Where the Truth Lives

by Mia Sheridan

  “Sorry I didn’t call—”

  “Oh please, you never have to call.” The puppy jumped up, smearing dirt on his khaki pants. “Oh, no, Bandit! Down! Sorry. Zach brought this rascal home and now I’m stuck trying to teach it some manners.”

  Reed laughed, squatting to pet the rambunctious puppy. “It’s fine. A new member of the family, huh?” He picked the small furball up and it licked his face, squirming with delight in his arms. He squinted up at Josie. “Seems pretty unruly. Is he safe around the children?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Reed laughed, placing the puppy down and standing. “Want me to grab that?” he asked, gesturing to the basket of laundry.

  “I’ll grab it later. It’ll need to be washed again anyway.” Her sigh turned into a smile as she looped her arm through his and they started walking around to the front of the house. “Can you stay for dinner?”

  “If it’s not too much trouble and you have enough.”

  “Are you kidding? I’m always stocked up. My pantry looks like we’re preparing for the end of the world. The amount of food those boys can eat is mind-boggling.”

  Reed laughed. “I remember those days. How is everyone?”

  Josie smiled. “They’re good. Great. They’re usually going in all directions, but they’re home tonight. Even Arryn’s inside working on a class project. You picked the perfect night to stop by. You can catch up with everyone.”

  “Good.” Reed drew in a breath of the fresh country air, his heart feeling full. He and Josie had gotten close over the last ten years and he talked to her often by phone or text, but he hadn’t been out to the house for too long. He needed to make more of an effort to visit regularly. It always did his heart well.

  “I thought we banned you from this house after the Monopoly incident two months ago.”

  Reed grinned as he caught sight of his college-aged half-sister, one hip leaned in the doorway, arms folded over her chest, one eyebrow raised. “I’ve explained this already, Arryn. It’s not my fault that you end up in a debt-induced hysteria every time I attempt to demonstrate how capitalism works.”

  She pulled herself straight, putting her hands on her hips. “Hysteria? I’m merely passionate in my fight against unethical banking practices. Someone’s gotta stand up for the little guy.”

  Reed sighed, patting her on her shoulder. “You’d be more effective if you tried to stay out of jail.” He leaned toward her ear, and said in a mock whisper, “It’s getting embarrassing having to bail you out repeatedly.”

  “Oh, I’ll kill you, you dirty-dealing slumlord!”

  She pretended to swing at him and Reed laughed, ducking as he sidestepped into the house, but wrapping his arm around her shoulder and pulling her in for a side hug. “Hey, sis.”

  “Hey, yourself.”

  Reed heard Josie’s laughter behind them along with the high-pitched puppy barking. “Boys!” Josie called and feet sounded in the upstairs hall, bringing to mind a heard of elephants clomping down the stairs as his half-brothers, fifteen-year-old Vance and twelve-year-old Cyrus, burst into the room, greeting Reed exuberantly. Zach stepped out of his office. Noise erupted and the puppy danced around at their feet, barking with excitement. Reed laughed, glancing over at Josie to see her standing by the door, watching the scene with a smile on her face and so much love in her eyes that it caused his heart to swell.

  No one deserves this more than you, he thought, smiling at his birth mother.

  He’d been raised in a wonderful, loving home with two parents who adored him, and then he’d been given a second family the day he knocked on Josie’s door.

  And Reed was grateful for it all. Every piece of it.

  After a lively dinner where Reed got all the latest updates from the Copeland kids and watched his half-brothers shovel insane amounts of food into their mouths, he helped Josie with the dishes, chatting easily with her about random topics as she washed and he dried.

  “I saw the news about the murder at that hospital,” she said, placing a pan into the sink. “Zach said you’re on that case.” She shot him a worried glance.

