Chapter Forty-Four
Yo, Cope, officer from District Three is on line one,” the officer answering phones called to him as he walked by, on his way to the break room to warm up his cold coffee.
He frowned as he turned back toward his desk. “Thanks.” He set his mug down amidst the piles of paperwork, connecting line one. “Detective Copeland.”
“Detective Copeland, this is Officer Leone from District Three. We have Josie Stratton here with us.”
Zach sat up ramrod straight in his chair. “Josie Stratton is being given protection at her home in Oxford.”
“Ah, yeah. I’m going to put Ms. Stratton on the line. She’ll need to fill you in. The entire District Three is on the lookout for the suspect. I put out a citywide call right before I dialed your number.”
Suspect?
Zach’s head felt hot. What the fuck is going on? “Zach?” Josie’s voice.
“Are you okay?” he barked, more harshly than he’d meant.
“Yes. I’m fine. Now. Now I’m fine.” She told him about Charles Hartsman impersonating her lawyer, luring her to the park where Reed was playing baseball.
She told him how he’d apparently taken Rain’s purse and then sedated her somehow when she returned for it.
How he’d come up behind Josie and made it seem as if he had a weapon pressed against her side, the things he’d said, and how he’d quickly disappeared.
“Holy fuck!” Zach yelled, coming to his feet.
“Okay.” He reminded himself to breathe. Josie was all right.
She was okay. He could hear that she was.
He wouldn’t entertain what-if scenarios right then.
He would not. Though despite his assertion to himself, a deep tremble moved down his spine.
Charles Hartsman could have killed her. Right there in broad daylight as she’d stood at a fence watching her little boy on a baseball field.
But he hadn’t. He hadn’t. Why the fuck hadn’t he?
“I’m sorry, Zach,” she whispered. “I should have known it wasn’t Mr. Hornsby. I should have known. I was just so… God, I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right. You’re okay. Everyone’s okay.” He forced his muscles to relax. “You said he quoted something?” he asked, in reference to what Charles had mentioned when she’d asked about Reagan.
“Yes. At least it sounded like a quote. The dark night will end and the sun will rise,” she said. “Or something very similar.”
“Okay,” Zach said, sitting back down and opening a browser.
“Hold on.” He typed in the phrase she’d just said, and a similar quote by Victor Hugo immediately came up.
Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.
“Good job, Josie. Now, listen, the officers are going to drive you back home, and then you stay put, okay? Promise me.”
“I promise you.”
“I’ll call you as soon as I know something.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
There was an uncomfortable pause. There were so many things he longed to tell her.
He wanted to shake her and then take her in his arms, never let her go.
But he couldn’t do that, and now was not the time to talk.
“Call you later.” Zach hung up the phone and stared at the screen in front of him.
What did that quote have to do with Reagan?
Victor Hugo. He sat up straight, his heart racing, something occurring to him.
There was a Victor Street right near campus with a few abandoned homes near the bottom.
He grabbed his phone and called for a canvassing of any and every vacant house on Victor Street.
Holy shit, was he reading that clue right?
Or did it mean nothing at all? His head was still swimming.
That psychopath had impersonated Josie’s lawyer.
To such a believable degree that Josie hadn’t even questioned that it was him.
How? Had he gone down to the courthouse and watched him at trial for a few minutes?
The guy was a fucking genius. Where had he learned to do that?
Was it what kept him halfway sane as he’d sat in a locked closet, hungry and alone, becoming anyone other than himself? Jesus.
Casus belli. What had Josie said the guy mentioned about casus belli?
He opened another browser window and looked up the term.
Yes, it cast blame. But as Charles Hartsman had said, it was also defined as an act that justifies a war.
The final battle is over, that’s what he’d told Josie.
So what the fuck did that mean? Reagan? Only, it appeared as though he’d given a clue to Reagan’s whereabouts.
It could mean she was dead and he was simply pointing them to the location of her body. But if she was found alive…
Then the final battle had been waged elsewhere.
If the women who had cheated with the professor were not the final battle, then it only made sense that it was the professor himself who Charles Hartsman had saved for last.
But the professor hadn’t left his house in a week. At least, that’s the information the officers observing his house had reported. Zach himself could vouch for the professor being home the week before as he’d spoken to him from the porch. Zach froze, a cold dawning sweeping through him.
He hadn’t seen him.
Only spoken to him.
Shit, shit, shit! Had he spoken not to Vaughn Merrick behind that curtain but Charles Hartsman impersonating the professor?
