by Staci Hart
Anne’s necklace had a clear, full print where Rhodes had touched it, the print so clean that she knew he’d touched it intentionally. There were no prints in the entire apartment with the exception of that necklace, and Josie could only assume that he’d worn gloves. If he had been wearing gloves, then he touched her necklace on purpose, which meant the prints were likely from an index finger or thumb.
Discerning which print was which on the can was fairly simple, and she lifted each with precision and care, marking which digit was which based on their locations. Her hands trembled as she laid the prints in her scanner and took a seat at her desk, wiggling her knee as she waited on the machine to warm up, her breath shallow as they pulled up on the screen. She opened them in Photoshop, adjusted the contrast, zoomed in tight, and began the painstaking process of comparing.
Josie started with what she determined to be the thumb print of his right hand, figuring that would be the most probable match, the most natural way to touch the necklace. Once she located the center swirl, she turned the print from the can so it was the same direction as the one from Anne’s necklace, then started at the center point and followed the ring around and out, her pulse beating faster with each match she found.
It was him.
Her hands were numb and cold as she dug out her phone, her fingers trembling as she called her father’s cell.
“Josie. How did it go?”
She took a breath, her mouth so dry that her lips stuck together. “It’s him.”
Hank sucked in a breath in her ear. “Okay. All right.” He paused. “What happened?”
“I picked up some jars and cans and got a match. Dad, he did it.” She looked at her screen in awe. “I’ve got proof, right here.”
“Is the trash admissible?”
“No. It was in his back yard.”
“Damn. Don’t worry about it, okay? We’re not gonna let him go.”
“I’ll call in the tip when we hang up.”
“All right. As soon as we get the call, I’ll send Walker and Davis to pick him up at work. Come down to the station, and I’ll get you into the observation room while we interrogate him.”
“Okay.” Josie could barely comprehend what was happening.
“You okay?”
“I really don’t know, Dad. I think I’m in shock. Some days I wake up and don’t believe any of it’s real, so to be looking at concrete evidence is as reassuring as it is terrifying.”
“I know that feeling. Hurry down here, okay?”
“All right. I’ll see you.”
She hung up and sat back in her chair, composing the call to the anonymous tip line in her mind as she stared at his fingerprints on her monitor. They’d finally caught him.
This is it.
Rhodes sat in the cold, gray interrogation room, waiting quietly with his hands in his lap for the detectives to come back. It was a strange feeling to be picked up at work by cops, to be told they had some questions and that he could come quietly or not. Sitting in that room, he felt like he should be worried, but he wasn’t. Curiosity trumped all of his emotions.
The door opened, and he looked over his shoulder with a smile at the detectives who walked in with coffee. The one called Davis, he thought, sat across from him and offered a white foam cup while the other, Walker, laid a folder on the table and leaned on the wall behind his partner with his arms folded across his chest.
“Thought you might like a cup of coffee, Mr. Rhodes,” Davis said. He was in his early forties, if Rhodes had to guess, with blond hair and blue eyes. His sleeves were rolled to three-quarters, and he wore a tie but no coat. He looked casual and friendly, the good cop.
Walker scowled at him from against the wall. His shaved head gleamed under the fluorescent lights, and his sleeves were also rolled up, but his forearms were covered in tattoos.
Definitely the bad cop. “Thanks, but I’m fine.” Rhodes didn’t move his hands from where they laid threaded in his lap.
“It’s fresh. Just made it.”
“Can I ask again what this is about?”
Davis took a sip of coffee and nodded. “Sure, sure.” He flipped the folder open, and inside laid a photo of Hannah. Her hair was so blond, her uniform so red, her smile so bright in what looked to be her yearbook photo.
Rhodes made a sympathetic face, his tone full of compassion. “Oh, I remember when that girl went missing a few months ago. I told you guys everything I knew then, which wasn’t much, I’m afraid.”
