Where the Blame Lies

He sat beside her as she drove into town, the sun rising in the sky, the morning clear and already beginning to warm. She’d advertised her garage sale starting at noon but she’d realized she had forgotten to buy stickers to use as price tags, so she needed to make the trip quickly, and get back so she could get everything out and labeled.

Josie pulled into the twenty-four-hour grocery store parking lot. “I’m just going to run in real fast—” But the detective was already climbing out of the car. Apparently she had a shadow today. It was awkward, yes, but she couldn’t say it didn’t also bring relief. If he wasn’t there, she’d have been jumpy all day, unsettled. The visual of that rat forefront in her mind. As it was, Jimmy’s large presence brought comfort. Safety. And she appreciated it because it was important she focus on other things, namely earning a small amount of cash. She’d come a long way since the days when she could barely leave her apartment without jumping at her own shadow, but it’d also been a long time since she didn’t glance over her own shoulder repeatedly out of habit alone.

She located the package of round stickers she needed and took them to the self-checkout lane. As they were heading out of the store, Josie caught sight of the flyer she’d put up two weeks before advertising the sale. Her footsteps stalled and she frowned, walking over to the large bulletin board where community members posted things under the headings the grocery store management had put at the top of the board: For Sale, Help Wanted, Coupons, etc. Next to her flyer, was pinned the printout of an old newspaper article. Josie’s heart stalled and her mouth went dry. The headline read: Missing College Student Escapes Torture Chamber, and the subheading under that: Raped, starved and impregnated, Josie Stratton begs public to help find her missing son. The accompanying picture of her was jarring—expression vacant, eyes huge and haunted in her gaunt face, hair unkempt. It was a still photo from the news conference she’d given from her hospital bed, begging the public to come forward with any information they might have. She’d tried to clean herself up, thought she’d looked halfway decent, but looking at it now, she saw that in actuality, she’d looked like a raving lunatic. That day came back to her in all its wild desperation. A vise gripped Josie’s ribcage and squeezed. She let out a labored breath, pulling the printout down, including the flyer for the garage sale she’d planned, the flyer that included her address.

With both pieces of paper clutched in her fist, she walked quickly out of the store. Blood roared in her ears, but somewhere in the back of her mind, she registered the heavy footsteps of Jimmy following along behind her. She didn’t dare glance at his face, didn’t want to know if he’d read the article printout before she’d snatched it down. Hated that he might have seen the picture, but hated even more that half the world had once seen her that way.

She got in her car and so did Jimmy. To her great relief, he didn’t utter a word, just sat with his big hands resting on his thighs, staring straight ahead as she started her car and pulled out of the lot. She drove the few blocks to the town library, and though it wasn’t open yet, she got out of her car and walked to the window where various flyers were hung on the inside of the glass, including hers. Just as at the grocery store, the same article printout had been placed right next to the flyer, overlapping it slightly so that it would be impossible to look at one without also looking at the other.

Josie’s heart sank like a piece of lead.

Why?

In a daze, she turned, walking back to her car. Jimmy followed, head hung slightly, his hands in his pockets.

She drove to the end of the main street where people regularly hung flyers on a telephone pole and parked next to it. She got out of her car, swallowing down a small sob as she tore the flyer she’d hung along with the same article.

She got in her car again and pulled from the curb, her tires spinning and then squealing as she jammed on the accelerator too hard. They drove in silence for a few minutes before Jimmy asked quietly, “Any idea who would do that?”

Josie sucked in a shaky, labored breath. She felt so damn breakable. Exposed. Skin peeled back, soul showing. She’d had so much hope that this move was going to be good for her, just what she needed. A place to settle. A purpose. She’d felt almost like a caterpillar finally shedding its cocoon, ready to spread her wings and fly. Here, even though it was less than an hour away from the city where the crime against her had occurred, she didn’t think people knew her name, or if they did, it only registered as something that might sound familiar, something they couldn’t exactly place. After a while, she’d dared to hope she’d just be Josie, the woman who ran the bed and breakfast outside town. She’d escaped Marshall Landish almost a decade before. She could finally be anonymous. Or so she’d thought.

This morning, that dream had crashed and burned.

“Josie?” Jimmy prompted. Her mind snapped back to the detective sitting in the seat next to her. Any idea who would do that?

