Chapter Thirty-Five
The farmhouse wavered in the afternoon sun, the trees surrounding it swaying softly in the breeze.
At the sight of it, something in Josie clicked into place, causing peace to spread through her body.
At first, she didn’t recognize the feeling.
But then she realized what it was—homecoming.
She wondered if she’d ever had the feeling before and couldn’t recall if she had.
It felt good, necessary, a balm to her soul.
This was her home. And whatever it meant she had to do, she was going to fight for it.
Jimmy was waiting on the porch for them, and he raised his hand when they pulled into the driveway.
Zach had called his boss the night before, and he had approved Josie leaving the safe house.
Zach had completed his interviews in Tennessee and would keep in touch with the police there now investigating the case of the missing girl.
There hadn’t been a peep from the suspect, the campus had gotten budgetary approval to add some of their own security, which meant the police could patrol more areas, and whatever flu had taken out surrounding forces had passed.
Plus, Jimmy had supervised while her house was set up with something they’d called the RAP alarm, a temporary security system that the city had paid for.
As they stepped from the truck, Josie noticed that the railing was no longer leaning.
It had been fixed, and the whole thing painted a bright, crisp white.
Tears sprang to her eyes, though she put her hands on her hips as she approached Jimmy.
Sweet, sweet man. “Extra porch railing materials you happened to have on your boat?” she asked, not able to hide the wobble of her lips.
“Yup. Didn’t need it. It was just taking up space.”
“Right,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around him and kissing his pockmarked cheek. “I don’t deserve you, you know that?” she said as she stepped back.
“You deserve the world,” he said.
Zach approached, and she caught the look Jimmy shot him. Zach’s expression morphed into concern.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
Jimmy studied her for a beat, his expression somber. “Reagan Hutchison has gone missing.”
Josie’s heart plummeted to her feet. “What?” she whispered.
“When?” Zach asked. “She had a tail.”
“This morning. She went to an exercise class. Entered the building and never came out.”
Zach swore softly. “Cameras?”
“No video surveillance in the gym. There’s one across the street, but so far, nothing unusual on it.”
Josie’s mouth felt dry, her heart pounding with dread.
This could not be happening. She leaned back against the pillar behind her.
She pictured the warehouse room, waking up shackled to the wall.
Was Reagan in a room like that now? She shivered, wrapping her arms around herself.
How did he know? Why now? “What else?” she asked. “What else is being done?”
“We just don’t have any leads right now. Her husband is being questioned. He’s cooperating. Claims everything was fine between them.”
“Merrick?” Zach asked.
“He has an alibi. He was in a meeting with his lawyer this morning when Reagan went missing.”
“And now?”
“Home. He’s being watched. If he goes anywhere, we’ll know about it.”
“His ex-wife too?” Zach asked.
“Yeah. The boss wants us at the station,” Jimmy said. “Oxford is sending a couple officers. They should be here shortly.”
Josie shook her head. “No way.” She turned to Zach. “Let me come with you. Don’t make me sit here uselessly. Whatever comes up, I might be able to help. I might…recognize something you wouldn’t or…” She threw her hands up, frustrated, desperate. “I don’t know, but I can’t sit here. Please.”
Zach only paused for a moment. “All right, listen. We need to start calling all her friends, anyone she might have spoken to recently. We’ll get a list from her husband. Let’s go.”
* * *
The station buzzed with activity. Josie sat at Zach’s desk, waiting for him to return with the list Evan made of the names and numbers of people Reagan might have spoken to recently.
She’d called Cooper’s phone, but it had gone straight to voicemail.
It was the middle of the afternoon, though. He was probably at work.
She stared around the open room, watching the other detectives work at their desks, some on their phones, others talking among themselves.
The noise around her faded out for a minute, the moment feeling surreal, as though she were in some strange dream.
Is this how it looked, for a time, when they were looking for me?
And yet, they’d never found her. She’d had to escape on her own. Please let them find Reagan.
Zach emerged from the office where he’d been talking to Jimmy and his boss and headed her way. “Did you get a hold of him?”
“He isn’t answering.”
“What’s the name of the firm where he works?”
Josie cast her mind back. “I don’t think he said. Just that it’s an architectural firm downtown.”
“All right. There can’t be too many of those. We’ll look them up and start calling. Also,”—he held up a small piece of paper—“I got a call a few minutes ago from a woman who used to live next door to the Merricks. I met with her briefly last week.”
“What’d she say?”
“She just left a message for me to call her back. But I’d rather talk to her in person if you’re up for a ride?”
Josie stood, already heading for the door, eager to follow any lead Zach had to find her friend.
Less than fifteen minutes later they were pulling into a beautiful neighborhood in Hyde Park where Zach parked under the shade of a giant oak tree in front of a stately white brick home.
When they knocked on the turquoise door, a blond woman in her fifties pulled it open, appearing expectant for a moment and then her face clearing with recognition. “Oh, goodness, Detective Copeland. I didn’t mean for you to drive over.”
“Mrs. Parsons. It’s no trouble.”
She opened the door wider. “Please, call me Dawn and oh, I hope I’m not wasting your time.
” They followed her inside to the living room at the front of the house, large bay windows making it bright and airy.
Josie and Zach sat on the couch as Dawn took a seat on the chair across from them.
Zach introduced Josie and simply said she was offering assistance to the CPD. Dawn gave her a distracted smile.
“I spoke with Alicia a few days ago. I’d called her after I heard the news about the missing students and that Vaughn was being questioned.
