Where the Blame Lies

by Mia Sheridan

  They’d discovered that Charles Hartsman’s most recent low-paying job had been as a janitor at the University of Cincinnati. No one seemed to be able to describe the meek man other than to say he was quiet, often wore a ball cap, and kept his head down. He’d played yet another role, a man who was virtually invisible, but who had obviously watched the professor, learning of his most recent affairs. He’d killed those women, Zach thought, not only because in his mind they carried blame, but he’d planned the timing of the discovery of their bodies, intended the police eventually be led straight to Professor Merrick. He hadn’t been “lying low” for eight years. He’d murdered more of those who were to blame when the opportunity presented. But mostly, he’d schemed and strategized for the complete ruination of the man he’d considered ultimately responsible for his pain and suffering.

  Zach thought of the professor, cringing at the picture that still came to mind when his thoughts returned to that dark basement where the professor had been carved up, left to live, and not to die. It had been Charles Hartsman’s final battle. And he’d won, at least, Zach supposed, in Charles’s own mind. The professor’s career was over, he’d left the university disgraced, his family was gone, and for the rest of his life, people would cringe when they looked at his scarred and mutilated face. Zach rubbed a hand over his stubbly jaw.

  “There’s someone at the front desk asking to speak with you, Cope,” another detective said as he made his way to his own desk.

  Zach sighed. Media, most likely. Damn, he was tired. He’d been stretched thin for weeks, living on caffeine and adrenalin, trying his damnedest to give Josie the space she’d asked for.

  Josie.

  His heart crunched. Fuck, but he missed her.

  He made his way to the front desk where an attractive woman, who looked to be in her thirties, stood next to another attractive woman a few decades older. They were both dressed conservatively, understated, yet obviously expensive jewelry flashing at him from both women’s ears and fingers. Designer purses were slung over their shoulders. Definitely not reporters. Curiosity spiked. “Detective Copeland?” the younger woman asked, stepping forward.

  “Yes,” he said, offering his hand to both women.

  “Is there somewhere we may speak?”

  Zach ushered them into an office nearby, offering them a seat. “No, thank you,” the younger woman said. “This won’t take long.” She glanced at the older woman. “That man on the news? Charles Hartsman?”

  “Yes?” Zach asked, frowning, leaning back against the desk behind him.

  “My mother here just confessed to me that she’d been seeing him for a few years now.”

  Seeing him? The older woman’s cheeks heated. Ah. “He told me he was an Italian immigrant who’d left a life of poverty in his home country to live here in America. He’d arrived with little else than the shirt on his back.” Her flush deepened. “He was very convincing,” she said, her eyes darting away.

  Her daughter cleared her throat. “Get to the point, Mother.”

  “Well, he ah, that is—”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Her daughter stepped forward. “He hoodwinked her. Stole from her, and then disappeared.”

  “Stole from her?” Zach asked, looking between the women.

  “Yes,” the woman said, her eyes filled with shame. “Two million dollars.”

  Zach looked between the women, a certainty taking over. Charles Hartsman was long gone. And he had a strong feeling other women would come forward with similar stories. Those eight years had not only been spent planning and strategizing for the downfall of Professor Merrick, but for his own escape.

  We won’t be seeing each other again, he’d told Josie.

  The final battle has ended.

  The war is over.

  Later, Zach sat at his desk as the sun began lowering in the sky. A quiet buzz still surrounded him as the other detectives in the room worked, attempting to bring justice and closure to the citizens of Cincinnati.

  And yet justice had been denied to Josie, to her mother, to Marshall Landish, and the women he’d tortured and killed, making them all unwitting players in the war waged inside a sick and twisted mind.

  Perhaps, Zach mused, a war waged inside them all. A struggle that could either trap you in the past or allow you to move freely into the future. He thought of Josie’s struggles. He thought of his own.

