He started his truck, pulling out of the parking lot, a heavy feeling in his chest, the long-ago echo of Josie’s anguished cries ringing in his head.
CHAPTER FIVE
Before
The days melted together, one into the other. Josie tried to think of a way to free herself, but with her hands chained behind her back, she was helpless. She could see a portion of the chains when she looked over her shoulder, but couldn’t tell what the lock looked like, or even where it was. The shackles were tight around her wrists. She had no chance of escaping them.
Sometimes she yelled long and loud until her voice and spirit broke, her cries turning to croaky whimpers as snot trailed from her nose and slid over her lips.
Marshall didn’t come every day and when he did show up, sometimes he only stayed for a few minutes, and other times a little longer. Sometimes he raped her, sometimes he didn’t. Even when he didn’t, she expected it, flinched at every movement he made, until she was so wound up with fear that she almost wished he’d just do it and get it over with. Anticipating the degradation was almost as bad as the reality of it.
When he did violate her, she tried to force her mind to drift away, but she couldn’t. She’d read once about a girl who had been brutally attacked but had no memory of what happened to her. The mind could be your protector, she thought. But apparently hers didn’t work that way, because she couldn’t drift anywhere. She was painfully present each time he laid on top of her, parting her legs and violating her, her dry flesh tearing with his invasion.
She thought of her childhood, how she’d tried to drift away back then too, when her mother had sought her out, drunk and rejected by her father, taking out her anger on Josie in any number of ways. She’d prayed to God to send her father back, to catch her mother hurting her, to protect her, to love her, to stay. Of course, he never had. But she hadn’t been able to block it out back then either. Why couldn’t she? Why was every word, every slam, every stinging slap that came her way seared into her memory, as clear as day? Whatever trick there was to shutting down your mind in the midst of horror, Josie didn’t know it. It was an endless reel of torment. No rest. Only agony.
Marshall had brought her a short bucket, more like a pan really, which she managed to maneuver underneath herself with her feet when she needed to, using her shackled hands to work her shorts down from behind. It was a pitiful set of awkward movements that Josie had mastered after a few days. And though using a bucket for a toilet was a further humiliation, at least he hadn’t left her to sit in her own waste.
He brought her food sometimes, but not every time, and her bones began poking through her skin, making it painful to sleep on the hard, cement floor. Her body ached. She was so hungry, so incredibly hungry.
At first she hated to hear his footsteps on the stairs, the sound of the lock turning. She dreaded his arrival, dreaded what he would do to her. But after what she calculated was a month or so, she began praying to hear his footsteps, praying he’d come back. What if he didn’t? What if he left her to slowly starve to death alone and shackled? She sobbed at the thought, pulling at her chains uselessly again until her wrists bled. The thought alone terrified her. Will I ever be free again, or will I die this way?
He came to her that night, the bulb from the outer hall washing the room in light. He had bread, cheese, sliced turkey, and water. He fed her the food and she ate it hungrily. It was so good it made tears trickle down her cheeks. Then he opened the water, tipping it back so she could drink. Their gazes met and held as she drank the water he offered, his hand cupped under her mouth to catch the drips. His eyes were golden hazel in the darkness of the surrounding ski mask. There was something almost loving in his gaze, like the moment was special to him too, or maybe she was imagining that. Maybe I’m developing Stockholm syndrome, she thought. She’d learned about that in the psychology class she’d taken the semester before. She hadn’t been able to understand how that could happen. It sounded ludicrous. This experience was really furthering her education, she thought, an hysterical laugh bubbling up her throat that she knew would emerge as a sob if she let it out. She swallowed it down along with the last sip of water.
He removed the bottle from her lips and stood. Her heart constricted. He was going to leave now. Leave her alone in the dark again. “Please stay,” she whispered, her voice pleading. “Please don’t go.” Even when he was touching her in unwanted ways, defiling her, it was better than the silent nothingness, the awful aloneness of day after day and night after horrible night. She’d never known such utter loneliness.
He stared down at her. “You stink.”
“Then wash me.”
She saw his eyes narrow minutely and he seemed to hesitate, but he nodded. “I’ll be back.”
He did come back, the very next morning, and he used baby wipes to clean her body. He was gentle between her legs, and as he moved the cloth over her, the pace of his breathing increased. He was aroused. She squeezed her eyes shut as he mounted her, dirtying her once again. But afterward he washed her once more, though the cloth moved more harshly over her tender skin as he wiped away his semen. “I s-see why all those men wanted you, Josie. You think I d-don’t? You think I don’t know that you’ve gotten to me too? There’s something about y-you. Something that makes men weak, even m-me. Whores like you have their dirty tricks, don’t they, J-Josie? Whores have a w-way of making men d-do things they know they shouldn’t. Bad, b-bad things. Things that r-ruin lives.”
She didn’t speak, as tears coursed down her cheeks. He wiped her face and then used another cloth to clean her scalp, moving her hair this way and that. He tied it up in a rubber band he’d brought and then stood, stepping back and looking down at her. His eyes were flinty, despite the warm color of his irises. He zipped up his pants and left her alone once more. Alone in the darkness, the worst type of solitude.
CHAPTER SIX
Zach found Cedric Murphy sitting in the break room with his feet up on the table, scrolling through his phone. “Cope,” he greeted,
his deep voice friendly, his smile wide. Zach liked the older detective and had often sought his advice on cases. He might be skating by a bit for the next twelve months, but his knowledge of the job was invaluable. In his twenty-four years, Zach figured Murphy had just about seen it all. Zach had the vague memory of the man ducking into Josie’s hospital room all those years ago, his expression grim, his jaw tight.
When Murphy saw the look on Zach’s face, he sat back from his computer, frowning. “What’s up?”
“Hey Murphy. I need to get some information from you about an old case.”
“Yeah? Which one?”
“The Josie Stratton abduction? You remember it?”
Murphy blew out a breath, coming to his feet. “Remember it? I’ll never forget it. What do you need to know and why?”
Zach lowered his voice. “We could have a copycat.”
Murphy looked briefly stunned. “You serious?” He paused. “I have her file box stored down the hall. Wait for me in interview room one and we’ll talk.”
None of the detectives had offices, just an open floor with desks, so they sometimes used interview rooms to get some privacy. Zach entered interview room one and waited for Murphy. He came in five minutes later, holding an evidence box that he set on the table. “What makes you suspect a copycat?”
They both took a seat and Zach broke down the crime scene he’d been at the night before, and then the meeting with Cathlyn that morning.