by Staci Hart
“We’ll figure something out.” Perry pulled a black cashmere throw off the back of the couch and laid it on her legs. “Tell me about some of your dreams.”
Dita shifted, bringing her knees up as she turned to face Perry, the leather squeaking when she hugged her calves. “In one, I was with Adonis. We were in Elysium, and I made him laugh. He laughed and laughed until he was hysterical, then started to scream. He fell to the ground, and snakes crawled out of his mouth and eyes.” She shuddered and squeezed her legs tighter. “In another, Ares and I were in old Greece. He kissed me, and it was tender at first, but when I opened my eyes he was in wrath, his eyes red, his hands around my neck. I always feel his fingers when I wake, and I can’t breathe.” She blinked back her tears. “I just don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to move forward.”
Perry bit her lip.
“What?” Dita asked flatly.
“You don’t want to hear it.”
“Are you kidding me? I can barely see straight I’m so exhausted. I’m sure I’ll hate it, but lay it the fuck on me.”
Perry looked at her for a minute before answering, “You’ve got to talk to Ares.”
“Ugh.” Dita picked up a pillow and pressed it to her face. “You were right. Do not want,” she yelled into it.
“I know, but think about it. You think you know how you feel, but there’s so much more to it. And it’s never going to get you anywhere to sit here and not talk about it. That’s not the way you work. You can tell Ares all day long that you don’t care about him, but you do, and you always will. You need to figure out how to handle him being in your life.”
She dropped the pillow to her lap with a huff. “Why are you so smart? I hate you.”
“You love me, and I’m right.”
“No,” Dita said as she sank into the cushions, “I’m pretty sure I hate you.”
Perry leaned on the back of the couch and propped her head on her hand. “Ok, let’s play therapy. Can we talk about Adonis?”
Dita flinched. “I don’t know.”
“We don’t have to. It’s okay.”
She thought about him for a moment. “I miss him.”
“I know,” Perry said softly.
“I’ve been so lonely. I’ve always had him to turn to, every day. I spent almost as much time with him in Elysium as I did living my life here. He’s just … he’s always been there, until he wasn’t.” She took a breath to steady herself. “But he’s gone. He’s gone, and I can’t change that. There’s nothing I can do but mourn.”
“How do you feel about how he left you?”
“I don’t know.” Dita looked up at the ceiling, trying to stave off her tears. “Responsible. The whole thing was my fault. It’s like I killed him a second time.”
“I know it feels that way, Dita, but he chose to drink Lethe.”
“Because I left him.”
“Listen, I love him too. He was the closest thing to a son that I’ve ever had. I raised him from a baby, tucked him in at night, watched him grow, but he was spoiled and selfish. Maybe it was all my fault.”
“He wasn’t easy to tell no, Per.”
“No, he wasn’t. And if he wasn’t so … well Adonis, you wouldn’t have left him. He’s just as much to blame as you.”
“It doesn’t feel like that,” Dita said.
“But you get me?”
“I get you.”
Perry nodded. “So that leaves Ares.”
Dita glanced at her. “I’m sorry, who?”
“Taintston McPubus.”
Dita looked back up at the ceiling, which was criss-crossed with black beams. “I mean, what the fuck, Perry. I can’t even be in the same room as him without almost having a heart attack.”
“What are you afraid of?”
Dita frowned. “Besides the obvious physical threat?”
“Do you really think he’s going to hurt you again?”
Dita traced the beams with her eyes from wall to wall. “I don’t know.”
“Well, I’ll tell you that I don’t think he will.” Perry was matter-of-fact, and Dita found a small bit of comfort in her certainty. “Zeus will bury him. Literally. In Tartarus. You know Zeus doesn’t make idle threats.”
“That makes perfectly logical sense, but it doesn’t stop me from being afraid.”
“I know. Just remind yourself that he’s not an idiot.”
“Ha.”
“I mean, he’s an idiot, but he doesn’t have a death wish.” She paused, watching Dita, who didn’t want to make eye contact. “What else?”
So many things. Dita pictured him being kind, being good, and she felt the pull to him again, even at the memory. It made her feel sick. “I’m afraid to hear what he has to say. What if …”
“What if you change your mind about him?”
Dita nodded. “What if I can’t stop myself?”
“Do you really feel like you could ever be with him again?” Perry asked.
“Right now, I don’t. But you don’t understand what it’s like when we’re together.”
Perry looked at her like she was a dummy. “You forget that I’m married to the man who kidnapped and raped me. Trust me, I get it.”
“But what if I can’t resist him? What if he kisses me?”
“I’m pretty sure you’d vomit.”
“Actually, I’m pretty sure I would, too. Thing is, I’m not positive. Not at all, and if I enjoyed it, I’d hate myself for the rest of my existence.”
“What do you think he could say to you?” Perry asked. “What could he say to change your mind?”
“If he apologized and meant it. If I knew that he really understood.”
“Do you think he’s capable of that?”
Dita didn’t even have to think about it. “No. No, I don’t.”
“What else are you afraid of?”
She sat up and turned to face Perry. “Do you really think he’s ever going to let me go?”
Perry let out a resigned sigh. “No.”