  “Yeah. It was . . . pretty gruesome. No leads yet.” He took the plate she’d just washed and began to dry it using the dish towel he was holding. He was always hesitant to talk to Josie about the more violent aspects of his job, which was silly considering her husband did the same work. Zach had moved up the chain of command and was working his final years with the department as a lieutenant on first shift. Reed seldom saw him on the job. But surely Zach talked to his wife about the cases he was a part of, even the ones that were morbid, the ones that contained details that were hard for anyone to hear. She was used to it, Reed was sure. And yet, he couldn’t help feeling . . . protective of her reaction to information that might bring up the trauma she herself had experienced.

  “Actually,” he said, placing the dish towel on the counter after drying the final plate, “I wanted to ask Zach about a few aspects of the case.”

  Josie nodded, picking up another dish towel and drying her hands as she turned to him. “Go on back to his office. You know he’s always happy to talk shop.” She nodded toward the back of the house where Zach’s office was located, and where he’d gone to take a call right after dinner.

  Reed kissed her on her cheek. “Thanks for dinner. It was delicious.”

  “Anytime.”

  Reed left the kitchen, walking toward Zach’s office. The door stood open and he heard the water running in the bathroom next door. Figuring Zach had left momentarily, Reed entered the office, taking a seat on the couch under a gallery of Zach’s awards and commendations. He’d watched Zach receive a few of those awards and he knew the recognition always made Zach slightly uncomfortable. He was humble that way. Reed didn’t know for sure, but he suspected Josie had been the one to hang the awards on the wall because she was so proud of her husband. Otherwise, they’d be in boxes in a closet.

  It was part of the reason Zach Copeland was one of his heroes. He didn’t do the job for recognition. He did it because he cared so deeply about helping victims, about being one of the good guys in a world that desperately needed them.

  As he sat there, something on the corner of Zach’s desk caught Reed’s eye and he frowned, walking to where it was. The manila file folder was on top of several other folders, and sticking out was a black and white photograph of himself. He pulled it out, his blood turning cold as he realized what it actually was—not a photo of himself at all, but a photo of his biological father.

  Reed blew out a breath, his heart thumping harshly against his ribs. The picture was a close-up, but it appeared to have been enlarged, the manipulation making it slightly grainy, distorted enough that Reed had mistaken the man for himself. Distorted or not, Reed couldn’t deny that he carried this psycho’s genes.

  God, how did Josie look at Reed with such love? Such pride? He was grateful for it—amazed by it—but it honestly eluded him how she didn’t cringe each time he showed his face.

  His birth mother’s strength—the purity of her love—went beyond comprehension.

  So yeah, he was part of this man. But he was also part of her, and that was the part he claimed with all his heart.

  But why did Zach have a picture of Charles Hartsman? He set it aside, picking up the paper underneath it, and looking at the ones beneath that too. They were printouts, lists, transcripts of calls . . . all about the man who’d escaped a police manhunt twenty years before. What the hell?

  He zeroed in on the dates, his gaze moving from one to the other, going back over the ones that looked familiar to him on a personal level. Confusion descended. His heart sped.

  Reed heard footsteps and turned to see Zach standing in the doorway. His gaze moved from the papers in Reed’s hands to his face. He paused, assessing Reed for another moment before he took a deep breath, and stepped into the room, turning and closing the door behind him.

  “You’ve been tracking him,” Reed said, disbelief clear in hi
s voice. He placed the file back on the desk. “How?”

  “My own digging mostly, law enforcement contacts in other countries willing to help off the books, a few private detectives over the years.” He walked to the other side of the desk and hitched one hip on the corner, turning toward Reed. Reed looked at the paper in his hand, scanning the dates, the locations. “These”—he gestured to the paper in his hand—“are what? Sightings?”

  “Mostly. Yes.”

  “You even have video of him?” He pointed at the slightly grainy photo. “This is an enlarged freeze-frame from video footage.”

  “Yes. That footage was reviewed two days after a sighting that was reported in a small town in France. That was seven years ago.”

  Reed released a breath, leaning against the side of the desk where he stood. “Why haven’t you ever mentioned this to me? We work together.” You’ve always treated me like one of your own sons.