  That protective streak, that deep-seated need to make right what the world got so wrong. He knew where it had originated. Admitted where it’d come from. It’d been born from his own guilt at living when his little brother had not. It should have been Zach, the outsider—though no one had ever made him feel that way—not Aaron, the one who was rightly there. It was warped thinking, he knew that. Irrational, even. But God, how the things you believed about yourself, irrational or not, could rule your choices. Your fears. Your insecurities and the blame you assigned yourself. And, if that was far too painful, you cast it off on others.

  As Charles Hartsman had done.

  Casus belli.

  Zach sighed, standing and straightening his desk quickly before heading for the door. It’d been another twelve-hour day and he was bone weary.

  He stepped outside into the warm summer evening, the sky awash in shades of pink and orange, beauty cast over a broken world. As he walked to his car, he heard the low strains of . . . country music? His pulse jumped and he looked up. Stopped, his heart clenching. Josie.

  She stood leaning against her car, the passenger door open as country music played from her radio, set at low volume. She was wearing jean shorts and a cowgirl hat.

  “I heard I might find a cowboy here,” she said, a smile gracing her lips, nervousness in her eyes.

  Zach moved closer, his gut clenching. She was so goddamned beautiful, and he wanted her with every beat of his heart. His eyes drank her in. He tipped his chin. “Looking for a cowboy, are you?”

  She grinned, breathing out a laugh, glancing away and then back. Shy. “Hi, Zach.” She pushed off the car, standing straight. “How are you?”

  He nodded. “Good. I’m good. How are you?”

  She licked her lips, her smile fading. “I’m good too.” Zach’s gaze moved over her features. She looked good, damn good. A . . . peace in her eyes that surprised the hell out of him. Once again, Josie’s strength knocked him on his ass. “Thanks for, you know, giving me a little time. Things have just been”—she shrugged, letting out another breathy laugh, though a flash of pain came and went in her eyes—“intense. You know?”

  Intense.

  Yeah, that was a good word.

  “What you did, Josie,” he said, shaking his head at the memory of those few minutes in the lawyer’s office, the sacrifice she’d made for her boy, “for Reed. It was so incredibly brave.”

  Grief passed over her face, but she managed a smile anyway.

  “If you want to talk about it sometime . . .” He felt awkward suddenly, as if by bringing the painful topic up, he might have pushed her away when he was so damn happy—relieved—she was standing in front of him.

  But she looked in his eyes, nodded as she tilted her head. “Yeah,” she said. “I would like that. Maybe we could do dinner.”

  He grinned, his heart soaring. “Yeah. I’d love that.”

  She paused. “Do you think about her sometimes?” she asked softly, vulnerability filling her expression, “your birth mother?”

  He studied her, saw her heart right in her eyes. “Yeah. Yeah, I do. I think about how grateful I am to her. How deeply grateful.”

  She nodded, biting at her lip before she took a shaky breath. Was it enough? Would it feel like enough to Josie? He watched her for a moment, wondering if she was going to say more, but she didn’t.

  For a minute an awkward silence ensued before Josie took a deep breath. “Archie came by a few days ago,” she said casually, and Zach’s muscles bunched. He started to say something, to verify that the police were still sitting vigil outside her house,
but before he could, Josie went on. “He wanted to make me one more offer. Figured after everything I’d been through recently, I might have changed my mind. Might want to hide away somewhere.” Something glittered in her gaze. Amusement? “I told him to go fuck himself . . . nicely of course.”

  Zach laughed, and it felt so damn good, he laughed again. “Not too nicely, I hope.”

  The same amusement with that fiery edge flashed in her gaze again, her lips tipping. “He got the message. My shotgun helped make the point.”

  “You got a shotgun?”

  “Yup. Learned how to use it too.”

  He stared at her, marveling. It was a wonder Josie Stratton was still standing. Yet here she was, having picked herself up yet again. And he had no doubt that whatever she had to do to stay on her feet, that’s what she would do.

  Their smiles faded and they stared at each other for another moment, the mood suddenly serious. God, he’d missed her. He’d missed her so much. And yet he didn’t know where to pick up.