“So how do I deal with that?”
Her eyes were sad, but her voice was determined. “You can’t control him, but you can control you. The only power he has over you is your fear.”
“And I’m just supposed to stop being afraid?”
“Eventually, yes.”
“I seriously can’t even fathom how to do that.” Dita looked away.
“Sleep would help.”
“Ha, ha.”
“Maybe Heff could make you some god mace.”
Dita laughed at the thought. “That would be so convenient, but it would only work on Filmore Dickerson if it had egocide in it.”
Perry giggled. “Feel any better?”
“A little,” Dita admitted.
The silence stretched out. “It’s going to be okay. You know that, right?”
“I want to believe that.”
Perry reached for her hand, and they wound their fingers together. “It will. You’ll get through it, and I’ll be here beside you. Okay?”
Tears welled up in Dita’s eyes. “Can we not fight again?”
“Deal. Can you please not lie to me again?”
“Deal,” Dita agreed, and squeezed her hand.
Artemis ducked under a branch as Calix cut around a tree. She braced herself as he bounded over a log, and the sun hit her like a wall when he shot out of the tree line and into a wide meadow. The hills rolled around her, carpeted in green grass, and cypress trees stretched up to the sky along the ridges. The rhythm of Calix’s body under her as he galloped across the open field was comforting, a natural metronome to her thoughts.
The moment that Jon and Josie parted ways, she took off with Calix and had been riding ever since. Jon persisted, so much in fact that Artemis wasn’t sure how long Josie would hold out. It wouldn’t be long if he continued making declarations as he had. She could sense Josie faltering, losing resolve, and the feeling left Artemis uneasy.
Josie was angry of course, but not angry eno
ugh for Artemis’ liking. And Jon had information on Rhodes, information that could help Josie. But Jon couldn’t be allowed to help her. If they worked together, the result would be a disaster for the competition.
Artemis dug in her heels, shouting ‘H’ya!’ through her teeth. If she lost so early in the competition, she would never, ever live it down.
As much as she didn’t want to believe that Josie could ever forgive Jon, each day that passed only proved that he would move mountains for her. He knew he was wrong and had been trying to do right by her, pay penance. Artemis had focused so wholly on Josie as a player that she didn’t know Jon at all, and the more she learned, the sicker she felt as she came closer to the realization that he wasn’t the villain she’d thought him to be.
Worse: she’d played right into Aphrodite’s hand.
Calix reached the river, and they turned to run up the bank as she heard the voices of Apollo and Eleni in her mind, telling her how little she knew. Was she truly so oblivious to human nature? Had she removed herself so far from Earth and for so long that she had forgotten? Or had she ever really known?
She leaned back. “Whoa. Whoa, there.”
Calix slowed to a trot, then stopped under an olive tree whose branches stretched out over the river. She dismounted and ran her hand down his neck as he drank.
Artemis sensed a shift coming, and there was only one thing to do, only one play to make.
Her only chance was to get Josie away from Jon. If she sent Rhodes on the run, Josie would chase him, and Artemis could guide her, help her find him. Help heal the wound by bringing justice to Anne, Hannah, and all the girls he’d killed. She could do all of that and keep Jon and Josie apart. If she could keep them apart, she would win.
Human nature.
She had to think about Jon. What would he do? He would try to help, want to help. But as long as Josie thought she had things handled, she wouldn’t accept.
Artemis looked in on Josie as she lay on her couch, staring a hole through her wall of evidence, the paper avalanche her life had become.
“Now,” she whispered.
———— New York ————
Josie popped another Cheez-It into her mouth with Ricochet on her stomach as she stared at the wall like she had a hundred times before, scrutinizing the papers and photos, looking for anything new. The thought that there was anything she’d missed was ridiculous in itself. She had memorized every word and image on that wall, and the pictures crept into her dreams. What else could she do? Until she had more, like an ID from one of the girls or a slip up by Rhodes, she was at a dead stop.
Out of nowhere, Ricochet took off. His claws dug into the soft skin on her stomach as he leapt onto the coffee table. A glass of water toppled over and smashed as it hit the hardwood floor.
“What the fuck, Rick? Jesus.” Josie stepped around glass with her eyes on the carpet and made her way into the kitchen where she grabbed a towel and the trashcan. Ricochet growled and mewled at the window in her bedroom.
“What is the matter with you?” She entered her room and set her things down next to the window, leaning forward to look out onto the fire escape. “There’s nothing there, bro.”
He arched his back and rubbed the window, growling again.
“You want out?” The platform was too high for him to jump off, and he loved to sit outside, so she slid open the horizontal window, and he jetted out as soon as there was enough space to fit through. She stuck her head out and shook it as he paraded up the stairs and sat just above her, looking down at her through the small holes in the metal.
Josie looked down as she backed out of the window frame, and her heart stopped for a split second when she saw the smallest sliver of silver chain in the window track, hanging out from under the pane.
“Oh my God,” she breathed.
Her fingers touched the chain, and she knew even just by that small bit of metal that it was Anne’s. Rhodes had taken it after he killed her, but she never thought, never could have guessed that it never made it out of their apartment. That window had been opened and closed a hundred times since then, and she wondered how in the hell it had been hidden for so long.
