her quilt to throw toward it, drag it back. She wondered if a death by rat poison would be better or worse than death by starvation. She’d come close to starving, but Marshall had always brought food at the last minute. Why? Why did he keep throwing food at her? Was he conflicted about letting her die? Or was he simply toying with her to increase her suffering?
Josie slept, rats larger than dogs lunging at her and her newborn with their sharp teeth and beady eyes filling her fevered dreams, their mouths opening to scream that she was going to d-die, d-die, d-die. She woke with a wail on her lips, Caleb fast asleep in her arm, her breast still bared. Marshall stood next to her bed, staring down at them. His body split, wavered, two of him appearing where once there was one. For a moment she doubted he was real.
“You’re sick,” he said, his voice dull.
She thought she nodded, but she couldn’t be sure. Her head throbbed, her tongue felt overly large in her mouth.
“Yes,” she said. She swallowed. Her voice sounded so scratchy, dry.
He knelt next to her, bringing a water bottle to her lips. She made a sound of desperation, of gratitude, her gaze holding with his as he tipped the bottle back and poured the sweet water into her parched mouth. When he took the empty bottle away, she pulled herself up, laying the baby on the mattress and quickly grabbing Marshall. His gaze shot to her hand holding his forearm. “Take him,” she said. “Leave me here but take him. You assigned blame to me and I deserve it. I deserve it all. But him”—she tipped her head toward her child, his face angelic in sleep—“he’s blameless.” A small mewling sound came up her throat as a pain shot through her abdomen. She had a severe infection. She was dying. Her milk had dried up, either from lack of hydration, or the illness her body was fighting. “He’s innocent,” she rasped. “He doesn’t deserve to die. Maybe I do, but not him. Not your son. This living piece of you. Take him to a hospital, or a church. Somewhere. Just leave him there. Please, please, please.” Her words dissolved into gasping sobs.
For two heartbeats, three, his eyes bore into hers, his chest rising and falling rapidly. Her breath stalled, heat rushing through her fever-ravaged body. The room swayed, as her heart thundered in her ears.
In one quick movement, Marshall scooped their son from beside her, the portion of quilt that had been wrapped around him falling away. No! No! Despite her plea of a moment before, Josie cried out, reaching for him, scrabbling to bring herself to a sitting position so she could snatch him back. Nonono. What had she done? “Don’t hurt him,” she begged. “He’s innocent. He’s just a baby. Please, please.”
Marshall stood, turned, the baby cradled in his arms. Caleb was naked, his pearlescent skin shining in the small amount of light streaming through the window. Nonono! Her beloved baby lay cold and helpless in the arms of a masked monster. Josie’s heart lurched with panic. Snatched from his warm cocoon, from his mother’s breast, Caleb began shrieking. “Don’t hurt him!” she screamed again, her voice breaking on a sob. Josie continued to reach for her son, the chain at her shackled wrist biting into her skin as she struggled desperately to pull her body forward. Just one last touch, one last kiss, whispered words that he might carry in his soul, if not his memory. Her sobs grew increasingly shrill as Marshall moved away. “Please, please, please!” she cried.
Marshall walked out the door. The door clicked behind him. Her baby was gone. Josie was alone once more. She collapsed back onto the mattress, pulling her knees to her chest, sobbing with the crushing grief pressing into her broken heart. Caleb’s cries mingled with hers, growing distant, fading as mother and son wailed desperately to be returned to one another. Finally, the call of her infant drifted away into nothingness as though he’d never existed at all.
Josie cried until she couldn’t cry any more, until her fever swept her away into a deep, dark void. She surfaced and then faded, floating on a sea of sickness and devastation, her empty arm still cradling what was no longer there. She wished for death. She no longer had a reason to live.
At some point—she didn’t know how long it’d been—she woke to the sound of the door unlocking. She opened her eyes blearily but didn’t move. Marshall came in, his posture strange. Different. For a moment he simply stood and looked at her. “He’s taken care of.” His tone was odd, she didn’t know how to describe it. He wavered again, split. Became two.
She tried to lift her head but was too weak. “Where is he?” she asked, but he ignored her as though she hadn’t said the words. Maybe she hadn’t.
He threw a bag at her. “This is the last one you’ll get,” he said flatly. “I won’t be back.”
After he left, after his footsteps had faded away, Josie stared at the fast food bag on the floor. She closed her eyes. She wouldn’t eat it. She wouldn’t prolong this agonizing torture one minute longer.
