Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 107766 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107766 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
“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.”
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.