Where the Blame Lies(19)

“And my mother?” Josie whispered, turning her eyes away. She didn’t care. She told herself she didn’t care.

When she looked back at Marshall though, his eyes were narrowed as he studied her. He shook his head. “Your mother hasn’t come by.”

“So you . . . spend a lot of time there? Volunteering?” she asked. She somehow knew he did, thought he probably got off on it. Walking from his apartment to the second floor where she and Reagan lived, acting all concerned, making calls maybe, his stutter growing worse as he spoke to strangers, passing out flyers . . . Leaving to feed her, rape her, returning with her still on his skin to comfort the people who actually cared for her. A shudder went through her.

“As much as I c-can. I have to w-work too, you know.”

“Where do you work?”

He barked out a laugh. “Oh right, you c-care about me now, d-do you?”

She ignored his sarcasm and he let out a sigh. “I’m the n-night manager at a store.”

“What do they think happened to me?” she whispered.

“That some s-stranger nabbed you.” He made a small sound that might have been a humorless laugh. “It’s n-never the stranger, though, is it? It’s always s-someone you know, s-someone you should trust that h-hurts you the worst. Isn’t that t-true, Josie?”

There was something strange in his voice that made a chill go down her spine. Was he talking about her? How her rejection had hurt him? It was all she could think of. The only reason that could explain this. “That’s what the statistics say,” she said softly. “It’s usually someone the victim knows.”

He laughed, a real one, though she heard meanness in it. “Is that what you are? A v-victim?” He reached over and used his fist to pound on the wound on her thigh. She cried out in pain, drawing her leg up.

“Both,” she said on a strangled breath. “I’m both. Aren’t we all?” Tears streaked down her cheeks, though she tried to hold them back. “Sometimes the victim, sometimes the perpetrator? None of us are one or the other. We’re all both to different degrees.”

She bent her head and used her knee to wipe her nose, her tears drying. She’d been thinking about that a lot lately, considering her life, her choices, the reasons behind them. Thinking about her past and how it affected her present. Maybe any self-reflection was pointless considering she’d most likely die in that warehouse room, but what else did she have to do? She was constantly terrified, alone, all her raw emotions right at the surface. She wasn’t sure she could stop her mind from spinning if she tried. She’d had no choice but to look at her feelings, and all the time in the world to examine each and every one.

“T-tell me, Josie, tell me about the b-bad things you’ve done,” he said after a minute.

She turned her head, swallowed, unsure what he wanted to hear. He’d told her he knew everything about her . . . He didn’t look back at her, his masked face pointed forward, staring at the wall in front of them.

She let out a breath, her shoulders drooping as she looked away. “I had an affair with a married man.”

“I already knew that. You’re a whore. It’s w-what whores do.”

Was she a whore? Obviously not using the classic definition, but that’s not what Marshall meant anyway. He meant that she was promiscuous. She flaunted herself. She made men want her, and then she rejected them, or used them for her own selfish purposes. She knew that’s what he thought of her, and those thoughts were exacerbated by whatever madness ruled his mind. Because he had to be mentally ill. No sane human chained another person to a cement wall and raped them repeatedly. No one sane carved words into another person’s flesh. No one sane killed another person or left them to die, and somehow Josie knew that’s where this was all heading for her. “I’m not a whore,” she said calmly. “I loved him.” I thought I still did, only I haven’t thought of him much since I’ve been down here, and that’s probably very telling.

Marshall laughed. “You loved him? He wasn’t yours to love. Other people must have loved him too. They probably waited for him to come home, but he didn’t. Because he was busy fucking you.” He spoke quickly, fluidly, anger lacing his tone and making his voice deeper.

“I know,” she said, and her voice was small. But not as small as she felt. “I know, because I’ve been the one waiting too. My father cheated on my mother repeatedly. They fought, he’d leave, and then she’d take out her rage and helplessness on me. I know about that part too.” She wondered why she was telling him this, and why he was listening. Would it make any difference if he knew something about her? The times she’d hurt like maybe he had hurt? Would it make her human in his eyes? Make him decide to spare her life? She didn’t know, and she didn’t dare hope, but even so, the things she was saying needed to be said. Not for him as much as for her. She needed to voice these truths, express her contrition, because if she was going to die, she wanted to do it with a partially cleansed soul. It was the only thing she had left for which she was in control.

“So you did it to someone else to g-get back at your father? Your mother?” He sounded genuinely interested.

“No,” she said, turning her head toward him. “No.” She stared forward again, considering. She’d met Vaughn Merrick—Professor Vaughn Merrick—in her English class. She’d fallen for his striking looks and his boyish smile, the way he held his class spellbound with his passion as he quoted Shakespeare and Hemingway, Austen and Dickens. She’d been leaving in the rain after class one day when he’d offered her a ride. There was an old-school Police song with lyrics about that, wasn’t there? God, she was such a cliché. He’d driven her home, turned his usual flirtation up a notch, and she’d invited him in. He’d made love to her all afternoon as the rain pounded outside her windows. Later, they’d lain in bed together, their legs entwined as he’d quoted poetry to her. It was the most romantic and sensual thing she’d ever experienced. A month later, she found out he was married as she stood frozen in an art gallery watching him with his wife, hands clasped, the wedding ring he didn’t wear to class glinting on his finger. There were two pre-teen girls next to them, giggling softly at whatever he’d bent to whisper in their ears, gazing at him adoringly. The perfect family.