She slept again. A sound pulled her from her sleep. The cry of an infant. Her baby. Right there in the room with her. But when she opened her eyes, there was no one there. No sound could be heard. Agony gripped her. Everything hurt. Her body. Her heart. Her soul.
Her breath ghosted. She was a ghost. Barely there. As transparent as morning fog.
What had Marshall done with Caleb? Had he left him in a hospital? Was someone kind caring for him now? Was he warm? Fed?
; It’s not enough.
She lay there, staring at the light shining in the small, rectangular window, dust motes dancing lazily in the air, the thought causing a spark of hope within. No, it wasn’t enough. He would still need her. Still. To raise him. To love him. To bandage his skinned knees and assure him he mattered. To tell him his name.
She reached for the bag of food. She still had purpose. And she wouldn’t give up. She’d keep trying until the end. For him. For her child. She would probably die anyway, but she’d die trying. Until her final breath. Because that’s what good mothers did.
She removed the bottle of water first, drinking half in three big gulps. Her stomach burned. The infection was worsening.
As she reached in for whatever food Marshall had brought, her hand touched something hard. Confused, she pulled it out, staring at the child’s toy wrapped in clear plastic. The fast food restaurant had inadvertently thrown one of their children’s meal toys into the bag of food Marshall had ordered?
Josie unwrapped the character that stood on a small platform. She pressed the underneath of the platform and the character collapsed. She did it a few times, sitting up slightly as she depressed the button. Her head swam as she came to a sitting position and she took a minute to get her bearings, wiping her arm down the side of her sweat-drenched face.
Somewhere in her mind, there was something she could do with that toy. But what? “What do I do with you?” she muttered to the cartoonish face. At least she thought she did. It was getting so hard to focus.
Her heart had started beating faster and she took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down. This was probably useless. Still, she couldn’t help the small kernel of hope that was expanding inside of her. With effort, she removed the bottom of the toy by cracking the plastic platform. Inside was a tiny metal spring. She exhaled a pent-up breath, extracting it with her fingernails. She swallowed, wiping at her sweat-drenched face again as her stomach cramped. “Calm, calm, calm,” she said like a mantra, when she felt her heart beginning to race. “Stay calm.”
With a shaking hand, Josie smoothed out the coils in the small spring, holding her breath as she did so, afraid it might snap. But it didn’t. She continued to run her index finger and thumb along it until it was as straight as she could make it.
She held it up in front of her eyes, marveling at the sight of the straightened piece of metal, no longer than her finger.
A tool. She had a tool.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The small log cabin with the wraparound porch at the end of a trail that led through a dense grove of woods, would have been the perfect picturesque getaway if they weren’t “getting away” from a sadistic murderer. Still, the view of the mountains in the distance was beautiful and majestic, and as she stood on the porch breathing in the fresh air, she allowed herself to relax, taking a breath slowly in and blowing it out along with the pent-up worry held tightly in her muscles. She hadn’t fully realized how much the knowledge that she could be in the crosshairs of another evil man had stressed her, had caused her to look over her shoulder even when she was locked in her bedroom alone.
A bird landed on the railing, twittering, and then flying away. Josie smiled. Here there was no reason to worry, no reason to look over her shoulder. No one knew where they were except a few trusted employees of the Cincinnati Police Department, and for the first time since Zach Copeland had shown up as she stood in her backyard hanging laundry, Josie breathed more easily. She’d been a little resistant about leaving town at first, unsure if it was necessary, but now, now she was so glad Zach’s boss had recommended it. Whether it was “necessary” or not, safety-wise, whether Zach and his boss’s hunches had been correct, Josie needed this. She hadn’t realized how much.
“Not a bad day at the office.”
Josie laughed softly as Zach came up beside her. “Nope. Not a bad gig if you can get it.” She cleared her throat, her expression going serious. “I’m sure you didn’t volunteer for this though. I’m sorry you had to drop everything and drive me out of town.” She didn’t know anything about Zach’s life, didn’t know if he had a girlfriend, someone waiting at home for him. At the thought, her heart felt uncomfortably heavy. She attempted to dismiss the unwanted feeling, turning her body slightly and gripping the railing in front of her.
“Actually,” Zach said, facing her, his hip leaning against the railing, “I did volunteer for this.” Josie turned too, so they were facing each other. Zach was so near she could see the color of his eyes in the waning evening light. They weren’t black as they sometimes appeared, or even dark brown. They were a deep midnight blue and he had a tiny white dot in the middle of his left iris, something you could only see if you were right up close. Eyes were so individual, she thought, something twisting inside of her, some recognition she couldn’t explain. “I didn’t want anyone else out here with you, Josie, keeping you safe.” He frowned slightly, something that looked like confusion passing over his features, vulnerability maybe. “I seem to have a hard time turning that job over to anyone else.”
