Chapter Eight
Josie used the wooden clothespin to pin the sheet to the line, wind lifting the heavy wet fabric and setting it back down with a soft thwap.
Fresh air and the scent of clean laundry met Josie’s nose.
A new dryer was on her second-tier list of things to buy for the bed and breakfast, but she had to admit there was a distinct pleasure in fresh line-dried—
A large shadow loomed behind the material, and she sucked in a breath, taking a step back as her heart thundered. Oh please, God, no. A hand reached around the white fabric, moving it aside as Josie’s muscles tensed in preparation for flight. “Sorry, Josie, Ms. Stratton, ah…”
A man in dark gray pants and a white button-down shirt stepped through the flapping material.
“Cincinnati Police, ma’am.” He seemed to note the fear on her face, the way her body was held rigid, and he halted, unclipping something from his belt and holding it out in front of him.
Her eyes darted to it. A badge. Her shoulders relaxed a fraction, and she released a breath, realizing she was holding a wet piece of something clutched to her chest and that the wetness was seeping through her shirt.
She tossed it in the laundry basket sitting on the grass and wiped her damp palms down her hips.
“I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to startle you.
I, ah”—he pointed back over his shoulder—“I knocked on the door, but no one answered.”
“No,” she said, getting hold of herself, “I was out here.” His introduction registered. Cincinnati Police. With a jolt, it suddenly occurred to her that he might have information about her son. She stepped forward. “Is this about—”
“No,” he said, flinching slightly, seeming to know immediately what she’d been about to ask. “We don’t have any new information about your son. I’m sorry about that.” He did look truly sorry, this stranger. “I have a couple of questions about a new case if you can spare me a few minutes.”
She regarded him for a moment, confusion sweeping through her. Confusion and disappointment. For a brief second there, she’d allowed herself to…hope. “Sure, Officer.”
“It’s detective,” he said, taking a small step forward.
“Detective Copeland.” Now that her heart had resumed its normal pace and she could think straight—see straight—she took the stranger in.
Tall and handsome. Dark hair and eyes, bronzed skin.
He appeared to be Hispanic, but the last name Copeland didn’t speak to that.
They stood there staring at each other for several long beats, a strange something simmering in the air between them.
The way he was looking at her… It made her feel exposed, jumpy, so she picked up the laundry basket, moving beyond the flapping fabric and turning back to where he stood.
“If you’ll follow me, Detective Copeland, we can sit on the porch. ”
They walked the short distance to the house, and she took a seat in the same chair she’d sat in a few days before when she’d met with her bully of a cousin. Detective Copeland took a seat across from her and squinted off into the yard behind her. “Nice place. Peaceful.”
“It needs a lot of work, but it’s getting there.”
“You live with your aunt, Ms. Stratton?”
“Josie. And no, my aunt passed away six months ago in a care facility. She left this place to me.” She looked toward the farmland beyond, the same way he’d done a moment before. All ten acres that now belonged to her.
“I’m sorry. About your aunt.” He rubbed at the back of his neck and then nodded to the house. “You plan on running it as a bed-and-breakfast again?”
Again. So he knew it’d been closed for a while.
He worked for the Cincinnati Police Department.
He probably knew a whole lot about her. Why this man was here and not one of the detectives she’d become familiar with?
She didn’t know. “That’s the plan.” If I can figure out how to fix about seventeen things on my tier-one list with a couple thousand bucks in the bank.
“Detective, what can I help you with?” She braced herself.
She had to figure this man—for whatever reason they’d sent him, a detective who looked more like a Hollywood movie star than someone who worked with dead bodies—was here to tell her the case of her missing baby was being closed or filed as a cold case or however that sort of thing worked.
It’s fine, she told herself. They can close it if they want. I never will.
Detective Copeland leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees.
His dark eyes appeared black in the shade of her porch, his lashes long and lush, curled upward.
His shoulders were broad, his white dress shirt pulled tight over his biceps in the position he was in.
This man exuded masculinity. He was nothing like Cedric Murphy, the pot-bellied detective with the kind smile and the heavy-lidded eyes, the detective she still had a soft spot for, though she hadn’t spoken to him in…
over a year. And even before that, it’d always been so brief.
Detective Copeland seemed to be measuring her, choosing the words he was about to say carefully, the way people did who were familiar with her abduction.
As if, even though almost a decade had passed, she might shatter if it was mentioned.
As if she might have forgotten for a while and having it brought up would remind her.
If only. “A few days ago, we found the body of a woman chained up in the basement of an abandoned house in Clifton.”
She froze. She hadn’t expected that. “A body? Chained?” The last word emerged croaky, and she cleared her throat.
Detective Copeland leaned back, nodding, his eyes fixed on her face. “Yes. Steel rings had been drilled into the concrete walls to hold the chain.”
She felt cold suddenly. “I see. And the girl, how had she died?”
“She starved to death.”
Josie let out a small, choked sound, sliding down slightly in her chair. “My God,” she murmured. “But, Detective, if you’re here because you think it’s the same man who—”
Detective Copeland held up his hand. “I know. The man who abducted you died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Your case was closed. I read the file. All of it.”
“So then you know it can’t be related to my case.
It’s just one similarity—the chains.” That couldn’t be completely unique.
She had no earthly idea how often a crime like hers was committed, but chains, they…
must be used sometimes…to imprison a victim…
they… She shook her head, attempting to shake loose her meandering thoughts, her spiraling anxiety.
“There’s more. Words were carved into this woman’s thigh. The knife went so deep, they were evident on her bone.”
“Oh,” emerged as half breath, half word, and Josie unconsciously brought her fingers to the place where she wore the scar of what Marshall Landish had done to her.
Casus belli. She still carried the blame he’d assigned to her.
She always would. In her flesh…in her soul.
When she realized where her hand had gone, she removed it, her fingers fluttering slightly before she laced her hands and set them in her lap.
She met the detective’s gaze. Shrewd, measuring, but…
kind. His eyes were tight at the corners, his full lips set in a pinched line.
He was worried about how she was processing this news.
She sat up straight, bolstered by his empathy. “I don’t understand,” she said.
“We think it’s a copycat. All elements that appear similar to your case were documented in the news. Someone could have read about them and sought to recreate the crime. We just don’t know why. Is there anything you can think of that might shed some light on this girl’s death?”
Josie shook her head slowly. “No, I… Do you know anything about her yet?”
He paused for a heartbeat as though he were deciding whether to answer her question. “We haven’t informed her family, but we believe she’s a local woman who worked in a restaurant in Hyde Park. She didn’t come home from work one night.”
She scraped her top teeth over her bottom lip. “It has to be a stranger. Just using the information available from my case, for whatever reason.” Josie swallowed. “Was she…raped?”
The detective nodded solemnly. “Yes. But in this girl’s case, he used a condom. We haven’t discovered any DNA evidence on the unknown suspect as of yet, though testing is still being done.”
Josie stared at him, her heart thumping, the heavy feeling of grief descending over her.
Finally she nodded. What could she say? “Would you, ah, like a glass of iced tea, Detective?” She figured he had a few more questions, and she could use a moment to gather herself.
And the day was warming, the sun high in the sky.
“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.”