by Mia Sheridan
She pushed off the railing and stepped away from him. “Mind if I take a shower and turn in? I know it’s early, but it’s been a long, exhausting day, and I didn’t sleep great last night.”
He turned. Was that disappointment in his gaze or was she imagining it? “No dinner? There’s supposed to be food in the kitchen. Someone stocked it before we got here.”
Josie yawned. “No. I think I’ll just turn in. Thank you, Zach. For . . . everything.” She turned away from him, retreating inside to the safety of the small room where Zach had already deposited her bag. But she couldn’t flee the well of feelings he’d opened inside of her, nor the visions of those midnight eyes that followed her into her dreams.
Josie woke in the middle of the night, sitting straight up in bed, sweat causing her nightgown to stick to her damp skin, swallowing a gasp that had risen in her throat. She couldn’t remember the dream that had woken her, but even when her breath had calmed and she once again lay staring up at the beamed ceiling, she swore she could feel something barreling toward her. Something twisty and complicated and fraught with emotions too nebulous to name.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Zach knocked on the door of the double-wide Stanley and Ida Breene resided in. It was early morning. Zach had left Josie safely sleeping at the secured cabin while he drove to the address of Deanna Breene’s parents.
“Who’s it?” he heard yelled from inside and leaned forward.
“Zach Copeland, Cincinnati Police Department,” he called back. He heard a deep squeak as though someone hefty was getting up from a recliner and stood back as the door swung open.
A plump woman in a shapeless striped dress stood at the door, looking out at him suspiciously. “Badge?”
Zach unclipped his badge and flashed it at her. “Are you Ida Breene?”
She nodded, and after peering at his badge and appearing satisfied, stepped aside, allowing him entrance to the trailer. It smelled like rancid grease and soiled laundry, and Zach resisted the grimace that threatened. Sometimes the living smelled worse than the dead . . .
“Have a seat,” Ida said, pointing to a flowered couch. She lowered herself to a deep blue recliner, the furniture item expressing its disapproval in the form of the deep screechy squeak he’d heard from the other side of the door. “What’s a detective from Ohio doing here in Tennessee?”
“I’m in the area temporarily. Our department has been trying to reach you.”
She nodded over to a beige wall phone. Zach couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen one of those. “Broken,” she said. Apparently they were in no rush to fix it. Or step into the era of wireless communication.
“I see. I have some questions about your daughter, ma’am. Her name came up during the course of an investigation.”
“Figured someone would be around at some point.”
He frowned. “Why’s that?”
“Ain’t seen hide nor hair a her for four years.”
Zach paused in surprise. “Ah, I must have missed the missing person report—”
“Oh, we didn’t list her missing. Girl went off a her own accord.”
“Will you tell me about that, ma’am? Last address we have for Deanna is this trailer.”
“Yeah, she moved in with us a’right. Deanna had gotten mixed up with drugs when she was only twelve, thirteen. Did better for a while, even made it to college. But she got mixed up with all that again in Cincinnati, dropped out of school, moved back in with us. We told her, you mess up, you’re out. I might be poor and fat, Detective. Might not be that educated neither. Stan has dirt under his fingernails. I know what people see when they look at us. But we live an honest life. And we don’t tolerate no drugs in our home.”
Huh. Well, he could respect that. “Did Deanna ever mention a professor that she may have been involved with? There’s a police report that shows she made some trouble at his home. His wife believes they were having an affair.”
Ida Breene shrugged. “Who knows? Probably. Deanna made real bad choices, especially when she was on the drugs.”
Zach cleared his throat. “Right, so she dropped out, moved back here and got clean for a while?”
“For a while. Then she started using again, bringing losers around, would leave for days at a time then come back here to eat and sleep. I ain’t running no motel, Detective. Finally, she disappeared for good. A person can only take being let down so many times. We wiped our hands clean.”
Unease settled in Zach’s stomach. “Are you sure she disappeared of her own accord? What if something bad happened to her?”
