Chapter Ten
Josie peeked out from her curtain, watching as the patrol car drove slowly past her house, the window rolled down, the officer peering at her property.
Officer Horton. He’d come to the house earlier and introduced himself, given her his card with his cell number so she could call him if she had any reason to.
Assured her he’d be at her service within a few minutes.
It was comforting, she had to admit. And surreal.
Her mind was still reeling from Detective Copeland’s visit, and as she stood there, going over what he’d told her once again, she wondered what the likelihood was that the case of the girl they’d found dead had anything to do with her.
More likely it had to do with the man who’d abducted her, right?
Someone was mimicking him for reasons unknown.
Finding new victims and using Marshall Landish’s MO.
She dropped the curtain, turning away and walking to her desk.
She sat, opening one of the file folders in front of her.
Marshall Landish’s photo greeted her as she knew it would, his grainy, black-and-white features staring at her from the employee photo of the grocery store where he’d once worked.
She picked it up, her stomach tightening with anxiety.
She made herself look at it, her eyes moving over the features of the man who’d caused her so much trauma.
The father of her baby boy. A deranged and evil man, who’d believed his actions were some sort of twisted right.
Just as always, though, she had trouble meshing the face of the man in the photo with the man under the ski mask who’d raped, terrorized, and starved her.
She couldn’t stop picturing him in her mind as that faceless monster who’d first attacked her in her bed in the middle of the night.
Her counselor had printed out the picture in the file for her after Josie had asked.
Josie had wanted to picture him as he was, not as he’d chosen to appear to her.
Faceless. She’d sought to humanize him so her panic abated.
He wasn’t some supernatural devil she had to fear.
He was just a man. And he was dead. Gone forever.
Plus, if—no, when—she found her boy, she had to know he might look like his father.
His heart and soul would be his own, but his face might be that of her tormenter.
She had to make peace with that. She could never cause her child to think she saw evil in him because of the features he could not change.
She’d visited schools a few times, sat in her car as she’d watched the kids in the grade he’d be in head out to recess.
Once she’d spotted a little boy with black hair like Marshall’s about the same age her child would be.
He’d been sitting alone, head bowed. No friends.
Her heart had lurched, stomach clenching as she stared at the lonely little boy.
Are you mine? she’d wondered. But then another little boy had sat next to him.
They’d looked so much alike, Josie had known it had to be a twin or a brother.
Her heart had sunk, and she’d driven away.
Josie stared at Marshall’s picture for another minute, annoyed with herself.
Because try as she might, she couldn’t merge the two—the man in the photo and the man in the ski mask.
Her mind simply wouldn’t allow it, was branded with Marshall not as he was but the way he’d appeared to her during the most horrific months of her life.
She had to keep working on that. Apparently eight years hadn’t been enough.
It will happen when you find him, she thought.
And in a way she hoped she would see at least a glimmer of his father in the way her son looked.
It would serve to humanize Marshall Landish further.
It would serve as a daily reminder of the light that had come from the darkness.
Her baby boy. The reason she’d kept fighting, day after day, in her hellish dungeon.
Her hope. She closed her eyes, picturing his face as she remembered it, the small cherubic features, the way he’d looked at her with so much trust. Pain blossomed in her chest, rising so suddenly, she couldn’t breathe.
It hurt. Still. But she let it, almost relished the pain.
In some ways, he was the pain, twisted in the longing she carried inside her.
It was all she had of him, and she couldn’t let it go without also allowing him to drift away.
After a moment, she closed the folder and chose another.
It held the lists of hospitals she’d called over the years, both in Cincinnati and the surrounding cities.
She’d researched what she could about Marshall Landish’s background and found he had some family in Texas, and so she’d called the hospitals and agencies there as well.
He’d been in the Army in South Carolina for a time, so there was a list from there too.
It was a long shot, but there was no avenue she wasn’t willing to travel to find him.
