Where the Blame Lies(17)

“That’d be great.”

Josie stood, picked up the laundry basket, and scurried inside. At the window that looked out to the side of the house, she took a moment to breathe deeply, the apron of the porcelain farmhouse sink cool beneath her palms, grounding her. A dead girl. Chained. Raped. Starved. Branded. She closed her eyes. This was the last thing she’d expected today. The last thing she’d expected . . . ever.

**********

Zach looked up as Josie emerged from the house, a tray with a pitcher and two glasses held in her hands. She set it down on the round wicker table and handed him a cold glass, beaded with sweat. Their fingers brushed and her eyes snapped to his and then away. He took a long sip, the liquid cold and sweet. “This is great. Thank you.”

She nodded, taking her seat again as she picked up her own glass. He noticed pale pink marks on her wrist and knew immediately what they were: the faded scars from the shackles she’d once worn. God. He watched her as she took a sip, a strange feeling overtaking him. He felt like he knew this woman, and yet he didn’t. There was a surreal feeling about sitting and talking to her, because when he’d seen her through hospital windows briefly and so long ago, and in crime scene photographs, he’d only seen an utterly distraught version of herself. He couldn’t seem to stop watching her, marveling at her. Josie Stratton had been barely twenty years old when she’d escaped that warehouse, and she was twenty-eight now. Beautiful. Poised. Seemingly well adjusted. That was apparent, despite how shaken she was by the information he’d just given her. And despite the scars she still wore. What had he expected? A broken shadow of a person? Maybe he had. Maybe that’s why the real woman, up close and three-dimensional, was throwing him for such a loop. Something about her pulled at him. Strongly. It was almost a physical sensation.

As she glanced at him over the rim of her glass and their eyes met, realization hit him: he’d thought the memory of her eyes had come to him now and again over the years. But he’d been wrong. Josie Stratton’s eyes had never left him at all. They’d lingered inside him all these years, holding him captive.

That damn hero complex his sister accused him of having. Maybe Betsy wasn’t so far off. And maybe that’s what Josie Stratton brought out in him—made surge to the forefront—a need to protect. Exact justice. Somehow right an appalling wrong.

“Where did you live before you moved to Oxford? Before your aunt’s death?”

Josie took another drink. She gave him a look that he read as her wondering what these questions had to do with a copycat murderer. He wasn’t sure they did, but it couldn’t hurt to know who she associated with, what her life was like, if someone who she’d come across at some point in time had decided to recreate the crime she’d been a victim of. But he also couldn’t deny that he wanted to know about this woman he was so mesmerized by. “I rented an apartment in Mount Adams. Worked from there too.” She looked off behind him as though seeing into the past. “One of my case workers got me a job transcribing for a lawyer she knew. It was work I could do from home.” She looked down, fiddling with her hands. “After the crime, I didn’t go out a lot. I was . . . doing what I could to look into my son’s disappearance.” She cleared her throat. “I got some referrals, enough work to pay my rent, eat . . .”

“So you never finished school?”

“No. I never went back. Anyway,” she said after a moment, and there was more life in her voice. She’d gathered herself, moved away from those memories of the dark days following her escape, the trauma she must have been suffering. “I did that for seven years. My aunt fell ill five years ago, and she couldn’t visit me anymore. It motivated me to buy a car.” She pointed to the driveway where a white beat-up compact car that looked as if it was on its last leg—or wheel as the case may be—was parked in front of his city-issued sedan. “And I began driving to Oxford to visit her in the facility she’d been put into.” Her lips curved upward and the sweetness of her smile made Zach’s lungs feel overly full. “I moved into this house last year. She’d closed the bed and breakfast years before. I think her illness had begun long before she let anyone know, and it was just too much for her. When she first got sick, we talked about how when she got better, we’d open the bed and breakfast again, run it together.” Her smile faltered. “She never recovered, but she left it to me, and now I’m doing what I can to get it up and running. I’ll need to if I’m going to remain living here.”

Zach read between the lines. The old woman had left the property to Josie, but that was all she had to give. Josie had barely made ends meet for the past eight years, so it was doubtful she had much of anything in savings. Now she was trying to fix up this old farmhouse on her own with few resources, so she could run a business from it and afford to remain there. His admiration for her increased. “Any other family in the area?”

“My mom lives in Cincinnati. We’re not close. My dad”—her eyes lowered—“left when I was a kid. I haven’t had any contact with him since. I have a cousin who lives nearby but that’s the extent of family in the area now.” Her mouth did a strange little thing at the mention of her cousin, and Zach wondered what that meant.

“Detective Murphy mentioned that you used to call him every year to check in, but that you hadn’t this year. That because of moving out here?”