  Zach paused. “I didn’t think this was something you needed to involve yourself with, Reed. I didn’t want this to touch you.”

  “Does Josie know?”

  “Yeah.” He paused. “Or at least, she knows I keep track of sightings and that I do some remote hunting of my own. She’s never asked to go through the file. I don’t think she wants the particulars.”

  Reed tried not to feel hurt by the knowledge that they’d both knowingly kept something like this from him. Secrets had been hidden from him all his life. He understood why, hell, he even appreciated it on a rational level, but the fact remained that he’d been excluded from the truth when he was a child, and he didn’t want to be excluded from information pertinent to his life when he was an adult. “It’s not your job to protect me from this, from him, anymore. Jesus. I’m a grown man. A police detective.”

  Zach shook his head. “You weren’t being excluded, Reed. There’s simply nothing that concerns you directly.”

  “Bullshit.” He looked at the paper, tapping his finger on one of the dates. “You think he was here, in the United States, on this date. That’s when I graduated from high school. Or here . . . I graduated from college that month and that year. Another U.S. sighting.” He pointed to another one. “And this one. This is when I graduated from the police academy. It’s when I became a cop.”

  His eyes shifted. “I don’t have confirmation that he was in the United States, and absolutely zero evidence he was in Ohio. A lot of that is based on unsubstantiated information, some merely my own hunches—”

  “Which are trustworthy and based on years of being a detective with a near perfect solve rate. With a few exceptions, Hartsman being one of the ones who got away,” Reed finished quietly. “Is it part of the reason you hunt him? Your own ego?”

  Zach’s eyes narrowed slightly. “It’s not about my ego. It’s about my accountability. I let him get away twenty years ago. And God only knows who he’s been victimizing since.”

  Guilt speared Reed. Zach was not an egotistical man and he damn well knew it. Knew him. Trusted him. Zach had been nothing but good to Reed since the day Reed walked inside the door of his house ten years before. Which was part of the reason this hurt. “Shit, I’m sorry. That was a low blow. But I’m still pissed. You should have involved me.”

  Zach blew out a breath, using his index finger to rub at his bottom lip. “What good would it have done you?”

  “To know that the man who fathered me might be keeping tabs on my life?” He shrugged. “Maybe I’d have watched my back more, at the very least.”

  “I never once believed you were in danger, Reed. If I had—”

  “You agree these dates”—he tapped at the folder—“combined with your hunches and whatever intel you’ve gathered, probably aren’t just a coincidence, right? Be straight with me.”

  Zach paused, looking to the side, appearing torn. “Yes,” he said when he looked back at Reed. “I questioned it.”

  “I deserved to know,” Reed said quietly.

  “I’m sorry. Maybe it’s habit, protecting you from him. Protecting you from any knowledge of him.”

  His anger dissipated. In a way, he understood that. Hadn’t he had a similar thought about protecting Josie and her potential reaction to hard-to-hear details about his job just ten minutes before? Zach was a natural protector, and Josie had only ever put Reed’s well-being before her own. He couldn’t stay angry at them. Still . . . he didn’t want it to happen again.

  “You don’t have to protect me anymore. I’m not a kid. I’m a grown man, a good detective. I respect the hell out of your experience, Zach, but I want to be an equal.”

  Zach considered him. His expression was slightly sad, though there was a glimmer of . . . respect in his dark gaze. “Okay,” he finally said. “Fair enough.”

  Reed sighed. “Okay.”

  Zach smiled. “All right.”

  “Can I ask you one thing first?”

  “Of course.”

  “You said, God only knows who he’s been victimizing.” He paused, a rolling in the pit of his stomach. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer to his question, but he trudged forward anyway. “Is there any evidence, or any indication that Charles Hartsman has committed more crimes since he got away?”

  Zach’s gaze swept over Reed’s face for a moment. “No. None.”

