Where the Blame Lies

by Mia Sheridan

  She smiled again, raising her glass. She couldn’t argue with that. She wasn’t falling apart—yet—but that didn’t mean she didn’t feel like she was sitting on the razor’s edge of teetering over the brink. She brought the glass to her lips and took a sip of the alcohol, grimacing as she swallowed. The warmth spread through her, melting a portion of the blockage that had been slowly filling her chest since they’d learned Reagan was missing. God, where is she? Evan must be beside himself. With the alcohol came a breath that wasn’t as stuttered. She knew she couldn’t do anything for her friend, but it was still awful knowing she was suffering. Stay calm. Keep thinking. She took another sip, and then another before placing it down.

  “Better?” Zach asked, putting his own glass down and scooting closer to her. She allowed him to take her in his arms, melting into him, laying her head on his chest and listening to his heart beat steadily. She wanted to lose herself, to float away, to push aside the horrifying revelations she was grappling with. She gripped his shirt in her fists and leaned her head back, offering him her mouth. He looked down at her, his gaze heated, but expression uncertain as his eyes moved over her face. What did he see? Did he not want her?

  She brought her mouth to his and he groaned. She kissed him, desperate, hungry. She knew she was using sex as an escape, but was that so wrong? Was it so wrong that they should lose themselves in each other for a short time? To shut out the world when the world could be such an appalling, despicable place?

  She pulled herself up, her hands shaking as she unzipped his pants, fumbling as she reached inside and grasped his erection. He was hard, ready. He wants me too. The knot inside unclenched slightly. She kicked off her shoes and then stood unsteadily, keeping eye contact as she removed her jeans and her underwear. She climbed back on him and took him in her grasp again, using the smooth head of his penis to stimulate herself, throwing her head back and moaning at the exquisite pleasure.

  His breath was coming quicker, his hips lifting off the couch toward her, seeking. She could see that his flat nipples were hard under his T-shirt and for some reason, the sight was utterly arousing. Every part of his body was responding to her. She controlled this. Him. It was divine. She could feel herself getting wet, slippery moisture pooling between her legs.

  She gripped him harder and he gasped out, sitting up straighter, the lust in his eyes deepening. She used his erection to drag some of the moisture from her opening up to the tight bundle of nerves and circled that spot until she almost came.

  “Josie, God, I, ah—”

  She smiled, lining his straining cock at her opening and spearing herself almost violently. He let out a masculine sound of pleasure, his head falling back as she began to ride him, slowly at first and then faster, faster, his erection almost slipping from her body before she slammed back onto him. He was watching her now, his face a mask of lust but something in his eyes she didn’t want to see—concern, confusion. She closed her eyes, rode him harder. “Look at me, Josie,” he demanded, and she did, meeting his gaze and holding it. He gripped her hips, taking over, controlling her movement. She let him, and with the submission, something pent up broke free. Josie gasped, keeping eye contact, allowing him to maneuver her body, trusting him.

  Pleasure spiraled, a dizzying whirl of wild bucking, their mutual gasps of pleasure, and the wet sound of their bodies mating. She felt her orgasm approaching and reached for it, stomach muscles tightening, a sort of tingling numbness spreading between her legs right before every nerve in her body tightened and then released in a shattering burst of bliss. Josie cried out just as Zach’s hips shot upward, his own groan of pleasure mingling with hers.

  She collapsed on top of him, her chest constricting, a sob bursting free. She felt Zach’s body still beneath hers, and she tried to stop the tsunami of tears, but she couldn’t. Devastation rolled over her, flattening her completely. She was at its mercy. She could only ride it out. Zach’s arms came around her, his body slipping from hers, the warm trickle of his semen draining from her body.

  She sobbed until she could not sob any more, and Zach continued to hold her, running his hand over her back, whispering words of comfort in her ear. He had to be uncomfortable beneath her, half reclined, his pants around his knees, restricting his movement. But still he remained, holding her until her tears ceased, until the last of her sobs faded and her breath evened.