Had it been Charles Hartsman—as he suspected—that Dawn Parsons had seen at the Merrick’s old house?
Had he located the professor’s new address and gone there directly after he’d found their old home vacant?
Fuck! He stood abruptly, turning and heading for the door.
Jimmy was just walking in from lunch, his expression taking on surprise when he saw Zach. “Hey, I just heard—”
“Let’s go. I think the professor’s life is in danger if he hasn’t already been killed.”
“What the what?” Jimmy sputtered as he followed Zach out the front door and toward his car. As Zach sped to the professor’s house, he updated Jimmy on everything that had transpired in the half hour since his partner had gone out to grab a quick lunch.
“Holy shit,” Jimmy said. “He’s his final victim. Casus belli. The professor performed the act that began the war. It all ends with him.”
“Yes, and if we can get there fast enough, we might catch him.” Only Zach had a sinking feeling in his stomach. The final battle is over now.
Over.
Zach pulled up to the curb directly in front of the professor’s house and he and Jimmy hopped out of the vehicle. Zach jogged to where the unmarked car was parked, a different officer at the wheel than the week before. Zach flashed his badge and introduced himself. “Any activity?”
“Not since last week. Seems like the guy is holing up. I heard the university canned him.”
The final battle. Zach’s heart was pumping harshly. “I have reason to believe something’s not right in there,” he said. “I’m going to go in. Stay here, watch our back from the street?”
The officer’s eyes registered surprise. “Yes, sir. Whatever you need.”
Zach met back up with Jimmy where he waited in front of the professor’s home.
“Come on.” They went up the steps and banged loudly on the front door.
There was no answer from inside. “Open up, Professor,” Zach yelled, pounding again, giving the guy a chance to get to the door if he was sleeping or in a more distant part of the house.
They waited a moment, eyes meeting when, from deep inside the home, could be heard the unmistakable sound of moaning.
They both unholstered their weapons. “Break it down?” Jimmy asked.
No time to call for backup. No time to call for S.W.A.T. Zach waved to the unmarked car across the street, hoping the officer would understand his meaning and make the call. Zach eyed the standard lock, not exactly flimsy, but nothing that couldn’t be kicked in. “Yup.”
“I’ll let you take care of that,” Jimmy said. “I got the brains; you’re the one with the brawn.”
Despite the adrenaline coursing through Zach’s system, he gave his partner a wry look and stood back, taking aim before kicking the door swiftly and with all his strength. The wood splintered, door swinging open.
“Nice, Hercules,” Jimmy said as they both took cover on either side of the doorway. Zach raised his gun as he spied the entryway.
“Cincinnati Police!” he shouted.
For a moment there was only silence, and then they heard a distant moan and a soft thud.
Zach went in first, clearing the area, Jimmy following.
The soft moaning was coming from below. They moved through the house, using the tactics they’d perfected during their days in uniform.
Adrenaline flowed swiftly through Zach’s veins, his heart rate increasing as his body geared up for a potential fight.
Jimmy tipped his chin toward a door next to the kitchen, where something else made a soft thud from below.
He pulled the door open, and they both moved to the side.
“Cincinnati Police!” Jimmy called down the stairs, peeking around the doorframe and quickly moving back.
He reached his hand around and flipped on a switch. “All clear.”
They moved down the steps, calling out their arrival and sweeping their weapons in both directions once the stairwell opened up.
Zach drew back at the stench that met his nose when they turned the corner of the stairs into the main room of the unfinished basement.
The sight that met his eyes made vomit move up his throat. He swallowed it down, moving forward, toward the human form that sat propped against the wall, one hand chained behind his back, moaning piteously.
Professor Merrick.
His face was a mask of dried blood and meaty skin, as though he’d been carved up.
And his nose was missing, two skeletal holes gaping in the middle of his face.
The smell of urine and feces made Zach gag.
He’d obviously been sitting like this for several days, if not longer.
Next to him lay water bottles, some empty, some full.
Hydration to keep him alive until he was found.
Holy Christ.
Footsteps sounded above, voices calling out. The cavalry had arrived. As Zach turned to call out their location, he noticed words written on the wall in what looked like the professor’s blood: Bellum finivit. Zach only knew a handful of Latin words, but he could figure that one out.
The war is over.
Zach called out to the officers above, telling them the scene was secure and to call a bus. The professor needed immediate medical attention.
“Cope,” one of the officers said as he passed. “We found Reagan Hutchison chained up in one of the vacant homes on Victor Street. She’s alive, just dehydrated and malnourished. She’s being transported now. She’s okay. We got her.”