“Might have,” Deanna’s mother said. “But it was bound to. Just a matter of time. Whatever happened to Deanna, there was nothing we could do about it.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The brook splashed and bubbled next to Josie as she meandered the narrow path that ran through the woods behind the cabin she and Zach were staying in. It’d been a day and a half since they’d arrived and for the most part, they’d avoided each other, only sharing meals.
Josie needed the space, the time, and she’d known Zach had work to do. Although she’d asserted it wasn’t a possibility, what Jimmy had suggested niggled at her mind. She still didn’t see how it could be true, but she knew she owed it to the women who’d been subsequently abducted, and those who might still be in danger, to carefully consider even the smallest chance. Because if the man who abducted and raped her nine years before was the one killing girls now, the police had gone in the wrong direction when they’d found the body of Marshall Landish, and they were going in the wrong direction now.
So, Josie spent the daylight hours slowly and cautiously going over her time spent in bondage. It was necessary, she knew that, though her mind resisted, urged her to turn away as she’d done so often over the years. But . . . in some ways, it felt safer in that remote, unfamiliar location to probe those memories. She didn’t have any distractions, only the birds and the trees and the flowing water, and it allowed her to clear her mind and go through each terrible recollection she pulled forward, questioning things she’d never questioned before.
And as she did, she also finally began to grieve. Not for her child—she had grieved—suffered—for his loss, and still did. Perhaps she always would, and some part of her was okay with that. But even after the sharpest agony of the loss of her baby had faded, Josie had never grieved the loss of her own life, her own view of the world, the future she’d envisioned for herself, so many things she had never explored. She’d learned to function again, she’d moved past the worst of the trauma, every day she put one foot in front of the other and lived the new life she’d been given, but she’d never let her mind go back over the time she’d spent imprisoned, used and abused. She’d never sat with the pain of it, the loneliness, the debilitating horror, and the fear. But she did then. She didn’t push the memories away as she had been doing for so long. She sat alone with every one and let each in turn be her companion.
She closed her eyes and walked back into that room where she’d spent ten agonizing months. She saw herself as she’d first been—desperate and terrorized. She relived the rapes, the hunger, the dwindling hope, the realization that she’d conceived. She recalled her conversations with Marshall, the things he’d done, his responses. She collected the bits and pieces she thought might be important, the things she’d stuffed down so far she hadn’t even known if they were accessible anymore.
And she felt Zach’s presence as she did the work, not infringing on her privacy, but never far away. If she called for him, he’d be there in a moment, she knew. My guardian. The knowledge of his presence close by gave her the courage to explore her own grief. He gave her the courage to break down the memories, to observe them not as a victim, but as a survivor.
But it hurt. Oh God, how it hurt.
She felt the hopelessness, the terror, the complete and utter aloneness of the time she’d spent chained to the wall and left to suffer alone. She remembered the days leading up to Cal
eb’s birth, and the days following. She allowed the long-suppressed emotions to well up inside her, to burst and to dissipate as she gasped and sobbed at the power of the emotional bomb that she’d detonated. And yet, when the dust cleared, there was a quiet peace, the fragments of her soul still left intact, washed clean by a torrent of tears. Her scars could not be erased, but maybe, maybe, she could grow around them. Move forward despite them.
Josie sat at the edge of the stream and took off her shoes, dipping her feet in the water, feeling it glide over her skin like wet silk. Tears continued to roll down her cheeks as she sat in the cleansing aftermath of having released a portion of her pent-up anguish, her soft cries mixing with the sound of the flowing water. The pain of her memories engulfed her, not a tsunami anymore, but the gentle lapping of waves, and she let it hurt, bringing her legs up and wrapping her arms around them, placing her head on her knees as she wept. It was a familiar position, one she’d spent many hours in once, a hand shackled behind her back.