She shook her head, relaxing her hands on the wheel. “My cousin maybe. He’s the only one I can think of who has a reason to make me hate my life here.” Make me want to run away far and fast.

The detective didn’t say anything, but she noted that his body seemed more stiff than it’d been on the ride into town.

She pulled into her driveway and they both got out of the car. She smelled roses, and the fresh scent of the grass she’d mowed two days before. The trees swayed and the old sign at the end of the driveway for the B&B creaked quietly as it moved in the breeze. Josie took momentary strength from it all. She’d faced worse than a vindictive cousin and some old dredged-up news articles meant to shame her. She stomped toward the house. She could cry later, but damn it all, right now she had a garage sale to set up.

**********

By all measures, Josie’s garage sale was a complete failure.

Jimmy had helped her cart the things from the garage that she’d been bringing up from the basement, down from the attic, and from within the house over the past month. She’d set up tables for the smaller items and placed stickers with prices on everything. When she’d stood back, she was impressed with how it looked. Her aunt had been a pack rat, and though Josie didn’t need half of what her aunt had accumulated, many of the items she was selling were nice, and either practically new, or vintage enough to appeal to that crowd. She had a good selection and she hoped most of it would go quickly.

The day was full of sunshine but not too hot, a pleasant breeze moving the air around and with it bringing that scent of roses and cut grass. She’d had hope.

Maybe no one had seen those old articles anyway. Maybe Archie—if it had been him—had put them up long after people had seen her flyer and planned to come to the garage sale. Or maybe if people had seen the articles, they had seen the posting of them as something cruel and inappropriate. They’d come out in droves to attend her sale in a show of support.

Yes, she’d had hope. But then no one had shown up at noon, or even at twelve thirty. One rolled around and Josie’s heart sunk further. A little later, a few people showed up, and her mood had lifted slightly, but then they’d picked at a few things as they watched her from above their sunglasses, whispering to each other covertly, clearly there to gawk at her. They left withou

t buying anything.

Jimmy sat on her porch, a pair of dark sunglasses on as he scrolled his phone. His head stayed down, but she had the notion he was watching her through his tinted shades. It only made her feel worse, embarrassed, and twitchy.

At two, she decided she’d had enough humiliation and it was time to pack it up. She’d take a load to the Salvation Army that week and consider it a win that she’d helped people worse off than her. Because, yes, they did exist, and she wasn’t so wrapped up in her own tragedy that she couldn’t acknowledge that.

She heard a car and the crunch of gravel and when a petite woman with dark red hair exited her minivan with a smile, Josie called out to her, “Sorry, I was just packing up.”

“Already?” She opened the back door of the van, lifting a toddler out and taking his small hand in hers as they approached. The woman smiled, her blue eyes dancing. “I’m Rain, short for Rainbow.” She held up her hand. “I know, you don’t need to ask. My parents were hippies long after hippies were a thing and I paid the price. My middle name is Love.” She rolled her eyes and despite her miserable morning, Josie smiled at the peppy woman with the warm smile. Rainbow. The name fit her, with her bright personality, rich mahogany hair, and vivid blue eyes. “I live down the road. I just bought the old Halloran place?”

Josie shook her head. “I’m sorry, I haven’t been here long. I’m not familiar with all the surrounding neighbors.” She knew the couple next to her and the family who lived across the way from visiting her aunt over the years. But beyond that, she hadn’t met anyone. And now she wasn’t sure she’d muster up the courage to take a walk beyond her own property and introduce herself as she’d planned to do at some point. When she’d gotten the place cleaned up.

“I’m not either. Yet. I saw your flyer for the garage sale earlier this week and looked forward to meeting you and picking up a few things for our house.” She reached down and moved a lock of flaxen hair off her toddler’s forehead. The little boy was clinging to her leg and looking up at Josie shyly. He had his mother’s bright blue eyes. Josie’s heart gave a small empty thud and then constricted tightly with longing. Her own boy would be eight now. She’d missed this stage, and there was no way to ever get it back. Grief, stronger than she’d felt in a long while, gripped her and made her knees feel weak. “I’m recently divorced, so Milo and I here are sort of starting fresh, trying to make new memories.” She put her palm over her toddler’s ear not pressed against her thigh. “My ex is a d-bag,” she whispered.

“Oh, I’m . . . sorry about that,” Josie said.