by Lisa Regan
They sat in silence and Josie wondered about Jack. What if he looked for them? What if he found them? They were far too weak and injured to fight him off. Had the hermit killed him or just injured him? Had Charlotte gone looking for him? She certainly couldn’t mobilize anyone else from the Sanctuary. Josie knew that her team would have questioned everyone there and when they found Charlotte absent, zeroed in on her and her people. They would be watching the Sanctuary members to see if they’d lead them to Josie’s location.
Emilia said, “I’m so thirsty.”
“Me too,” Josie replied.
“What do we do if no one comes?”
“Someone will come.”
“What if they don’t?”
To distract her, Josie asked, “My team responded to the scene at your campsite. That’s when we realized you were missing. Do you remember what happened when you were camping with Tyler and Valerie?”
Emilia’s head sagged against Josie’s shoulder. She sniffled. “We were camped there for two days. We’d looked around a bit and found a break in the fence around that place—the Sanctuary or whatever. We’d been out all day figuring out the best way to get on and off the Sanctuary property and then we came back to camp to eat. Soon after that, Tyler and Valerie got sick. I was packing up my backpack to go and get them help when I saw Jack in the woods. At first, I was so happy to see him. So relieved. I just dropped everything and ran to him. I thought he would help me. But he was so… weird. So still. Just watching. He said to come with him, and we’d get help together. I followed him into the Sanctuary. He took me to this old, broken-down cabin and told me to wait there. I did at first, but it was so creepy there. Then, he took a really long time, and I was worried that Val and Tyler wouldn’t get help in time. So I left and walked and walked. Then I saw the house. All these people were working in the garden. I started toward them but then Jack came out of the house.”
“Did he tell you about Valerie and Tyler?” Josie asked gently.
She felt Emilia’s nod against her shoulder. “He told me they didn’t make it. That he thought they had eaten something toxic, probably from the woods. But I was with them the whole time. They didn’t eat anything they weren’t supposed to.”
“He told you he’d take you into town, didn’t he?” Josie asked. “To get you into a car.”
“Yes. It wasn’t until we were already on the road that I realized he was lying. You have to understand. He’s my husband. I thought—I thought that deep down the man I married would shine through. Val and Tyler were our best friends. It was unimaginable to me that he’d harm them and then turn on me as well.”
“But he did.”
“I panicked in the car and then he told me he hadn’t meant to kill them, only to make them a little sick so he could get me alone. He just wanted to talk, he said. He wanted me to join him. He kept talking about all this weird stuff like becoming—and embracing—the darkness inside. He said all his life he had fought against the darkness within him, but at the Sanctuary he didn’t have to fight. He could be whoever he wanted to be. He didn’t have to be ashamed anymore. It was just weird. It made no sense. I told him to stop: stop talking and stop the car and let me out.”
“But he didn’t.”
Josie felt the shake of Emilia’s head against her body.
“I tried to open the door. I was going to jump from the moving car. He hit me. That’s the last thing I remember. Then I woke up in the cellar. I don’t even know how long I was there. Do you know how long it’s been? Since Val and Tyler died?”
“I’m sorry,” Josie said. “I don’t. I lost track of how long I was at that house.”
Emilia reached down and squeezed her hand. “We’re free now, and soon we’ll be found.”
It was nearing dusk when a vehicle finally appeared on the horizon. Josie staggered to her feet, pulling Emilia behind her. The car rolled to a stop as Josie and Emilia made it to the double yellow lines in the middle of the road. A woman Josie didn’t recognize got out of the vehicle, squinting at them as if she wasn’t sure of what she was seeing. “Hey,” she said. “You’re those women on the news. The ones they’re looking for.”
“Yes,” Josie said. “We are.”
