by Mia Sheridan
Zach’s head felt hot. What the fuck is going on? “Zach?” Josie’s voice.
“Are you okay?” he barked, more harshly than he’d meant.
“Yes. I’m fine. Now. Now I’m fine.” She told him about Charles Hartsman impersonating her lawyer, luring her to the park where Reed was playing baseball. She told him how he’d apparently taken Rain’s purse and then sedated her somehow when she returned for it. How he’d come up behind Josie and made it seem as if he had a weapon pressed against her side, the things he’d said, and how he’d quickly disappeared.
“Holy fuck!” Zach yelled, coming to his feet. “Okay.” He attempted a deep breath. Josie was all right. She was okay. He could hear that she was. He wouldn’t entertain what-if scenarios right then. He would not. Though despite his assertion to himself, a deep tremble moved down his spine. Charles Hartsman could have killed her. Right there in broad daylight as she’d stood at a fence watching her little boy on a baseball field.
But he hadn’t. He hadn’t. Why the fuck hadn’t he?
“I’m sorry, Zach,” she whispered. “I should have known it wasn’t Mr. Hornsby. I should have known. I was just so . . . God, I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right. You’re okay. Everyone’s okay.” He forced his muscles to relax. “You said he quoted something?” he asked, in reference to what Charles had mentioned when she’d asked about Reagan.
“Yes.” She paused as if trying to remember the exact words. “At least it sounded like a quote. The dark night will end and the sun will rise,” she said. “Or something very similar.”
“Okay,” Zach said, sitting back down and opening a browser. “Hold on.” He typed in the phrase she’d just said, and a similar quote by Victor Hugo immediately came up. Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise. “Good job, Josie. Now, listen, the officers are going to drive you back home and then you stay put, okay? Promise me.”
“I promise you.”
“I’ll call you as soon as I know something.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
There was an uncomfortable pause. There were so many things he longed to tell her. He wanted to shake her and then take her in his arms, never let her go. But he couldn’t do that, and now was not the time for talk. “Call you later.” Zach hung up the phone and stared at the screen in front of him. What did that quote have to do with Reagan? Victor Hugo. He sat up straight, his heart racing, something occurring to him. There was a Victor Street right near campus with a few abandoned homes near the bottom.
He grabbed his phone and called for a canvasing of any and every vacant house on Victor Street.
Holy shit, was he reading that clue right? Or did it mean nothing at all? His head was still swimming. That psychopath had impersonated Josie’s lawyer. To such a believable degree that Josie hadn’t even questioned that it was him. How? Had he gone down to the courthouse and watched him at trial for a few minutes? The guy was a fucking genius. Where had he learned to do that? Was it what kept him halfway sane as he’d sat in a locked closet, hungry and alone, becoming anyone other than himself? Jesus.
Casus belli. What had Josie said the guy mentioned about casus belli? He opened another browser window, looking up the term. Yes, it cast blame. But as Charles Hartsman had said, it was also defined as an act that justifies a war. The final battle is over, that’s what he’d told Josie. So what the fuck did that mean? Reagan? Only, it appeared as though he’d given a clue to Reagan’s whereabouts. It could mean she was dead and he was simply pointing them to the location of her body. But if she was found alive . . .
Then the final battle had been waged elsewhere.
If the women who had cheated with the professor were not the final battle, then it only made sense that it was the professor himself who Charles Hartsman had saved for last.
But the professor hadn’t left his house in a week. At least, that’s the information the officers observing his house had reported. Zach himself could vouch for the professor being home the week before as he’d spoken to him from the porch. Zach froze, a cold dawning sweeping through him.
He hadn’t seen him.
Only spoken to him.
Shit, shit, shit! Had he spoken, not to Vaughn Merrick behind that curtain, but Charles Hartsman impersonating the professor? Had it been Charles Hartsman—as he suspected—that Dawn Parsons had seen at the Merrick’s old house? Had he located the professor’s new address and gone there directly after he’d found their old home vacant? Fuck! He stood abruptly, turning, and heading for the door. Jimmy was just walking in from lunch, his expression taking on surprise when he saw Zach. “Hey, I just heard—”
“Let’s go. I think the professor’s life is in danger if he hasn’t already been killed.”
