The reason she’d kept fighting, day after day, in her hellish dungeon. Her hope. She closed her eyes, picturing his face as she remembered it, the small cherubic features, the way he’d looked at her with so much trust. Pain blossomed in her chest, rising so suddenly, she couldn’t breathe. It hurt. Still. But she let it, almost relished the pain. In some ways, he was the pain, twisted in the longing she carried inside her. It was all she had of him, and she couldn’t let it go without also allowing him to drift away.
After a moment, she took a deep breath, closing the folder and choosing another. It held the lists of hospitals she’d called over the years, both in Cincinnati and the surrounding cities. She’d looked into Marshall Landish’s background and found he had some family in Texas, and so she’d called the hospitals and agencies there as well. He’d been in the Army in South Carolina for a time, so there was a list from there too. It was a long shot, but there was no avenue she wasn’t willing to travel to find him.
At one point, years before, she’d saved enough money to hire a private investigator, but his leads had all run dry, the same as the CPD’s had.
She’d visited adoption agencies in town, a few social workers who worked within the social services system, the people Marshall worked with, the few friends he had. She’d known the police were doing the same, but it couldn’t hurt, she’d told herself. And she hadn’t stopped after coming up blank. She’d revisited the names on her lists again and again over the years, praying they’d heard something, or a small memory had come back. Something. All long shots, impossible maybe, but she’d refused to give up. She’d promised him, and she would not break that promise. She was his mother.
But those calls . . . she’d let them go this last year, one at a time. The first one was the easiest—Detective Cedric Murphy—because she trusted that if anything came up, he’d get in touch with her. The others were harder. Ceasing her yearly check-ins had been difficult, but like she’d told Detective Copeland, it was time. At this point, they were only succeeding in hurting her—the inevitable negative response, the pity she heard in the voice of the contact when once again, they told her they had nothing to give to her. Plus, she reasoned, perhaps those calls were keeping her focused on dead ends. Perhaps she needed to let those go so she could brainstorm other avenues she hadn’t considered before. Those calls made her feel like she was still doing something, and she’d needed that. But in reality, maybe stopping them would fuel her to turn elsewhere, somewhere new. Somewhere that would lead to a small break.
With a tired sigh, she pushed the folders away. She’d revisit them the next day when her mind was fresh. She needed to get up early. She’d planned a yard sale where she could purge a portion of the stuff she’d cleared from the attic and basement and make some cash at the same time. She’d already printed off flyers, hung them around town. She wondered if it was too late to put up an ad on Craigslist too . . . get as many people as possible out to the property to cart off some of her aunt’s old possessions for profit.
She hated crowds . . . but, in the effort to bring in some money in order to cross a few things off her list, she’d do what she had to do.
Josie unlocked her bedroom door and went down the hall to the bathroom where she brushed her teeth and washed her face. She yawned as she emerged. God, she was tired. It’d been a long, draining day. Emotional. But as she started for her room, a small noise from downstairs met her ears. A squeak. She paused, holding still as she listened, her heart rate spiking. Another squeak as though someone was stepping slowly over the hardwood floor downstairs, pausing when he met one of the noisy floorboards. And there was a faint . . . dripping in the background.
Josie’s breath caught in her throat as she pressed herself firmly against the hallway wall, waiting. Listening. It’s an old house, she told herself. It’s just settling. As though to confirm her thoughts, the pipe from the bathroom rattled in the wall the way it