She stared at him, at those midnight eyes. He’d just admitted something to her, though she wasn’t sure what. Maybe he didn’t even know. But she felt the subtle shift between them, the way he was looking at her not as a cop looked at the victim he was protecting, but as a man looked at a woman. Or was she reading too much into this moment? It’d been so long . . .
Josie turned away, looking out to the mountains beyond once again. “Tell me about yourself, Zach,” she said, giving him a quick glance. She wasn’t sure what subtle change had just occurred between them, wasn’t even sure it was something that would be acknowledged again, but he knew so much about her—more than just about anyone come to think of it—and she knew practically nothing about him. Her champion. Her guardian. And yet in many ways, a stranger.
“What do you want to know?” he asked, shooting her a smile.
“Are you from Ohio?”
“Yup, born and raised in Cincinnati.”
“And your family? They still live in Cincinnati too?”
“Yup.”
“Sisters? Brothers?”
She had turned toward him with interest as he answered her questions. He crossed his arms over his chest and smiled, though there was something slightly sad in it. “One sister. I had a younger brother, but Aaron passed away when I was eight. Cancer.”
Aaron. “I’m sorry,” she said, tilting her head, seeing this man differently, realizing that she’d viewed him as a sort of superman, a heroic protector. And he was. But he was also just a man. A human being who had his own hurts. His own story as everyone did. A person who had suffered loss as well and obviously still carried traces of it inside his secret self. Her heart reached out to him. And she was glad not to be the focus of their conversation for the very first time.
He nodded. “Thanks.”
She glanced out to the horizon where the bare slip of a translucent moon wavered in the cobalt sky. Daylight dwindled, the sun quickly lowering, and for a few moments, night and day existed all at once. “And beyond your family, do you . . . have someone special in your life?”
She felt his gaze on her and met his eyes, wishing suddenly she could withdraw the question. She didn’t necessarily want to know. And more so, knew that in asking, she’d revealed to him that she cared about his answer. His eyes did a quick sweep of her face, and she felt his focus on her sharpen. It made her stomach jump.
“No, I don’t have anyone special in my life,” he answered.
“Why not?” Why would a man like Zach Copeland be single?
His lip quirked and he squinted off into the distance. “Married to my work, maybe? Is that a cliché?”
She let out a small laugh. “Not if it’s true, I guess.” So that was her role right now. Perhaps he was interested in her as a woman. Because she was the focus of his work. But that wouldn’t always be the case. She didn’t know if the knowledge that his interest in her would inevitably be temporary mad
e her feel more or less vulnerable.
Maybe it didn’t matter either way. Her life was a complicated mess. And Zach Copeland was married to his job. Maybe under different circumstances . . . But it was what it was.
“What about you, Josie?” he asked. “Tell me about yourself.”
She gave him a confused laugh. “What else is there to tell? You know everything about me.”
He tilted his head, studying her for a moment. “I know everything about the crime that was committed against you. That’s not all there is to you.”
Wasn’t it? She picked at a piece of chipped wood on the railing. She wasn’t sure what to say. She had defined herself by the year she’d spent chained up and alone for so long now. And maybe she shouldn’t . . . maybe there was more to her than just that one traumatic event. The thought made her feel slightly hopeful and vaguely afraid—adrift somehow. What did she cling to if not that? “What do you want to know?” she asked somewhat warily.
He closed one eye as if considering deeply, and she couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled from her chest. “What’s your favorite food?”
“Dessert. Anything sweet.”
“Interesting. I wouldn’t have guessed. Favorite movie.”
“Rear Window.”
He looked surprised at that. “A Hitchcock fan? Me too. Favorite season.”
“Summer.”
“Summer’s good.”
She laughed. “Yes, summer is good.”
They stood there grinning at each other for several beats, the air growing thick with simmering tension. It made Josie want to step toward him. It made her want to run away. Her hand fluttered to her neck where she could feel her skin warming. And it was suddenly all so much. The call she’d gotten earlier from the man who’d broken into her house and killed her mother. The questions swirling in her mind that Jimmy had brought up that afternoon. This, whatever it was between her and Zach. Their expressions sobered. He felt it too, she could tell.