Fifty-Six
True to his word, the hermit had left them along a rural route in a town north of Denton. Their rescuer used her cell phone to call 911 as she drove them to Denton Memorial Hospital. Noah, Gretchen, Mettner, Lamay—and even Chief Chitwood—were standing in a line outside the Emergency Room entrance as the woman pulled up. Each of them looked haggard and hopeful at the same time. A patchy beard covered Noah’s face. Circles smudged the skin beneath his eyes. Before the car even pulled to a stop, he flung the back door open and reached inside for Josie. He lifted her out and enveloped her in his arms, burying his face in her matted hair. She felt his body shake around her. Into her ear he said, “I thought we lost you.”
Josie inhaled his scent and closed her eyes, collapsing into him. “You can’t get rid of me that easily.”
A hand touched her shoulder. She opened her eyes to see Gretchen staring at her, tears streaming down her face. “I know you’re not crying, Palmer,” Josie said.
Gretchen wiped the tears away and grinned. “I’ve got allergies,” she choked.
Mettner and Lamay approached, each one of them reaching forward and gently squeezing her arm. They flanked Noah as he walked her toward the hospital doors. Josie looked back to see Chitwood and two nurses lifting Emilia from the back of the car into a wheelchair.
“You okay?” Noah asked.
“Yes,” Josie answered. “I am now. Just tired and bruised.”
Emilia was admitted for severe dehydration and a small subdural hematoma. Josie was discharged after a few hours, having received IV fluids, a new dressing on her left hand, and some pain medication. Noah wanted to take her directly home, but she wanted to go to the station and give her statement right away so they could figure out where Charlotte and Jack had been hiding her and track them down. She recounted her ordeal in as much detail as she could muster, leaving out the parts about Lila Jensen, only saying that Charlotte had tried to recruit her to avoid kidnapping charges.
It was almost morning by the time Gretchen came into the conference room with a sheaf of papers. “I found it,” she said.
“Found what?” Noah asked.
“The property. I mean, I think. Charlotte’s husband inherited several properties from his mother. While she was living, she transferred the largest property into his name. That was the Sanctuary. But these other properties—” She spread several pages across the table. “They stayed in her name. He never transferred them. They passed to him after her death, but he never had the titles changed. Then he married Charlotte. Everything he owned became hers when he died.”
“But she didn’t bother to change any of the properties over into her own name,” Josie said. “Except the Sanctuary.”
“Right. It would have been a project. She would have had to get a death certificate for Mick Fadden’s mother to prove that she had passed. Then there would have been the issue of her will—did she have one or didn’t she? She would have had to provide proof one way or another that the properties passed to him and then to her.”
“It wasn’t worth it,” Mettner said.
“Right,” Noah agreed. “As long as she paid the property taxes on these premises—”
“All of which were paid off, so there was no mortgage,” Gretchen put in.
“Then she could just keep them,” Noah finished.
“We should have thought of this before,” Mettner said, a look of defeat on his face.
Josie said, “Don’t beat yourself up, Mett. I didn’t think of it either. We really didn’t even know Charlotte was a threat until it was too late.”
“She ran a cult,” Mettner replied. “Seems like that’s a pretty big red flag.”
“Okay,” Noah said, gazing at the pages Gretchen had spread before them. “Let’s see what
we’ve got.”
They pored over the deeds and then several maps. Only one of the properties was near Denton, toward the north where Josie and Emilia had been found. The other two were in Lenore County, far south. Gretchen pointed to the property on a satellite map she’d printed out. “It has to be this one.”
Josie leaned forward and studied the map. She found the faint trail through the woods that she and Emilia had taken. What she hadn’t been able to see, especially in the dark, was that about a half mile down that trail was another path that veered to the right. That led to a gravel driveway which led down to a road. Still, it was extremely remote.
Gretchen said, “Chitwood wants a team to go in at first light. If they’re still there, we’ll get them.”
“I’m going,” Noah said.
Josie reached over and clutched his forearm. “Please,” she said. “Don’t. Stay with me.”
He stared at her. She could see the conflict in his eyes, but ultimately, she won. He put a warm hand over hers. “Fine,” he said. “Let’s go home.”