“Right, we have your statement right here.” Davis handed Rhodes the sheet with his statement on it, and the photo underneath almost broke his façade.
It was another photo of Hannah, though she was almost unrecognizable. Her skin looked like stretched leather, her hair like brass instead of cornsilk. The plastic that he’d wrapped her in had been pulled back so the photographer could get a shot of the face.
Rhodes didn’t miss a beat. “Whoa, is that what happened to her?”
“Oh, sorry,” Davis said with nonchalance. “I forgot that was there.” He shuffled the papers around, flipping through photographs of different women, ghosts of Rhodes’ conquests.
Rhodes shook his head, his outward appearance and voice innocent, even though he could barely hear over the sound of his blood rushing in his ears. “Did the same guy kill all of them?”
“We think so, yes.” Davis reached under the stack and pulled out a baggie, laying it in front of Rhodes unceremoniously.
Rhodes’ hands clenched in his lap along with every muscle in his abdomen.
Anne’s necklace lay inside, the small bird stamped onto the silver disc staring at him through the plastic. Everything came back to him in a rush. He could see her lying on the ground in front of him, could feel her pulse in his fingers.
Rhodes’ face was straight with an air of mild curiosity. “What’s that?”
“Have you ever seen this before?” Davis’ body language and tone were relaxed, but his eyes probed Rhodes.
Cat and mouse. “I’m sorry. I can’t say that I have.”
Davis nodded. “We found it today in the window track of an apartment nearby. A girl was strangled to death and raped there on the night we found Hannah’s body. She was an investigator who was looking into Hannah’s disappearance.”
“Wow. Do you think the same guy killed her too?”
“It’d make sense, wouldn’t it?”
“I guess it would. I still don’t quite understand what exactly this has to do with me.”
Davis’ cool eyes didn’t leave Rhodes’ face. “We received an anonymous tip today that said you were involved in not only the murders of Anne Martin and Hannah Mills, but a number of prostitutes, as well as a girl from your home town, Jane Bernard. We take calls like that seriously, but those are some pretty wild accusations, wouldn’t you say?”
He let out a soft chuckle. “That’s crazy.”
“I know, right?” Davis said, his tone disbelieving. “Do you know of anyone who would want to defame you? There’s no accounting for crazy people. Maybe one of them called in the tip?”
“Gosh, not off the top of my head.”
“Would you mind giving us a DNA sample and your fingerprints? You know, just to rule yourself out?”
Rhodes laughed wholeheartedly at that one. “Yes, I would mind, actually. Am I being charged with anything?”
Davis’ jovial face hardened a touch. “No, no. Nothing like that. We just thought that if you cooperated, we could clear up this whole misunderstanding right now.”
“Do I need to call my lawyer?”
“Well, now, that really is up to you. Let me give you a few to consider it.” Davis stood and jerked his chin at his partner, who pushed away from the wall and walked toward the door, his eyes on Rhodes the whole time.
Rhodes sat back in his seat. The detective left everything there, the photos spread out haphazardly enough that it looked accidental, the necklace laying on the table in front of him.
The neckla
ce.
His fingers twitched. He was so close. All he had to do was reach out and touch it. Time seemed to stop as the smell of coffee and the old, metallic scent of the station filled his nose, the distant sound of phones ringing and the whir of air conditioning in his ears. He memorized everything before breaking his gaze and pulling out his phone to play Candy Crush, as if none of it fazed him, though his mind and body hummed with such static, he was surprised his hair wasn’t standing on end.
Josie watched Rhodes play on his phone with her face stone-cold and her hands behind her back. Hank stood next to her silently, and when Walker and Davis came in, they all stood there, watching him through the one-way glass.
“He’s going to ask for his lawyer,” Davis said.
Hank nodded. “He’s not going to give anything up, and until we can find something to bring him in on, he’s going to walk free.” He turned to Josie. “I don’t have enough to go on to justify sending a patrol to Weehawken to watch him.”