At one point, years before, she’d saved enough money to hire a private investigator, but his leads had all run dry, the same as the CPD’s had.
She’d visited adoption agencies in town, a few social workers who worked within the social services system, the people Marshall worked with, the few friends he had.
She’d known the police were doing the same, but it couldn’t hurt, she’d told herself.
And she hadn’t stopped after coming up blank.
She’d revisited the names on her lists again and again over the years, praying they’d heard something, or a small memory had come back.
Anything. All long shots, impossible, maybe, but she’d refused to give up.
She’d promised him, and she would not break that promise. She was his mother.
But those calls…she’d let them go this last year, one at a time.
The first one was the easiest—Detective Cedric Murphy—because she trusted that if anything came up, he’d get in touch with her.
The others were harder. Ceasing her yearly check-ins had been difficult, but like she’d told Detective Copeland, it was time.
At this point, they were only succeeding in hurting her—the inevitable negative response, the pity she heard in the voice of the contact when once again, they told her they had nothing to give her.
Plus, she reasoned, perhaps those calls were keeping her focused on dead ends.
Perhaps she needed to let those go so she could brainstorm other avenues she hadn’t considered before.
Those calls made her feel like she was still doing something, and she’d needed that.
But in reality, maybe stopping them would fuel her to turn elsewhere, somewhere new.
Somewhere that would lead to a small break.
With a tired sigh, she pushed the folders away.
She’d revisit them the next day when her mind was fresh.
She needed to get up early. She’d planned a yard sale where she could purge a portion of the stuff she’d cleared from the attic and basement and make some cash at the same time.
She’d already printed off flyers, hung them around town.
She wondered if it was too late to put up an ad on Craigslist too…
get as many people as possible out to the property to cart off some of her aunt’s old possessions for profit.
She hated crowds, but in the effort to make some money and therefore cross a few things off her list, she’d do what she had to do.
Josie unlocked her bedroom door and went down the hall to the bathroom where she brushed her teeth and washed her face.
She yawned as she emerged. God, she was tired.
It’d been a long, draining day. Emotional.
But as she started for her room, a small noise from downstairs met her ears.
A squeak. She held still as she listened, her heart rate spiking.
Another squeak as though someone was stepping slowly over the hardwood floor downstairs, pausing when he met one of the noisy floorboards.
And there was a faint…dripping in the background.
Josie’s breath caught in her throat as she pressed herself firmly against the hallway wall, waiting.
Listening. It’s an old house, she told herself.
It’s just settling. As though to confirm her thoughts, the pipe from the bathroom rattled in the wall the way it did a few minutes after the sink had been run. Normal. Usual. Nothing to fear.
Still, she waited, listening for another minute, her ears perked.
The squeaking stopped, though that faint dripping continued.
Had she left the kitchen faucet just slightly on?
She must have. When no further squeaks drifted upstairs, she gathered her courage and walked quietly to the top of the stairs, flicking on the light to the foyer below and looking over the railing.
Nothing. Her breath came easier as she descended, holding the rail firmly in her grip.
She was just feeling unsettled because of Detective Copeland’s visit, what he’d imparted to her about the recent crime. The dead girl. The memories his visit had evoked.
Outside the front window, headlights moved slowly by on the road in front of her home. Not the officer—he was only going to drive by every hour or so, and she’d watched him from her upstairs window fifteen minutes before.
She turned, walking into the kitchen where she stopped dead in her tracks, a scream rising to her throat at the sight on her kitchen table.
A dead rat. A knife stuck in its stomach, pinning it to the wood, its blood pooling on the surface and running over the edge where it dripped into a puddle on the floor.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
* * *
Zach jumped from his truck and ran toward the well-lit house, pounding his fist at the door. Craig Horton pulled it open, stepping aside to let him enter.
“Horton,” Zach said.
“Cope.”
“Where is she?” he asked as Horton pushed the door closed behind him.