Chapter Eight #2
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?”
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 fiddled 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.
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 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?”
She stared at him for a moment. “How is Detective Murphy?”
“He’s good. Same old Murphy. Needs to cut back on his wife’s cooking.” He smiled, and Josie’s eyes went to his mouth.
She gave him a small, nervous smile. “He’s a good man. He cared.”
“Very much,” Zach agreed. “He still does.”
Josie looked at her hands in her lap for a moment.
“I suppose the reason I didn’t check in this year had some to do with moving out here.
But it was also just…time. At first, I felt almost…
obligated, you know? It felt like a small sort of giving up, and I was just never ready before.
And I haven’t given up. But that call, it only served to hurt me, really.
Maybe I almost needed that for a while, but I don’t anymore.
” She smiled at him again, a sad one, and it made his heart pinch.
She was honest, even when it was painful, which meant she was strong. Possibly stronger than she realized. That pull again. Christ.
Creases appeared between her wide brown eyes. “Detective, do you think this copycat has any interest in me? Should I be concerned?”
“I have no concrete reason to think so. But he is mimicking your case, at least in a few ways. It’s part of the reason I came to speak to you, to let you know what’s going on.
” He hated to put fear into this woman who’d already dealt with so much and seemed to be in a good place emotionally, but he also wouldn’t risk her safety.
“I have a few friends who work for the Oxford Police, and they’re going to have a uniform car drive by your home every hour, just to be on the safe side and so you have no cause for worry.
You’ll probably see them. They’ll drive slowly and canvass the area.
They won’t intrude. They’ll just check out the house and surrounding areas and make sure there’s no suspicious activity during the day or at night. ”
“For how long?”
“Until we determine there’s no longer a need.” Until we solve this case and catch the motherfucker who not only killed a woman but is causing you to emotionally experience your own crime again. Bastard.
Zach drank the last of his tea, setting his glass down on the tray a little harder than he’d meant to and removing a business card from his pocket.
Josie took it from his outstretched hand.
“If you think of something that might help with this new case or if you need anything at all, don’t hesitate to call me on my personal cell phone.
” He tipped his chin toward the card in her hand.
She nodded, that crease still present between her brows.
He had the ridiculous desire to reach up with his thumb and smooth it out.
“Thank you for your time and the information.” He looked around at the porch, swept clean, not a cobweb to be seen, but the railing was sagging slightly and in need of repair, the furniture old and cracking, pieces of the wicker broken away.
“And good luck with getting this place up and running.”
She stood and gave him one last smile. “Thank you, Detective,” she murmured.
Their eyes lingering for a heartbeat, before he turned and jogged down her steps, pulled out of her driveway, and moved away from her farmhouse. When he glanced in his rearview mirror, she was still standing on the porch, watching him as he left.