“No,” she replied. “I want to stay until I know they’ve caught Charlotte and Jack.”
Gretchen said, “Komorrah’s will be open in a half hour. I’ll run down there and get reinforcements.”
Mettner and Gretchen led a team of uniformed officers onto Charlotte’s property north of Denton. Josie and Noah waited with Dan Lamay behind the front counter at the station house, listening to the radio calls coming in. Jack was still alive—in need of medical attention, but alive—and once Denton PD had both him and Charlotte in custody, Josie turned to Noah and said, “Take me home. I’m going to sleep for days.”
Fifty-Seven
Josie did sleep for almost twenty-four hours straight. Noah tried to wake her a couple of times to eat, but her exhaustion was so bone deep, she could only eat a few bites of whatever he made her before falling back into a deep, dreamless sleep. When she finally woke, he brought her eggs, pancakes, and bacon in bed and updated her. Jack and Charlotte had been booked on so many charges Noah couldn’t even remember them all. Charlotte wasn’t talking at all and had already hired an attorney, but Jack talked almost immediately, corroborating what Emilia had told Josie. He had used the wild hemlock on the Yates couple but for Josie he used GHB, a date rape drug that was usually undetectable in a person’s system soon after it was used. He’d gotten it from a dealer under Denton’s Eastern Bridge when accompanying one of the other Sanctuary members on a thrift run. He’d been watching Josie and her team as they came and went from the Sanctuary and become fixated on her. It had been his idea and his choice to take her, not Charlotte’s.
Josie had told her team that Jack had brought Maya Bestler onto the Sanctuary for some period of time but when they asked him about her, he would only say he had seen her at the charity benefit when he worked for Lantz. He had found her attractive and wanted to approach her, but things hadn’t gone well with Shana so he didn’t. Josie knew he was lying but couldn’t prove it. No one had seen or heard from Maya. Sandy and Gus Bestler had taken their grandson and returned to their hometown.
The best news was that Emilia was doing well. Her sister was already in Denton when she was found and had not left her side in the hospital. Noah said Emilia was filing for divorce from Jack at her first opportunity.
After breakfast in bed, Josie showered and dressed, feeling like her old self finally. As she descended the stairs, she heard female voices coming from her living room. On her couch sat her grandmother, Lisette Matson, and her mother, Shannon Payne. Noah stood in the foyer. Josie hugged the two women but gave Noah a questioning look. Something wasn’t quite right. She could feel the tension in the room.
“What’s going on?” she said.
Noah jammed his hands in his jeans pockets. “We know about Muncy, Josie.”
She was going to ask how, but then she remembered Noah telling her that they’d found her phone in the woods not far from where Jack had taken her. They would have checked it to see if there was anything on it to help them find her.
She sank down to the couch between Lisette and Shannon. “Is she dead?” Josie asked.
“No,” Shannon said. “Not yet. But she’s very sick, they said. It won’t be long now.”
Lisette took Josie’s hand and squeezed it. “You know,” she said. “She hurt you most of all, but she also hurt us.”
Lisette and Shannon exchanged a look over Josie’s head and for the first time in their presence, Josie felt like a small child whose mother and grandmother had been conferring about. Shannon said, “We have a right to speak to her before she passes. I hope you understand that.”
Josie said, “You don’t need my permission to see her. You know that.”
Lisette said, “We’re not asking your permission, Josie. We want you to come with us.”
“I don’t want to see her,” Josie said.
Shannon said, “Josie, you do understand that this will be your last chance to say anything you might need to say to her. We’re worried that if you don’t take it, it will harm you.”
“I’m not going to forgive her just because she’s dying,” Josie said. “The things she did were unforgiveable.”
“We’re not suggesting you forgive her,” Lisette said.
“Then what?” Josie said, irritation sharpening her tone.
Shannon shrugged. “We don’t know. But it might come to you when you see her. Whatever it is that you might want or need to say.”
“Or you might not need to say anything at all,” Lisette said.