She finally called me back, and we spoke briefly.
” She dragged her teeth over her bottom lip.
“I hadn’t realized Vaughn was a person of interest in the case until Alicia told me. ”
“Yes, that’s true,” Zach answered. “Do you have information about Professor Merrick?”
“No, it’s not related to him. Truthfully, I’m not sure it’s anything at all, Detective. But I’ve been stewing on it for the last few days, and I figured calling couldn’t hurt.”
“Of course. I appreciate it, whatever it is.”
“Well, the other day there was a young man on the Merricks’ old porch.
I saw him peering in the windows and then glancing back over his shoulder.
Sort of suspicious. I figured he was looking for the Merricks, but he was acting odd, and so I watched him, and he went around the house and looked in a few side windows.
I finally did go outside, and when I called out to him, he turned in the other direction and walked away.
It was like he was purposely avoiding me.
I didn’t call the police. He didn’t commit a crime, but it was just strange. ”
“Can you describe this man?”
“Tall, dark hair, he kept his face turned from me, mostly, but there was something familiar about him. I just couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Maybe someone who had visited the Merricks before. I’m sure that was it; it’s just that he was acting cagey.”
Josie glanced around the pretty house as Zach asked a few more questions.
She loved these older homes that had been updated but still retained their vintage charm.
She’d glanced at what she knew was the Merricks’ old family home as they’d approached Mrs. Parsons’s door, and a small frisson of guilt had trembled in her stomach.
That house was where Professor Merrick’s wife and daughters had sat eating dinner or watching TV as she’d had sex with their husband and father.
Regret still shook her. But now she knew just how many women he’d slept with over the years.
Had he once thought of his wife and girls as he’d recited Wordsworth to yet another gullible coed?
There was a photo gallery of the Parsons family hanging on the wall next to Josie and her eyes moved over it, taking in the happy smiles.
Dawn Parsons and her husband had obviously adopted.
They stood with two beautiful young black women in what looked like the most recent photo.
There were other pictures of the family as a group and the two girls from babyhood to present.
One photo in particular snagged her gaze, and she frowned, standing so she could see it better.
Josie stared at the photo, her blood turning to ice in her veins. “Who is this?” she asked hoarsely.
Both Mrs. Parsons and Zach stopped speaking and walked to where she stood looking at a photo of five children sitting at a picnic table in a backyard, plates of food in front of them.
Josie’s eyes moved slowly from Dawn’s two daughters, to the Merrick girls, and to the beautiful little boy—older than all four girls—sitting at the end, a large smile on his face, a slice of watermelon in his hands.
“Oh, that’s Charlie.”
“Charlie?” Josie asked. She felt slightly out of her body.
“Yes. Many years ago, Vaughn and Alicia fostered a little boy named Charlie.” She seemed lost in thought for a moment.
“Sorry. I have to admit; I pushed the idea. My husband and I had a wonderful experience with the foster-to-adopt program. Our girls completed our family. I sang its praises. They took in a boy, oh, he was about ten or eleven at the time, I suppose. Their…well, he wasn’t a great fit for their family, and they weren’t able to keep him. ”
Josie’s heart had started beating triple time.
“Do you know Charlie’s last name?” Zach asked.
Dawn wrinkled her forehead in thought. “No. You’d have to ask Alicia.”
“What about another picture?” Josie asked, her voice thin, reedy.
Dawn cast her eyes away in thought for a moment before she turned abruptly. “Hmm…let me see.” She went to a bookshelf and pulled a photo album down, leafing through it for a moment.
“Mom?” They turned as one of Dawn’s daughters stopped in the open doorway. “Did I hear you say Charlie’s name?”
“Yes, honey. Ah, this is my daughter, Nia,” she said, glancing at Zach and Josie. “Nia’s a junior studying graphic design at the Art Academy.” She turned back to Nia. “Why do you ask about Charlie?”
Nia looked from her mother to Zach and Josie.
“I saw him a few years ago. I don’t think I ever mentioned it.
You were out of town, and I just forgot.
He recognized me and said hello. I don’t think I would have recognized him otherwise.
I was so young when he lived next door.” She shrugged.
“Anyway, he said he was doing great. He asked after the Merricks, and I told him about the woman who’d been yelling on their lawn about Mr. Merrick and gotten arrested by the police.
” Her eyes skittered away, and she seemed momentarily embarrassed.
“I probably shouldn’t have. It was gossipy.
But he just laughed, said, ‘same old Vaughn.’ I don’t know if it’s important or not, but I know you’re trying to solve those cases, and I heard you mention his name, and that memory came to me. ”
“Thank you, Nia,” Zach said. “We appreciate the information.”
“Could that be why the man on the Merricks’ porch looked familiar, Mrs. Parsons?” Zach asked.
She appeared to think about that but then shook her head. “I can’t say for sure. Possibly, but no way I could swear to it. I just didn’t get a good enough look at him.”
Nia left the room, and Dawn turned around, continuing to leaf through the album.
“I’m ashamed to say I hadn’t thought about Charlie in a long, long time,” she said, replacing that one and pulling another one down.
“I suppose he must have felt like a throwaway boy.” She flipped another page and another.
“In some ways, I suppose he would have been right.” She stopped, turning to them. “Ah, here we go.”
Zach and Josie both met her in the middle of the room. They stared at another photo—this one closer up—of all five kids standing on the curb, backpacks slung over their shoulders, a first-day-of-school sign held in the only boy’s hands.
He was young, just a kid. But Josie knew him immediately. It was Cooper.