  Reed expelled a breath, picking up the folder. “Fill me in.”

  Zach stood, picking up the folder and moving to the couch where he sat down. Reed followed, sitting at the other end. “I believe my hunches are right. He was in the U.S. on those dates, and those dates coinciding with particular events in your life is too much of a coincidence. Although there haven’t been any sightings of him reported in years, and definitely not in the United States.”

  Reed looked behind Zach, thinking. “Why though?” he asked after a minute. “Why would he have checked up on me? Why show up for the more notable occasions in my life? Why take that risk? What would make that worth it to him?” A psychopath incapable of caring for anyone but himself.

  “He has some stake in your life,” Zach said. “I . . . can’t figure out the pathology. Neither Josie nor I are psychiatrists.” His lips tipped slightly, though he appeared troubled too.

  “What about this?” Reed asked, fingering a printout that looked as though it’d come from a CPD website.

  Zach glanced at it. “That’s a message left on a tipster site under Charles Hartsman’s name.”

  Reed frowned. “A lead?”

  “No, it’s a message for Charles. Probably a nut, or some crazy fan, you know how that works.”

  Reed swept his tongue over his teeth. Yeah, he did know how that worked. How fan communities would spring up in the wake of a serial murderer’s arrest. It was a strange phenomenon he couldn’t make sense of. He picked up the printout and read it: Charlie, I know where Mimi is. She’s my sweet pea, and she did not leave. Contact me. Following that was a phone number with a local area code.

  He looked up at Zach. “What does this mean?”

  “No idea. Probably nothing. It caught my attention because it was addressed to Hartsman and not the police. An oddity, though the IP address turned out to be untraceable. Same with the phone, which was apparently a throwaway.”

  “And of course, no way of knowing if Hartsman saw this.”

  “No, though that was the first and last message.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning if Hartsman did see it and contacted that person before we did, the message writer could have given him a different contact number and ditched the original. But again, that could be nothing more than some attention-seeking kid whose mom subsequently took away his Internet access. I have a hundred similar loose ends in that folder.”

  Reed frowned. “Huh,” he murmured. Still . . . weird.

  “Like I said, Reed, I have no evidence he’s been in the country in years. And no reason for you to worry.”

  Unless he’s gotten better at hiding, Reed thought. But he pushed the idea aside. He refused to live his
life in fear of the man. Even now.

  **********

  It was raining by the time he made it back to the office. He’d started heading home after leaving Josie and Zach’s, but couldn’t stand the thought of returning to his dark, empty apartment when he still felt wired. Troubled. So instead, he’d turned toward the building where he worked with the other Cincinnati police detectives. He needed a distraction. And there was still Lakeside Hospital footage to go through.

  He hadn’t brought up the case after he and Zach had discussed Charles Hartsman. Reed had been distracted and frankly, he’d wanted to leave and chew privately on the information Zach had revealed. He still wasn’t entirely sure how he felt.

  So yeah, he’d let this new information simmer and in the meantime, he’d turn his attention to checking through those tapes. He had a feeling they wouldn’t find anything—a gut instinct that whoever had committed the crime knew exactly how to sidestep being caught on camera—but the victim deserved due diligence, even if finding anything was a long shot.

  Reed spent the next hour watching empty hallways, and confirming what he’d suspected—they had a cleverly orchestrated, not random, murder on their hands.

  He rubbed at his eye, thinking about Liza Nolan and that seven-minute stairwell trek. He tapped his fingers mindlessly on his desk for a minute before clicking on the camera that faced the door that she’d exited that morning. He also pulled up the camera that faced the exterior door where she’d entered the building.

  He watched it again, her entering the exterior door, and then seven minutes later, exiting the door in the hallway where, if he’d let it play a few more seconds, she’d turn and see Steven Sadowski’s mutilated body. Instead, he paused on her, staring at her frozen face, considering her expression, the way she held her body.

  “You’re terrified,” he whispered. “Of what?”