She sensed Zach’s approach before she heard him and was unsurprised at the soft crunch of sand behind her. He sat down next to her on the shore and quietly took her in his arms. Josie turned to him, accepting his comfort, his solidity, the tender care with which he held her. After exploring her traumatic memories, to be touched in tenderness by a man was exactly what her heart needed, and she couldn’t have known until he arrived. They sat on the riverbank that way for a long time, Josie’s tears drying as Zach continued to stroke her hair and whisper words of comfort, his arms wrapped tightly around her as though he’d never let go.
**********
The savory scent of pasta sauce filled the air, the quiet strains of country music drifting from the radio on the kitchen counter. Zach hadn’t seen a handheld radio in a long time and rarely listened to country music, but when in Rome . . . And he couldn’t deny that the emotional crooning of the man with the twang in his voice seemed not only to fit the setting of the rustic cabin in the Tennessee mountains, but of Josie’s quiet, introspective mood.
He thought back to earlier that day when he’d held her on the riverbank as she’d cried, and his heart constricted. Still, as much as Josie’s display of utter sadness had pulled at his heartstrings, there had been a clarity in her eyes when she’d leaned back and allowed him to wipe away her tears. And there was a new intimacy between them that neither one was addressing. He felt it, though, the delicate nature of their changing relationship, the attraction between them that neither seemed to know how to handle, his own resistance to his attraction to her.
Forget the fact that he could lose his job for getting involved with her, Zach knew that the humming electricity that vibrated inside of him in response to her was anything but simple when it came to desiring a woman who’d been through what Josie had experienced.
It was tricky as hell. He wanted her. And what it meant was that he was completely fucked.
“Smells delicious.”
Zach turned as Josie entered the kitchen behind him. “I hope you’re hungry. I think I made enough to feed an army.” He waved his hand over the stovetop where a bubbling pot of spaghetti cooked along with the sauce. A loaf of garlic bread was in the oven and Zach had mixed up a Caesar salad. Whomever had stocked the cabin with food had thankfully done it with easy-to-make meals. Zach could claim a few talents, but cooking was not one of them.
Josie smiled, a small one, but real, he thought. Her eyes were slightly red-rimmed from her earlier tears, but despite that, she looked bright and fresh, straight from the shower in a pair of leggings and a long sweatshirt, her hair loose around her face. Jesus, she was beautiful. “Actually,” she said, coming up behind him. “I’m starving.”
“Good,” he said, his voice husky as she leaned around him, peeking at what was on the stove.
“What can I do to help?”
“You can put napkins and silverware on the table if you want,” Zach said. “This is done. Just needs to be dished up.” Zach drained the pasta and went about dishing up two plates as Josie put out napkins, silverware, and poured them both glasses of water. Zach wished to God there was alcohol in the house. He could use a beer or two like nobody’s business. But there wasn’t any, and he wasn’t going to leave Josie to run into town for alcohol.
They sat down and dished up salad and were both quiet as they started eating. “This is great,” Josie said around a bite of pasta. “I didn’t ask how your interview went this morning.”
Zach finished chewing. “Weird.” He told her about Deanna’s mother, how Deanna had been mixed up with drugs, disappeared, but never been reported missing.
Josie’s eyes widened. “How does that even happen? No one reported her just . . . gone?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know how parents just write their child off like that, but that’s what happened. The trouble is, there’s no way to know if her disappearance had to do with her drug habit, or if something more nefarious happened to her.”
She shook her head, her expression sad. “So not a big break in the case.”
“No, but I convinced her mother to fill out a missing person report. The police here will start looking into it.”
She nodded, and they both ate in silence for another moment. Zach regarded her pensive expression. “How are you, Josie?”
She tilted her head, watching her fork as she spun spaghetti around it, but didn’t bring it to her mouth. “I’m good. Thank you”—she glanced at him briefly—“for earlier. I . . . haven’t been held in a long time. I didn’t know how much I needed it.” Her cheeks flushed but she met his eyes, her chest rising and falling as she took in a deep breath.