Josie stared through the glass at Rhodes, who looked like he could have been waiting in line at the DMV instead of sitting in an interrogation room. She didn’t need to rely on the cops. She could watch him herself.
“Josephine,” her father said, the warning clear, “you listen to me right now. Look at me.”
She met his eyes.
“You have got to stay out of this. He knows we’re on to him. Without a partner, you are too exposed, too vulnerable. I need you to promise me that you won’t follow him.”
“But Dad—”
“Promise me.”
“He’s going to run.”
“I’ll send a patrol to drive by his place later, and Walker and Davis will go by in the morning to see if they can get into his house. That’s the best I can do, and I need you to swear to me you won’t get involved.”
She stood there in the cold, grey room with her father’s eyes on her, not sure how she could agree to his request.
Rhodes hadn’t even flinched when Davis put the necklace on the table, but she saw the flicker under the surface, a flash of anger. She hoped it drove him crazy to see it and know that he’d never touch it again.
Everything in the room was wiped in anticipation of him in the hopes he would touch something they could dust, but there would be nothing to find. He hadn’t touched a single thing, not the cup, not the table or chair. They’d nail him eventually, find a way to get a comparison print, and then it would be over. But if he even had an inkling that they had his print, he would run, and it would be over in an entirely different way.
Could she leave Rhodes alone and let her father handle it? Could she lie to Hank, make him a promise she wouldn’t keep?
She knew good and well that both answers were no.
“You have to send a patrol to tail him, Dad. He knows it’s only a matter of time, and he will run. I feel it. I know it. If you want me to stay away, you’ve got to send a patrol. It’s the only way I’ll agree.”
Hank looked back at Rhodes and ran a hand over his mouth, silently watching through the glass for a long minute before he spoke again. “Do you realize the hell I’m going to get for putting my resources into this with just an anonymous tip to go off of?”
“But you know he did it.”
He sighed. “I do.”
“Then none of this will matter, because we’ll catch him.”
———— Olympus ————
Dita’s fingers rested on her lips as she watched Rhodes walk out of the police station with his lawyer.“He’s going to run,” she said to no one in particular.
Perry’s mouth hung open from the seat next to her on the couch, and Heff leaned forward in an arm chair with his elbows on his knees. Apollo’s head shook slowly from the other arm chair, and all four of them were silent for a long moment.
Perry spoke up, and her voice was low. “After all this time, for Josie to find the necklace … this can’t be a coincidence.”
Dita turned to her, shocked. “You don’t think Artemis did this, do you?”
“Who else?”
“Why? Why would she do it?”
“I think I know.” Apollo ran a hand through his hair. “The last time I saw her, she said something about getting Josie away from Jon. If Rhodes runs …”
“Josie will chase him. Fuck.” Dita’s mind spun, flustered and out of control. “What the fuck. My only shot is for Jon to help her, but how the shit am I supposed to get her to agree to that? I’m not convinced she would put him out if he was on fire.” She looked around the room and threw a hand in the air. “Why would Artemis put them in danger like this? She is so careless with them. Does she even care?”
“She cares, but she doesn’t understand what she’s doing. She’s looking at a postage stamp while we can see the panorama,” Apollo answered.
Dita stood up, livid as she wove around the chairs and coffee table and made for the elevator.
Perry looked mildly distressed. “Dita, you are not allowed to go down there.”
She didn’t stop walking. “Why the fuck not? I have words for her.”
“Hang on,” Apollo called.
Dita stopped in the foyer, furious and ready to fight. “Why?”
Apollo stood and walked over to her, his blue eyes comforting. “Just … look, just ride it out. Maybe Josie won’t leave, or maybe something will happen that you can work to your advantage. What good does confronting Artemis do?”
“It would make me feel a whole lot better to kick her in the teeth.” She pictured herself roundhousing Artemis in the face and really did feel better.
He chuckled. “I’m sure, but it still doesn’t solve anything.”