  She lifted herself slowly, unable to look him in the eye. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, standing unsteadily and grabbing for her underwear, her pants.

  Zach sat up. “Josie,” he said, so much tenderness in his voice, she almost teared up again. She glanced at him, at the way he was still dressed from the top up, his pants still down, his penis wet and sticky in the midst of his black pubic hair. She felt ashamed, unsettled, broken.

  “I’m going to go clean myself up,” she said, and though his features were etched with concern, he only nodded.

  “The bathroom’s right around the corner,” he said.

  Josie closed the bathroom door behind her, standing against it for a moment, wondering if another bout of tears was going to come, but it didn’t. Seemingly she’d cried herself dry. She cleaned herself up and then rinsed her face, wiping the trails of mascara off her cheeks, staring at herself in the mirror for a moment. She still looked like a mess, but she couldn’t bring herself to care right then.

  She left the bathroom and returned to the living room where Zach was still sitting on the couch, his pants on, clothing straightened. He smiled at her gently. He was so incredibly striking and she felt a wave of possession, along with a needling embarrassment. She owed him so much. More than she could ever repay. They’d experienced such beautiful intimacy in Tennessee and now she’d messed that up. Would he always have to “manage” her when it came to sex? Love? Her emotions? How was that fair to him? She sat down on the couch, turning toward him. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “There’s nothing to be sorry for. You needed a release. You needed to cry.” He paused, watching her. “Josie, be gentle with yourself. This is not a normal circumstance. You found out today that one of your friends was the man who terrorized you”—his jaw clenched—“got you pregnant, and almost killed you. You found out what happened to him, and to the man you thought was your attacker. Anyone would likely be reeling under that kind of onslaught of information.” He moved a piece of her hair away from her face. “Talk to me. Tell me what you’re feeling. You need to get the words out too.”

  She let out a sigh. God, he was so good. So understanding. The truth was, she didn’t have words. Not yet. The things she’d learned earlier that day were festering inside her, but unavailable. She could feel them twisting and writhing in some dark corner of her soul—too complicated to unravel easily—and she wasn’t ready or willing to go searching for them. Rape is a crime of violence, not of sex. She still couldn’t connect Cooper with that picture. Rape is a crime of violence. The man who she’d thought was a friend had been the victim of violence too. It still didn’t make what he did even partially okay. He raped me. He tried to kill me. He took my baby. He killed my mother, who I . . . No, she wasn’t able to get all those words out yet. The tears had brought so many feelings to the surface and had helped to some degree. Truthfully, and as much as it brought shame, the sex had helped. “I don’t want to talk.” She gave him an apologetic look. “Not yet. I will, and you’re good to offer me a listening ear. You’re just . . . good, Zach Copeland.”

  He studied her, seeming to be looking for a deeper meaning in her words. “Maybe it’s not the time to talk about this, Josie, but”—he sat back, appearing vulnerable, hesitant—“when this is all over, I want to give us a try. I want . . . I want to protect you and love you. I want . . . you.”

  Her heart squeezed tightly, and she wanted so badly to say yes, yes, I want to be with you too because she did, but something stopped her, some unnamed fear that also made her want to draw away. She was messed up, so messed up. Still. And all she had at th
e moment was honesty. It was the best she could offer him. “I don’t know how to be with a man without . . . a sort of desperate grasping. That’s what love’s always been to me.” She turned her gaze away, remembered the high school boyfriends she’d run after, sobbing in the street, humiliating herself when they left her. She thought of the countless men she’d brought home, telling herself it was only a one-night stand and yet desperate with rejection when they didn’t call her again. It was all part of the example she’d been shown, she knew that. She’d come face to face with herself in that dark warehouse. But she was still figuring out how to untwist the wire of dysfunction that was wound so tightly around her. Maybe, in some ways, she was still in chains. Maybe not. She didn’t even know.

  All she knew was that she felt that familiar desperation for Zach, the neediness that made her want to cling to him, to lose herself in him, to find a twisted kind of control in his desire for her.

