Where the Blame Lies

His eyes—those kind, expressive, beautiful eyes—moved over her face for a moment before he nodded. “Okay. I’ll set it up.”

She put her hands on his bare shoulders. “Thank you.”

She wondered if every path she’d gone down to find her son had been wrong. If it wasn’t Marshall who abducted her, it wasn’t Marshall who’d taken her child from her either.

“We need to leave. I . . . I have to do this. This guy might be looking for his next victim even as we speak, and if I have a key that might open a door that will lead to capturing him, we can’t waste any time.”

She was missing something. She felt it in her gut.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Before

Josie inserted the straightened spring once more, her eyes trained on the wall in front of her—unseeing—as she listened to the tiny clicks inside the keyhole of her shackle. Her hand cramped and she grunted in frustration, dropping the sharp piece of metal. This is useless. It’s never going to work.

Sweat dripped down her forehead, stinging her eyes, the small burn stopping her from dropping her head forward so she could curl beneath the soiled quilt and just sleep for a little while. Instead, she wiped at the wetness tracking into her eyes, a sharp cramp causing her to grimace and bring her knees up. She felt blood dripping down her thigh. That had begun earlier in the day, just a small trickle at first, but now she could feel the flow of it increasing. At least the fever was keeping the pain of the freezing room at bay.

She was so weak and could hardly sit up. She picked up the straightened spring and rolled onto her back, staring at the ceiling as she reached over her head and once again, inserted the tool into the lock. Dusk had arrived, but the streetlamp hadn’t yet come on. Josie could see the stars beginning to emerge in the pale gray sky. A few snowflakes fluttered down, collecting in the corners of the window. She drifted, her gaze locked on the tiny, faint twinkles of starlight, her fingers spinning the skinny tool she’d fashioned. She felt the metal catch on something and rather than pull it out, she pushed it down, a loud click echoing through the room.

Her hand fell away from the shackle.

For a minute, Josie didn’t comprehend what had happened. It didn’t compute that she was free. That her hands were both lying on the mattress above her head, the lone shackle she’d been wearing having fallen away.

Shock rolled through her. She scrabbled up, a cry falling from her lips, her gaze seeking what she couldn’t believe had just happened despite that there was no pull holding her hand close to the wall, no metal cuff felt around her wrist. She peered at the open shackle on the mattress, bringing her hands to her mouth to hold back her wail of disbelief and desperate wonder.

I’m free. I’m free. I’m free.

She came to her feet, her legs buckling beneath her as she grabbed for the wall.

Only she wasn’t completely free yet.

On legs that felt like jelly, Josie walked to the door, pulling on it with what strength she had left. It was locked, deadbolted from the outside. Her gaze flew to the window, to the stars blinking high in the deepening night sky. She thought she heard a sound outside—footsteps?—and scurried back to the bed, sitting down and putting her hand behind her back so it appeared she was still shackled. Her heart thundered, sweat dripping down her face. There was blood on the floor—large drips that led from her mattress to the door. They’d give her away.

I won’t be back.

Despite the memory of his promise, fear slammed into her as she strained her ears to listen, adrenalin pumping through her system. Nothing.

“Calm, stay calm,” she whispered to herself. The overwhelming need to weep, to panic, to scream overcame her, but she swallowed it all down. Her baby boy. A sob came up her throat. Her infant was out there and he needed her. She pulled herself up again.

I’m coming, Caleb. Mama’s coming.

She wasn’t going to get out through the thick metal door that locked from the outside. Her only hope was the small window high up on the wall. She stared at it for a minute. It suddenly seemed impossibly small. But it was the only way. Either that, or she waited for Marshall to return—if he ever did. But he’d assured her he wouldn’t. And she knew she was too weak for that anyway. She had no hope of overpowering him. And she was getting weaker by the day.

Moisture trickled into her eyes. She didn’t know if it was sweat or tears. She wobbled, bracing herself against the wall as a wave of nausea overcame her. There was no time to hesitate. Josie grabbed the end of the mattress she hadn’t moved from for so many months, the mattress where she’d delivered her own child, and dragged it to the wall under the window. She propped it at an angle and then attempted to climb it, letting out a groan of frustration when it folded in half and slid down the wall under her weight. She tried again, and then again, the same thing happening until her legs began to shake and her head swam. She could feel blood flowing slowly down her leg, the remaining life she had leaving her body in a slow trickle.

She was going to have to run up the mattress quickly, before it had time to bend under her weight, and grab onto the sill even while the one hand that had remained shackled until ten minutes before was weak and tingly. A Herculean task when she was having trouble simply holding herself up.

Josie took a deep breath and ran up the mattress, pushing off it just as it started to fold. She cried out in pain, missing the ledge by at least a foot as she collapsed to the ground with the mattress. For a moment she lay there crying, her body shaking. This is impossible. I’m going to die here. Die six feet from freedom, the stars blinking in at her as she bled out on the floor of her prison. No!

She pulled herself up. No. No. Surviving this long had seemed impossible too. Bringing her pregnancy to term, giving birth alone had seemed hopeless. Getting out of her shackles had been completely inconceivable. But she’d done them all. She’d done all those impossible things. And she’d do one more.

She would not die crumpled on the floor after giving up, when somewhere out there, her baby cried for his mother. For her. She’d brought him into this world, and she owed him to keep trying if she even had one single breath of life within her.

Josie picked herself up, propping the mattress against the wall, shaking her half-numb hand, and taking a deep breath before, again, running up it and propelling herself toward the window. She slammed into the wall with a cry, her fingers not even grasping the ledge.

But she’d gotten closer.

Again and again she repositioned that mattress and ran up it, her grunts of pain as she hit the wall mixing with the sobs she could no longer hold back. Her whole body shook, the room wavering around her, her brain pulsing, her shoulder throbbing with the incessant impact of hitting the wall again and again.