“What the what?” Jimmy sputtered as he followed Zach out the front door and toward his car. As Zach sped to the professor’s house, he updated Jimmy on everything that had transpired in the half hour since his partner had gone out to grab a quick lunch.
“Holy shit,” Jimmy said, looking at Zach from the passenger seat. “He’s his final victim. Casus belli,” he murmured. “The professor performed the act that began the war. It all ends with him.”
“Yes, and if we can get there fast enough, we might catch him.” Only Zach had a sinking feeling in his stomach. The final battle is over now.
Over.
Zach pulled up to the curb directly in front of the professor’s house, he and Jimmy hopping out of the vehicle. Zach jogged to where the unmarked car was parked, a different officer at the wheel than the week before. Zach flashed his badge and introduced himself. “Any activity?”
The officer shook his head. “Not since last week. Seems like the guy is holing up. I heard the university canned him.”
The final battle. Zach’s heart was pumping harshly. “I have reason to believe something’s not right in there,” he said. “I’m going to go in. Stay here, watch our back from the street?”
The guy’s eyes registered surprise. “Yes, sir. Whatever you need.”
Zach jogged away, meeting back up with Jimmy where he waited in front of the professor’s home. “Come on.” They went up the steps, banging loudly on the front door. There was no answer from inside. “Open up, Professor,” Zach yelled, pounding again, giving the guy a chance to get to the door if he was sleeping, or in a more distant part of the house. They waited a moment, eyes meeting when, from deep inside the home, could be heard the unmistakable sound of moaning. Shit.
They both unholstered their weapons. “Break it down?” Jimmy asked.
No time to call for backup. No time to call for S.W.A.T. Zach leaned backward, waving to the unmarked car across the street, hoping the officer would understand his meaning, and make the call. Zach eyed the standard lock, not exactly flimsy, but nothing that couldn’t be kicked in. “Yup.”
“I’ll let you take care of that,” Jimmy said. “I got the brains, you’re the one with the brawn.”
Despite the adrenalin coursing through Zach’s system, he gave his partner a wry look and stood back, taking aim before kicking the door swiftly and with all his strength. The wood splintered, door swinging open.
“One try. Nice, Hercules,” Jimmy said as they both took cover on either side of the doorway. Zach raised his gun as he pie’d the entryway.
“Cincinnati Police!” he shouted.
For a moment there was only silence and then they heard what sounded like a distant moan, and a soft thud. Zach’s gaze flew to Jimmy’s, and Jimmy nodded.
Zach went in first, clearing the area, Jimmy following. The soft moaning was coming from below. They moved through the house, using the tactics they’d perfected during their days in uniform. Adrenalin flowed swiftly through Zach’s veins, his breath coming more quickly as his body geared up for a potential fight.
Jimmy nodded toward a door next to the kitchen where something else made a soft thud from below. He pulled the door open and they both moved to the side. “Cincinnati Police!” Jimmy called down the stairs,
peeking around the doorframe and quickly moving back. He reached his hand around and flipped on a switch and then nodded to Zach. “All clear.”
They moved down the steps, calling out their arrival and sweeping their weapons in both directions once the stairwell opened up.
Zach drew back at the stench that met his nose when they turned the corner of the stairs, into the main room of the unfinished basement.
The sight that met his eyes made vomit move up his throat. He swallowed it down, moving forward, toward the human form that sat propped against the wall, one hand chained behind his back, moaning piteously.
Professor Merrick.
His face was a mask of dried blood, and meaty skin as though he’d been carved up. And his nose was missing, two skeletal holes gaping in the middle of his face. The smell of urine and feces made Zach gag. He’d obviously been sitting like this for several days if not longer. Next to him lay water bottles, some empty, some full. Hydration to keep him alive until he was found.
