Collapsed and straightened.
Collapsed and straightened.
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 stock 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 attempted a deep breath. 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.” She paused as if trying to remember the exact words. “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 for 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 canvasing 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, looking 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.