She trotted into her living room and to her desk where she found a pair of latex gloves, put them on, and grabbed her phone, snapping a few pictures when she reached the window again. Her blood rushed in her ears as she tugged at the chain, attempting to work it out from the track. He must have dropped it as he climbed out of the window, and when he closed it, it hooked on something that dragged it back, something that it was still hung on. She wiggled the chain, trying to be gentle when all she wanted to do was smash the window and rip the frame apart to get to it.
She tugged the necklace and slid the window back and forth on the track until more slack let out, exposing the clasp which she opened with trembling hands. Once open, she threaded the necklace out of the rail and laid it in her palm. The silver pendant with the small bird stamped on it caught the light.
Josie could barely breathe as she picked her phone to snap a few more pictures before she called her dad.
“Hey, Jo.”
“Dad …” Her voice quaked.
“What’s wrong?”
“I … I found Anne’s necklace in the window track.”
He was silent.
She couldn’t stop staring at the necklace in her hand, deciding right then that she would dust it. She wanted the print, but didn’t want her father to risk getting caught giving her a copy. But if she got it on her own, she could find something to compare it to, she just couldn’t tell Hank. Plausible deniability.
Hank cleared his throat. “Okay. I’m going to send Walker and Davis with a CSI. You want me there?”
“No, it’s okay. I’m okay.”
“Just call me if you change your mind. I’ll have them there within the half hour.”
“All right, Dad.”
Josie didn’t look at her phone as she set it down. She walked to her desk and pulled open the drawer where she kept her lift tape and dusting kit. All of the Campbell kids had been educated on lifting prints, which drove her mother crazy. Sunday afternoons usually meant everything was covered in powder, and the Scotch tape was all gone.
She headed to her bathroom and grabbed the baby powder, then made her way back to her desk where she sat down. Josie dumped out a small amount of powder onto a sheet of paper and dipped her brush into the pile, then tapped it on her hand to knock off the excess. She picked up the pendant and dusted it, and when she held it up to the light, she saw it.
Josie had his fingerprint.
Her hands were steadier than her stomach as she laid the necklace down and trimmed off a piece of tape, then covered the pendant with it and pulled it off slowly. She stuck it to a black piece of paper, then dusted the back of the pendant, though she found nothing there. Josie put away her supplies, depositing the trash in the kitchen can under other garbage. All that was left was to get rid of the powder, so she pulled a pressurized air can out of a drawer and sprayed off the pendant.
Josie held up the small black paper with the print, the answer to the question that plagued her every waking moment for half a year. She had him. The man who haunted her nightmares, who killed her best friend. Who raped and murdered dozens of innocent women. The paper she held reverently in her hand contained the power to put him away.
Day 6
IT WAS EARLY THAT MORNING as Josie sat in her car, watching the digital clock on her dash like she could will it to move faster as she waited for Rhodes to leave for the day. Her heart skipped a beat when she watched him open his door, able to see him clearly from where she was parked down the street. He looked like anyone else, walking the sidewalk to the bus stop where he’d catch his ride into Manhattan, go to his regular job with people who thought he was a regular guy. They probably thought his pastimes were things like drinking beer and playing PlayStation, not strangling young girls and dumping them into the river.
Her father had calle
d her the night before with news that the print had been processed, and when she told him she’d lifted one of her own, he said he’d already known. Josie ran her plan by him, and he agreed, knowing he couldn’t stop her anyway, knowing his own hands were tied without probable cause. She would go to Rhodes’ house and collect his trash to lift prints from for comparison. If it was on the curb, it was admissible and would be at least enough to call him in as a suspect so they could take official prints.
Josie watched the clock until the bus she knew he took was sure to be gone, then waited another twenty agonizing minutes for good measure before she grabbed the rubber gloves and freezer bags from her passenger seat and walked around to the back of his house.
She scanned the alley as she walked up his driveway, to the side of his house, and through the gate where his trashcans stood behind the tall fence. The neighborhood was quiet, but her heart was a jackhammer in her chest as she closed the gate behind her.
Josie reached for the lid to his recycling, flipped it back, and dug past cereal and frozen dinner boxes until she found two glass jars and several soda cans. She deposited them into the freezer bags and closed the trashcan lid before heading back to her car, glancing around with the loot in her arms, feeling like she’d just stolen the crown jewels.
She raced home with the stolen trash a presence in the car, her thoughts completely focused on it. She turned over each step to come, afraid of what she would or wouldn’t find, so anxious that she could barely pay attention to drive. When she made it into her apartment, she moved with certainty and purpose, unpacking each bag on her bar, lining the containers up neatly on the surface. The area was already prepped with paper towels and her fingerprinting kit, and she sat down in front of the trash, dusting each vessel slowly and meticulously, assessing and noting them as she went.
The jars initially held the most hope with partials on the lid and label where they had been held while he’d poured out the contents. Two of the soda cans had a mess of fingerprints, too many to make any sense of. But she found the answer on the final cans. There were two solid sets of prints, one with placement from holding the can while it was being opened, the other from pouring it.