Josie looked at her grandmother, then at Shannon. “You two have things to say to her?”
“Yes,” they said in unison.
Josie sighed. “Then let’s go.”
Fifty-Eight
Lila Jensen didn’t look at all like the woman Josie had put behind bars nearly two years ago. In her hospice bed she was a shrunken bag of bones, her cheeks sallow and sunken. Her hair was gray and thin. She looked as though she had aged a thousand years since Josie had last seen her. When she breathed, a sound like a child’s rattle shook from her chest and bubbled up in her throat. The smell in the room was at once musty and moist, foul and sweet. It was the smell of impending death, Josie realized. This was it. This woman would finally be gone from Josie’s life, from the world, forever.
Josie watched as Lisette went into the room. She stood over Lila and spoke in a firm but low voice. Josie couldn’t make out any of the words, but Lisette stood tall and resolute while she delivered her speech over Lila’s withered form. She held her head high as she pushed her walker back out into the hallway where Josie and Shannon waited.
Shannon went in next. She touched Lila’s arm, letting her fingertips linger. Then she leaned down and whispered into Lila’s ear, making her jump and squirm. She let go and walked toward the doorway, holding herself carefully as if it hurt to move. “What did you say to her?” Josie asked.
Shannon gave a sad smile. “That’s between me and her, honey.”
Josie stood in the doorway for a long time, debating whether to go in or not. She didn’t have to do this. She didn’t care what everyone else thought was good for her. She didn’t care what Charlotte had tried to tell her about killing Lila—about tuning into her basest impulses the way that Lila had done since birth. None of that mattered. If Josie didn’t want to give this one last thing to Lila, she didn’t have to. She could turn and walk away and let Lila die without ever having seen her or heard her voice again. But before she even realized it, her feet were carrying her across the room. She stood looking down into Lila’s wretched face. “It’s me,” she said. “I’m here, like you asked.”
The name scraped over Lila’s chapped lips. “JoJo.”
Josie winced. Lila’s hand reached up, searching. Her eyes blinked, trying to bring Josie into focus. “JoJo.”
Josie recoiled but the hand found her wrist anyway, clutching it with a strength Josie hadn’t expected from this dying shell of a woman. What was Josie s
upposed to say? Lisette and Shannon had come prepared. They had obviously been thirsting for this opportunity, but Josie was at a loss. What should she say? You stole my life? Destroyed my childhood? Killed the man I believed was my father? I hate you?
But Josie didn’t hate her. That was the problem. That had always been the problem. Her entire life, she had grown up believing that Lila was her mother, trying and failing to figure out what was so wrong with her, so terrible about her, that her own mother couldn’t love her. Her entire life, Josie had struggled to figure out why her own mother was so cruel toward her. She must have come into the world broken, flawed, unlovable. Why else would a mother treat her own child with such brutality? All Josie had ever wanted from the woman was love.
Even though she now knew that Lila wasn’t her mother and wasn’t capable of love, the wounds in Josie’s psyche remained. Knowing that Lila hadn’t really been her mother, that she had taken her from a loving stable home—in some ways it felt worse. On top of the abuse she had suffered and the deep scars that Lila had left, now there was bitterness for all that had been lost.
No, not lost. Stolen. By a woman who cared for nothing and for no one but herself. A woman who was so selfish that on her deathbed she made demands of the girl she had tortured for so many years.
Josie tried to twist her wrist from Lila’s grip, but she couldn’t. She looked to the doorway where Lisette and Shannon stood huddled together for comfort, their backs to Josie and Lila. No one else was near. She could so easily reach out with her free hand and squeeze Lila’s frail neck, strangle the life out of her, rid the world of the terrifying darkness she’d wielded for so long. Shatter her hyoid just like Jack had done to his victims.
But then she’d be just like Jack.
Maybe there had been light in him like Charlotte said. He must have had some good in him to draw a woman as gentle and kind as Emilia. But the Sanctuary had vanquished any goodness left in him. It had snuffed out the light inside of him.