  “We started out kind of backwards, didn’t we?” he blurted. He didn’t want to skirt around the issue anymore. He wanted her, wanted them, didn’t want just one dinner, but a million dinners, a million breakfasts and lunches and everything between, and life was too damn short—too damn unpredictable—to waffle around.

  Her expression sobered completely, gentled. “Yeah, I guess we did.” She glanced to the side. “What I told you about being broken when it comes to love, I . . . I don’t think that’s true.” She swallowed.

  “I don’t either,” he said. He stepped closer. He could smell her. The delicate scent of her shampoo, her skin. Her.

  She nodded, a little jerkily. “But I’m still practicing how not to be.”

  His heart swelled. “Then we’ll practice together.”

  She let out a breath, smiling at him, her expression so filled with hope.

  “I want to date you, Josie. Court you. Bring you flowers and take you to meet my parents and all that sappy shit. Let’s do this right.”

  She laughed, a happy sound as tears filled her eyes.

  “I love you,” he told her.

  Joy flashed in her expression. “That’s still sort of backwards, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” he said, stepping right up to her, tossing her hat in the car so he could take her face in his hands. “But I can’t help that. I love you,” he repeated. “Every imperfect, flawed part of you. Every heroic, selfless part of you. The part that’s fallen, and the part that’s gotten back up, over and over and over. You.”

  A tear tracked down her cheek. “I love you too,” she whispered.

  He brought his lips to hers and kissed her as the stars began blinking to life, one by one in a darkening sky.

  EPILOGUE

  It was Josie’s favorite time, that dreamy golden hour right before the day drifted toward dusk. She attached a clothespin to the line, the sheet she’d just hung picking up in the slight summer breeze and dropping back down again as the scent of fresh laundry and sunshine met her nose.

  The life within her stretched, rolled, and Josie paused, putting her hand to her belly and living right then, in the moment. She did that a lot these days. Maybe it was the combination of hormones and happiness that made her feel so overwhelmed with gratitude that she literally had to stop and—sometimes tearfully—linger in the feeling as long as possible. Maybe it was just pure, unadulterated happiness.

  Her belly tightened and a flutter of nerves lifted inside of her. It wouldn’t be long now. Maybe even tonight, tomorrow. A small frisson of grief trembled through her, the knowledge that this birth—her second—would bring both celebration and heartache. Memories. Longing. Despite her happiness, and the peace she’d found, for her, life would always be a tricky mixture of conflicting emotions that sometimes she just had to breathe through. She was prepared, and because she was, she knew it would be okay.

  Josie clipped another sheet to the line, looking beyond at that field where her aunt had once brought her to pick wildflowers, the place she’d carried inside her through so many dark days. Her own, very real vision of hope. The thing she’d clutched to with all of her heart. Someday very soon, right in that spot, she’d gather bouquets with her own daughter, the little girl they’d named Arryn in honor of the brother Zach and his family had loved and lost. But as she’d learned, love didn’t end. Love never died. Love went on and on, like a swiftly moving river. No matter the obstacle, it continued forward, an unending force moving around, over, into—carving away at the rocky shores in its path.

  Her lips tipped as she envisioned a toddling girl with brown curls and midnight eyes.

  A shadow darkened one of the sheets and her smile grew. She knew his form, his height, the way he moved, even through white cotton. He pulled it aside, a grin lighting his face as he caught sight of her. “Hey,” he said. “I would have done this.”

  She picked up the empty basket. “I wanted to get outside. And”—she shot him a look—“I’m not an invalid.”

  He gave her a boyish, chastised smile but took the basket from her anyway. “I know. I just want to make sure you’re resting enough. Pretty soon rest is going to be in short supply.”

  Josie smiled, putting her hand on her large belly where their daughter lay curled inside. Yes, rest was going to be in short supply, and she could hardly wait.

  Zach laced the fingers of his empty hand through hers as they moved toward their house. In the end, they’d decided not to run it as a bed and breakfast, but instead—God willing—fill its rooms with their children.