“He’s right, Dita.” Heff turned to face her. “You can’t undo any of it, so you’re gonna have to find a way to roll with it. For now, at least. Maybe Rhodes will stay in town. We have no idea what’s going to happen.”
“But that’s not the point.” Dita put one hand on her hip, gesturing dramatically with the other one as she ranted. “She is knowingly putting both players in danger when we’re supposed to keep them safe. I expect this from Ares, but Artemis?” She shook her head. “I didn’t agree to this.”
Apollo slipped his hands in his pockets. “She doesn’t see it like the rest of us. She thinks Josie’s got everything under control, that she’s as invincible as Artemis is. Just give it a little bit of time. Is there an expiration date on bitching her out?”
“Doubtful.” Dita sucked in a breath through her nose. “I’m so, so mad. Maybe it’s just because I haven’t slept in eleventy billion years, but I’m pretty sure I would fuck her up in a serious way right now.” She wondered if she could turn Artemis’ move around somehow and found consolation in the potential. The look on Artemis’ face when Dita played her would be even better than the sight of her bloody grill. “Maybe you’re right. I’ll leave her alone for now.”
Everyone relaxed a hair, but Dita was so wound up, she couldn’t stand it. It was like every molecule in her body was trying to fight its way out.
“I think I need to punch something.”
Heff stood with a smirk. “It would probably make you feel better.”
He made his way around the furniture and into the foyer, stopping in front of her. For some reason, she sometimes forgot how tall he was, and when he flexed his torso, her eyes followed the lines and shadows his forearms and biceps made. She could see his pecks under his t-shirt, and chased a fleeting thought about pulling his shirt up to see his abs.
When she realized her mouth was open, she closed it and pursed her lips.
“Go ahead. Take your best shot,” he said.
“You sure? I mean, I don’t want to hurt you,” she joked.
He laughed, his teeth flashing white and bright against his dark beard. “Yeah, I’m sure.”
“You asked for it.” She felt her face screw up as she wound up and nailed him in the stomach, which was rock solid.
He didn’t even flinch.
She smiled as sh
e shook out her fingers. “My hand hurts, but I feel better.”
“This is why men fight when they’re mad. Go on, knock yourself out. You’re not gonna hurt me.”
Dita took a deep breath, feeling her anger wind around every muscle in her body, and she let it go, let it all out like steam off boiling water. She pictured Ares as she threw all of her weight behind her fist, wishing she could hurt him in the ways he’d hurt her, with betrayal and her bare hands. She thought about Adonis, and her grief and guilt washed over her in a wave. She’d killed him with her choices, by her words.
She didn’t realize that she wasn’t as mad at Artemis as she thought, not until tears blurred her vision and wet her cheeks, her fists no longer flying but clutching Heff’s shirt as she lay in his arms on the floor.
Ares hung an arm on the back of his couch, looking in on Rhodes, who moved through his house with intention as he packed a large duffle bag. He trotted down the stairs of his basement and to his crawl space where he retrieved his jewelry box, then knelt down to lay it inside his bag. Everything he owned was secondary to that box.
Rhodes was implementing his contingency plan and would be long gone before anyone came looking for him. Ares didn’t know what was going on in the game, but he suspected that someone had interfered. He wondered briefly how it would all end, if there would be blood. It could end that way if Josie chased him. Rhodes wouldn’t go quietly.
Ares didn’t know how the game would be effected, but Dita would adapt. She always did.
He pictured her face as he’d seen her last, saw the dark circles under her wild, fearful eyes, and her lip pulled back, baring her teeth. He hadn’t even known really what he wanted to say to her. That he was sorry he hurt her. That he loved her and wanted her. Wanted her to forgive him, to fix it. To prove it. But he wasn’t sure she would believe him, and he didn’t blame her. He didn’t even know if it was true.
All he knew was that he wanted her. They belonged together, and they would be together again. It wasn’t a matter of if, only when.