  Something whispered inside of her, telling her this was more than that. Deeper, stronger. Urging her to trust him. But the truth was, she didn’t know if the voice was right or wrong, because the voice was her, and she couldn’t yet trust herself.

  “I don’t want to ruin this,” she said sadly. And there wasn’t time at the moment to ponder on herself and her age-old neediness when it came to men. Her friend was sitting somewhere dark and cold right that moment, hungry and afraid, and Cooper was out there somewhere, too, planning any number of sick and twisted crimes.

  Zach took her hand in his. “I’ll tell you if you’re ruining this, all right?” He gave her a small smile. “I’m not exactly perfect either, you know.”

  Josie sat back, her eyes moving over his face, her heart clenching. “Yeah? What’s not perfect about you? Because, honestly, you seem pretty damn perfect.”

  He looked around. “I’m a slob. I leave my clothes on the floor, toss them right next to the laundry basket and leave them there for weeks.”

  “Gross.”

  He grinned, nodding. “I know. Totally gross. Also, I cheat at board games. I never once played a board game I didn’t cheat at.”

  “Outrageous.”

  “Yup.” He scooted closer, taking her in his arms again. “There’s a lot to deal with right now, a lot to figure out, but have faith in me, Josie,” he whispered. “Please.”

  She leaned into him, snuggling closer. She did have faith in him, she did. She just wasn’t sure if she had faith in herself. Not when it came to love.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Zach closed the bedroom door quietly behind him and stepped into the living room before answering his phone. “Hey Jimmy.”

  “Yo. How is she?”

  “All right. Sleeping.”

  “Good, I’m sure she needs it.”

  “Yeah.” Zach sat down on the couch, running his hand down his face, comforted by the fact that his partner recognized Josie’s bravery, but also her vulnerability. They would all work together to keep her safe, work their asses off not only for the women who’d lost their lives at the hands of Charles Hartsman, but for the woman who’d survived him.

  “Listen, I’ve been up since dawn thinking about all of this, and I can’t seem to get that social worker off my mind.”

  Zach frowned. “Janelle Gilbert? Why?”

  “The way she acted when we spoke with her . . . the way she shouldered the blame for what happened to Charles Hartsman.”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  “Yeah. I probably would. But what I’ve been asking myself, is what would she be willing to do for some kind of absolution?”

  Zach frowned. “I don’t follow.”

  “She just seemed off to me, Cope.” He paused. Zach couldn’t disagree with Jimmy. She’d seemed highly emotional about the case even close to two decades later. He’d written it off to guilt, nerves. A high level of empathy. But, hell, in her job, Janelle Gilbert had to carry a hundred tragic stories around with her. Same as him. Same as Jimmy. You either learned to carry that weight, or you crumbled under it.

  “Anyway, I looked into her a little and found out that her sister is a lawyer.”

  “Okay.”

  “She specializes in adoptions.”

  Zach’s stomach knotted. “What are you thinking?” But he was sure he already knew.

  “We need to interview her again. Without Josie. Meet me at her office in an hour?”

  He glanced unconsciously toward the bedroom where Josie slept peacefully. Safe in his presence, behind his locked door, his alarm system. He’d have to make a call, get a couple of uniforms to his place to sit with her while he was gone. A couple of the best guys he knew. He’d only be gone a short time. Hell, this might be a dead end. It probably was. Still, they needed to explore it further.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be there.”

  Zach didn’t get up right away, but he sat there in the quiet of his apartment, his mind going back to the night before. He was worried about her, worried that she hadn’t spoken about what they’d all discovered, though the tears were a step in the right direction. He thought back to their sex, the desperate nature of it, her assertion that she didn’t know how to have a healthy relationship. Zach blew out a breath, his heart heavy. She had so much strength, and yet so little trust in herself in some ways. But who could blame her? She was still trying to figure out how her new reality merged with her old ideas of self. And of course, she had issues regarding sex. She might always be damaged in that way. It might rarely come out. It might come out often. If he was going to be with Josie, he had to know that. He had to accept that.