His heart twisted. “I’m glad it helped,” he said. “Do you want to talk about it?”
She put the bite of spaghetti in her mouth and looked thoughtful as she chewed. Once she’d swallowed, she dabbed at her mouth with a napkin and said, “I’ve been thinking about what Jimmy mentioned, about considering the possibility that it wasn’t Marshall Landish under that mask.”
“I thought you said you believed it wasn’t possible.”
“I did. I do.” But her expression registered conflict. She frowned. “But, Jimmy’s right. It’s worth exploring all avenues, and that’s what I’ve been doing.”
“And it’s hurting,” he said, “going back through your time spent with him.”
Something that looked like relief came into her expression. At being understood? “Yes. Very much. But, it’s good too. It’s been a form of healing I didn’t know I needed. And maybe I wouldn’t have forced myself to go there again in my mind if not for this situation. Whenever I’ve started thinking about it in the past, it’s been my MO to push it away, you know? Self-preservation. And that was okay, before, because I didn’t believe there was a good reason to relive the details. But . . . I can’t do that anymore. Not now. Not if something I remember might help some of the families grieving for their murdered daughters find closure. And not if something I remember might help catch this guy.”
Zach’s admiration for her swelled, making his chest feel full. “You’re incredible. You really are.”
She shook her head, denying his words, but the small, shy smile on her face told him his compliment had pleased her.
“Have you remembered anything that feels important?”
She took a deep breath, her expression going serious. “Nothing momentous, but”—Josie set her fork down, meeting his eyes—“small things. Marshall spoke with a stutter. But sometimes, when he got upset, or agitated, he didn’t.”
Zach frowned. “Could be the nature of his speech impediment. Maybe high emotions caused an increased speed of speech and sort of ‘fixed’ his stutter temporarily?”
She nodded. “Could be. Again, none of the things that I recollected about him yesterday or today are groundbreaking. I’m just trying to bring forth things that either help prove or disprove Jimmy’s theory.” She tapped her plate lightly with her fork. “I want to help, Zach. I want to make sure what happen
ed to me and the other victims, doesn’t happen to any other woman.”
They both ate in silence for a few minutes, the music providing low background noise. “I didn’t peg you for a country music fan,” Josie said, nodding to the radio sitting on the counter.
Zach laughed. “No? What’d you have me pegged as?”
She looked up at him and grinned and for a second, his heart nearly stopped. Fuck fuck fuck. She shrugged. “Definitely rock. Something loud and intense, but also deep and . . . poetic.”
Zach grinned as he got up, taking his empty plate and nodding to hers. She pushed it toward him. “I’m going to take that as a compliment. And I can go for some rock,” he said, placing their plates in the sink as Josie picked up their glasses and brought those to the sink as well. “But I gotta admit, some of this country is damn catchy.” He turned, catching her off guard and taking her in his arms as he spun her around, and she laughed in surprise.
God, that sound was so good. So damn welcome. Especially after her earlier sadness, the tears that had flowed so freely as he’d held her in his arms on the riverbank.
She tipped her head back and laughed again. “On second thought, maybe I was wrong.” Her expression sobered slightly and she raised a brow. “There’s some cowboy in you after all, isn’t there, Detective?”
“I’ve been known to wrangle a bad player or two.” He grimaced and gave his head a shake as though his own cheesy line had offended him.
Josie let out a laugh. “Is that your best cowboy lingo?”
“Apparently.” He laughed and then spun her around again and let her go, grasping her hand and pulling her back. Their bodies bumped gently, their laughter fading as Josie stared up at him. Zach’s breath stalled. She was warm against him, warm and soft. Her womanly curves molded perfectly to his body. The song changed, something slow and crooning filling the air around them, mixing with the blood beginning to whoosh in Zach’s ears. Josie’s eyes moved to his lips and she licked her own. Zach’s heart began pounding in his chest, muscles tensed, waiting.