“What about the other p-players? What about them?”
Josie sighed. “You can’t change them.”
“No,” he murmured. He turned his head, his hazel eyes catching the light for a moment. She saw that he had a ring of dark brown surrounding the lighter hazel. She’d never seen eyes like his before. “But you c-can make them suffer.” He smiled then, she could tell by the movement of his mask. A deep chill went down her spine as he stood and left.
CHAPTER TEN
Josie peeked out 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.