  Fill its dinner table with their cherished friends, and Zach’s loud, big-hearted family, now Josie’s family too. From the start, Zach’s mother had taken Josie under her wing and treated her like her very own daughter. Josie basked in the feeling of being mothered. She’d never felt it before, and it had healed another part of her that had long been broken.

  As they stepped onto the porch, Zach’s cell phone could be heard ringing from inside. Jimmy, no doubt, calling to update him on the case they were working. Josie nodded toward the house. “You get that. I’m just going to sit out here for a few minutes and take some weight off my feet.” She offered him a wry smile, lowering her cumbersome body onto the porch swing they’d installed the summer before, right after she’d received her college diploma, fulfilling that long-awaited goal.

  He leaned down and kissed her forehead. “Okay. I’ll bring out some iced tea and join you in a minute.”

  Josie used her foot to rock the swing slowly, gazing out to the sky, alight now with the fire of sunset. Her thoughts turned to Charles Hartsman as they sometimes did, and she wondered if he was watching the sunset—or perhaps the sunrise—from some distant shore and felt a small fearful pinching in her chest. Another one of those emotions she had learned to breathe through. He wouldn’t be back. She knew that, felt it in her gut. Someday perhaps he’d face justice. For the time being, she had to learn to live with that lack of closure. She’d come to it easier than her husband, which was interesting, but true. My sweet guardian. The man who would save the whole world if he could.

  At least Marshall Landish’s name had been cleared, his sister given the peace of his vindication.

  She thought of the ways in which humans could be filled with both terrible evil and such enduring love. Unspeakable violence and astonishing gentleness. Blame and grace. Her fingers went unconsciously to the scar she wore on her thigh, the declaration of her guilt. It no longer shamed her. She had been guilty. But not because she was evil or bad. Because she’d been hurt. Because she’d wanted so desperately to be loved, that she’d forsaken her own pride. Her own sense of right and wrong. The same as Charles Hartsman, and yet so vastly different.

  Who is to blame? That was the question. And Josie’s heart had found peace in the answer.

  Put simply: All of us.

  All of us are to blame. For fighting to move on rather than lashing out, for choosing to stand up over and over again after we colla
pse, for working to heal the broken parts of ourselves so the shards don’t wound the world.

  Her belly tightened again, stronger this time, longer, and she suppressed a moan. Yes, this baby girl was coming. She blew out a slow breath, soaking in the final moments when the life inside was only hers. The dwindling hours that their hearts would beat as one.

  The screen door squeaked as Zach stepped out onto the porch, handing her a cold glass of tea. He sat beside her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “It’s time,” she finally told her husband, turning her gaze to his indigo eyes, laughing at his sudden alarm.

  It was time to meet the little person who would start their family. A baby girl who would know the deep love of both parents, the indulgent adoration of grandparents, the doting love of an aunt, uncle, and cousins, and hopefully, a life of peace where she felt secure and strong, ready to face all that life threw her way.

  Zach helped her stand and then ran inside to grab her bag. Josie smiled, turning toward the lowering sun as she waited. She had lived and breathed so many days and nights for the hope of seeing once again, a wide-open sky, the proof that her long hours of lonely darkness had ended. And now there it was in front of her, stretched just as far as the eye could see.

  Acknowledgments

  I am filled with gratitude for the many talented and generous people who helped me tell this story.

  To my editors, Angela Smith, Marion Archer, and Karen Lawson, thank you for not only making sure my grammar is correct, but for your honesty about storyline weaknesses (and ingenious suggestions for fixes!), for your close attention to detail, and just for being an all-around joy to work with. I truly feel like your goal is to help me tell the best story I can tell, and that is such a gift.

  Huge thanks to my amazing team of beta readers: Stephanie Hockersmith, Cat Bracht, JoAnna Koller, Ashley Brinkman, Rachel Morgenthal, and Shauna Waldleitner Rogers. Thank you for offering your precious time, honest opinions, and amazingly helpful comments.