Holy Christ.
Footsteps sounded above, voices calling out. The cavalry had arrived. As Zach turned to call out their location, he noticed words written on the wall in what looked like the professor’s blood: Bellum finivit. Zach only knew a handful of Latin words, but he could figure that one out.
The war is over.
Zach called out to the officers above, telling them the scene was secure and to call a bus. The professor needed immediate medical attention.
“Cope,” one of the officers said as he passed. “We found Reagan Hutchison chained up in one of the vacant homes on Victor Street. She’s alive, just dehydrated and malnourished. She’s being transported now. She’s okay. We got her.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Zach’s eyes remained trained on the door, his heart leaping when it began to open. He stood, along with Mr. and Mrs. Davies and their lawyer. Josie entered first, her lawyer following. Zach attempted to make eye contact with her, but she kept her gaze lowered. He tried to read her expression, but whatever she was feeling she was keeping tightly under wraps. His heart ached. He longed to reach out to her, to touch her. He’d driven Josie to the hospital two days before where she’d broken down at Reagan’s bedside, both women laughing and crying and hugging each other until Reagan’s doctor came in and told her she needed to rest. Zach had been caught up in the whirlwind of Charles Hartsman’s disappearance, the crime against the professor, and everything else that had hit the department like a hurricane.
He’d called Josie the few times he’d come up for air, but her friend Rain had answered the phone. She’d assured him in whispered tones that Josie was okay, just sleeping a lot. Rain was staying at her house temporarily and told him haltingly that she could hear Josie pacing her room in the wee hours of the night.
The knowledge just about broke Zach. And a memory came to him from the time he’d stood guard outside her hospital room and seen her pacing late one night through the gaps in the shade of the window that faced the hall. As he’d watched her move back and forth, it’d dawned on him exactly why she had a need to get up and move, after months of being chained and shackled, and that understanding had caused heartache to well inside him. A nurse had gone in her room and scolded her back to bed. Let the poor woman pace, he’d thought. Give her that small mercy. He’d felt so pulled, wanted to enter that room, offer her . . . some sort of solace. Something. But it wasn’t his place, he was merely a sentry.
But now . . . now he wanted so desperately to be there for her, to be the one she turned to in those midnight hours when all hurts run that much deeper. To let her pace if she needed to. Hell, to pace with her if it would help. But he was buried under the fallout of the case. And he knew she was getting ready emotionally to welcome her son home.
He was grateful she’d wanted him here. Her lawyer had called him that morning and said she’d requested the Davies meet her. She was wanting to make the arrangements for Reed to come live with her, he knew. And despite his own internal struggle, he could not blame her. Josie had lost everything, had fought for her life, not once, but twice, and for God’s sake, she deserved some happiness. Family. Someone to love.
No, Zach didn’t blame her. He loved her.
Josie took a seat, placing her hands in her lap. She was pale, shaking, and it took everything in him not to stand and go to her.
She looked up at Emery Davies. “Have you told him yet? About his adoption?”
Color rose in her cheeks and she shook her head. “No, I . . . we”—she glanced at her husband—“were going to and then we heard what happened with you and his birth father.” Tears came to her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Josie. We’ve been praying so hard for your healing.” She swallowed, paused. “I hope you know the sincerity of our concern.” She cleared her throat again as though she was barely holding back a sob. “It sort of shifted our focus, but we will. We’ll tell him tonight.”
Josie looked down, her lashes dark crescents on her cheeks. “No,” she choked out and then gathered herself. She looked at her lawyer, seeming unable to utter another word.
Her lawyer turned to the Davies, removing a manila folder from his briefcase. He opened it, extracting a stack of papers stapled at the corner. “Ms. Stratton has had papers drawn up relinquishing all parental rights.”
Zach’s blood went stone cold. Josie sat stock straight, still expressionless.