  With a heavy sigh, Zach stood, heading for the shower. This had to take a back seat. For now.

  **********

  “We apologize for the inconvenience, Ms. Gilbert, but we have some follow-up questions that can’t wait.”

  “I wish you’d called, Detectives. I was in an important meeting.” Her short heels clicked on the floor as she led them back to the office they’d sat in the afternoon before.

  They took the same seats in front of her desk, Zach aware of the empty third seat where Josie had sat.

  Janelle sunk down into her chair, gazing expectantly at them and for the first time, Zach got a good look at her. She looked ten years older than she’d appeared the day before, dark circles beneath her eyes, her face puffy as though she’d been crying. That sixth detective sense thrummed through him, the belief that they were about to get information that would catapult their investigation further. Usually that feeling brought with it a sense of excitement, but right then, it also held a note of dread. Because what this woman might know would have to do with Josie Stratton’s son, and that meant it had to do with the heart of the woman he loved.

  Jimmy sat forward. Janelle Gilbert’s hands trembled where they rested on her desk. She pulled them back, hiding them in her lap. “You seem nervous, Ms. Gilbert.”

  “I’m tired,” she said. “Your line of questioning yesterday brought up some emotions I thought I’d dealt with.”

  “Yes,” Jimmy said. “I understand. The work you do often must be very emotionally difficult.”

  She nodded, her shoulders seeming to relax slightly. “It’s hard not to get involved with the kids I place. I care about them, Detective. I’m invested in their well-being.”

  “Of course.” He tilted his head. “Your sister is an adoption attorney, Ms. Gilbert?”

  Her face drained of color, causing the dark circles under her eyes to look like bruises, and she glanced back and forth between the two of them quickly. “Y-yes. What does that have to do with anything?”

  “The woman who was here with us yesterday, did you recognize her?”

  “No,” she croaked, red blotches appearing on her neck. She was lying.

  “Her name is Josie Stratton. We believe she was one of Charles Hartsman’s victims. He abducted her, chained her in a warehouse room, raped, and starved her. She gave birth to his child, a son, while she was in captivity, and then managed to escape. Not before Charles had taken h
er son from that warehouse though. The child’s never been found.”

  She was visibly shaking now, not just her hands but her entire frame. “What does that have to do with me?”

  “He came to you, didn’t he, Ms. Gilbert? He came to you because he knew you harbored intense guilt for your role in what happened to him. You blamed yourself for sending him back to that house of horrors, didn’t you? So he came to you with that newborn baby boy. You recognized Josie Stratton yesterday, didn’t you? You put the pieces together last night.” Jimmy’s voice was clear, calm, somehow hypnotic in its deep tenor.

  Janelle Gilbert crumbled, nodding her head, a sob bursting from her mouth as she shrunk back in her chair. “He told me it was his baby. Told me his girlfriend had given birth and then died of a drug overdose. He didn’t know what to do. I didn’t doubt him, Detective,” she said, her voice high with panic. “The baby, he, he looked just like him. He was tiny and a little malnourished, but that boy was obviously his. There was no doubt.”

  Zach’s heart was drumming a staccato beat, adrenalin pulsing through his veins. Oh dear God. “What did you do with the baby, Ms. Gilbert?”

  She grabbed a tissue off her desk, wiped at her nose. “He asked for my help. I . . . I had to help him, Detectives.” Her eyes moved quickly between them, beseeching. “I’d let him down so terribly before. And . . . and all he needed was to find a loving home for a son he couldn’t raise. That’s all. It was a kindness. That’s all.”

  “Your sister help you with that?” Jimmy asked.

  She bobbed her head, tears sliding down her cheeks. “Yes, but I’m the one to blame here. I asked for her help and she gave it because she loves me. Because she thought it was the right thing.”

  “Because she thought she was helping an innocent kid with no parents who might otherwise go into the system, the system you could personally verify was full of horror stories.”

  She swallowed, desperation filling her expression. “Yes. Yes. We were just trying to help. To do our best for that poor little baby. To send him to a loving home.”