“What?” Mrs. Davies gasped, bringing her hand to her mouth. “Why?”
“Ms. Stratton has determined that it’s in Reed’s best interest that he continue to be raised by you. She has already signed the paperwork. She asks only that you send her a picture and short update annually to the address contained within.”
Mrs. Davies was crying outright, her husband leaned in to her, arm around her shoulder as he obviously struggled to hold on to his own composure. “Yes,” she sobbed. “Yes, of course. Of course.”
The Davies stood and Mrs. Davies took the few steps to where Josie was sitting, leaning down, and embracing her. “Thank you. Oh, thank you. We love him so much. Thank you.”
Josie remained stoic, her spine stiff as she allowed the woman to hug her but didn’t return the embrace. When Mrs. Davies leaned back, Josie gave her a small smile and a nod. “Thank you,” she whispered back.
“One last thing,” Josie’s lawyer said. “You, of course, as his parents, will determine the right time to tell him about his adoption. Should it ever be necessary, contained within the file are Ms. Stratton’s health records, and a copy of the birth father’s health records as provided by the city of Cincinnati. There is also a letter Ms. Stratton has written to your son, that he may read at the appropriate time, as determined by you.” He glanced at Josie worriedly. “And with that, this meeting is complete.”
Josie stood, looking slightly unsteady on her feet. Her lawyer took her elbow and they both turned toward the door. The Davies continued to cry softly, Mrs. Davies turning to her husband as they embraced.
Josie and her lawyer left the office and Zach followed along. When he caught up to them at the elevator, he called her name.
She turned, looking shell-shocked with grief. He couldn’t breathe. “Josie,” he repeated.
Her lips trembled, but she managed a small, brave smile. “Just give me some time, Zach,” she said, her voice hoarse with devastation.
He stepped back. Every muscle in his body ached, including his heart. This was killing him. The elevator dinged and Josie and her lawyer, the kind older man Zach had recommended, stepped inside. The doors began to close and Josie’s knees buckled, her lawyer catching her as her first sob broke free.
Zach lunged at the elevator but the doors snapped shut. He splayed his hands out on the cold metal, frustration and heartache knifing into him. Helplessness.
After a moment he stepped back, walking to the window that looked out on the parking lot below. He saw Josie’s lawyer walking her to his car, his arm linked in hers as he obviously supported some if not most of her weight. She had wai
ted as long as she possibly could until her grief had poured free.
He watched the bravest woman he knew get in the car, watched it pull away, the mother who had loved her son with such selfless intensity that she’d let him go. Twice.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Dear Reed,
My name is Josie Stratton, and I’m your birth mother. I’m sure you know by now that your birth was anything but typical. When I think back to it, it’s with a sense of wonder that we were able to get through it at all. Then again, maybe I’m not, for you see, of all the things that have ever happened in my life, you have been my biggest motivation to keep trying, to keep moving forward, to be better, and stronger, and braver, so that someday, if we meet again, you will be proud of me.
I know how much your mom and dad love you, how they’d protect you with their lives. I saw it on their faces when I met them, and it will give me comfort always. But what I want you to know is that even before they took you in their arms and welcomed you into their hearts and their home, you were already loved, deeply and unconditionally. I don’t want you ever to doubt that, not for one moment.
I didn’t have the best upbringing; your mom and dad might have told you that. It took me a long time to figure out what love really is because the examples shown to me felt like anything but. It was you, my precious boy, who finally taught me the true meaning of the word. And ultimately, my understanding of love is what allowed me to let you go. I hope you feel that with all your heart.
You will always be the greatest blessing of my life, and I will love you until my dying breath and then beyond.
Josie
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
The city was still in an uproar. The Charles Hartsman case was the top story in both local and national news, and the search for the now infamous serial killer continued. At the moment, though, they had zero leads. It was as if the man had simply vanished into thin air, which was terrifying and perplexing, considering he had only ever held down low-paying jobs. Which begged the question, how would he fund a life on the lam? It ate at Zach.