From Darkness (Hearts & Arrows Book 3)

by Staci Hart

  “Well, hello, dear. What can I do for you?”

  “Hello, Mrs. Herold. I was hoping to look back through some of your old newspapers.”

  “Of course,” she said with twinkling eyes. She adjusted her shawl around her shoulders. “We have every issue of the Silver State Post since its first publication in 1887. What are you looking for? Perhaps I could help you. I’ve lived my whole life in this town, seventy-two years,” she added with pride.

  “Thank you. Actually, I could use your help.” Josie leaned on the counter. “Do you know the name Corey Rhodes?”

  A shadow moved behind her eyes. “Yes, I do know that name. He was one of our star football players some years ago.”

  “What can you tell me about him?”

  “May I ask who you are?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m an investigator in the New York metropolitan area, and Mr. Rhodes lives near where a girl went missing a few weeks ago.”

  “Oh my,” she breathed as the color rose in her cheeks. “Is he a suspect?”

  “No, not officially.”

  Mrs. Herold nodded. “Well, his mother and I were very close when he was young, and our husbands worked together at the prison before hers passed away. Diane did the best she could with him, but something was always just a bit…”

  “Off?”

  “Yes, I suppose you could say that.” She shifted on her stool. “He went steady with Jane Bernard, and when she turned up dead after a storm, he was the only suspect.”

  Josie’s thoughts flew into overdrive. She’d known she’d find something, but she was entirely unprepared for the reality.

  Mrs. Herold continued, “She was found in the woods by some hunters several days after she went missing. They said she’d been strangled to death, the poor girl.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “Well, let me think…” The lines at the corners of her eyes deepened as she recollected. “I believe that was in the fall of 1984. Corey was never arrested. The town rallied behind him and his story—that he had dropped her off at the Dairy Queen after they got in a fight. It snowed after she went missing, but half of the town went out looking for Jane.” Her eyes were sad, her brows heavy. “So much promise. She was so young, the head of the cheerleading squad, if I remember right. My own son went to school with them at the time, though he was a few years younger.”

  Cold understanding slid down her spine. “Thank you, Mrs. Herold. This is all very helpful.”

  “You’re welcome, dear. You just let me know if you have any other questions you can think of. And you should call on Sheriff Jackson. He pressed for that boy to be arrested, but nothing ever came of it. I’m sure he would have some insight, if that’s the type of information you’re looking for.”

  “Maybe I’ll head over there after I have a look at the newspapers from that fall. Do you have a photocopier?”

  “Yes, back by the office. I’ll show you the way, but first, let me have Troy get those papers for you.”

  She slipped off the stool and made her way to the corner but jumped when she almost ran into a lanky man who stood just on the other side.

  “Troy!” Her hand flew to her chest. “For goodness’ sake, you about scared the life out of me. Would you be so kind as to pull the newspapers from September to November of 1984 for this young woman?”

  He eyed Josie but nodded. “Sure thing, Mrs. H.”

  She turned back to Josie and smiled kindly again. “Have a seat, and Troy will be back with those papers for you in a snap.”

  Josie spent the rest of the afternoon reading through the old papers and photocopying articles, all while a tall, skinny, middle-aged Troy stared her down from various points around the small building.

  Once she gathered her things and thanked Mrs. Herold, she made her way across town to the home of Sheriff Jackson.

  She stood on the porch of his craftsman home and knocked, and when the door opened, it was to a man in a cardigan and button-down with salt-and-pepper hair to match his push-broom mustache, which quirked when he smiled.

  “Sheriff Jackson?” she asked.

  “I haven’t been Sheriff Jackson in fifteen years. Saul’s the name. And you are?”

  “Josie Campbell. Nice to meet you, sir. I have some questions for you, if the name Corey Rhodes rings a bell?”

  Surprise registered on his face. “It rings more than a bell, more like a firing squad. Are you a reporter?”

  “An investigator.”

  “Ah,” he said with a smile. “That would have been my next guess. Come on in.” He moved aside and pulled the door open wide.

  She stepped into the foyer, and he closed the door behind him.

  “Coffee?” he asked over his shoulder as he headed for the kitchen.

  “Please. Just sugar.”

  “My kinda girl.”

  He nodded to a barstool at the island, and Josie took a seat.

  “What can I do for you, Josie?”

  “I’ve just come from the library, and I read through the newspaper accounts of Jane Bernard’s case.”

  “And what had you digging around that old story?” His voice held a hint of challenge as he poured her a cup of coffee.

  “A young girl, a cheerleader, went missing a few weeks ago in New Jersey. Her body hasn’t been found, and Rhodes happens to live on her path home from school.”

  “That doesn’t sound like much of a reason to fly all the way out here to read some dusty old newspapers.”

  He handed her the mug, and she accepted, meeting his eyes that held more knowledge than he was giving up.

  “Call it a hunch.”

  Saul sat down across from her, amused. “I know the feeling.” He took a sip of his coffee and nodded. “What do you want to know?”

  “Do you think Rhodes killed Jane Bernard?”

  He looked at her for a long moment before answering, “I do.”

  “But you could never prove it.”

  Saul shook his head and let out a resigned sigh. “I couldn’t. There was no DNA then. Hell, we’d barely heard of it in ’84, and it wasn’t until almost ten years later that we had resources for DNA testing in Helena. Unfortunately, those hunches that we’re so fond of don’t hold up all too well as evidence in the judicial system, and I didn’t have anything else to go on.”

  “From what I know of him, I’m not surprised he didn’t give anything up.”

  “Never. The kid was stone cold, and the town wanted to hear none of my babbling about it. You have to understand that Rhodes was a star player on the football team. He seemed normal, whatever that is, but a few of us picked up on there being something more to his story. No one seemed to care though. I had no evidence either way, only his word against my suspicion, and that was enough for the town.”

  “I wasn’t able to find record of this in any of the databases I have access to.”

  “No, I suppose you wouldn’t have. We didn’t get a full-on database system until the mid-nineties. Up to that point, all our records were paper copies, and in 1992, there was a fire in the courthouse. The records room was destroyed along with all the case files.”

  Josie set her coffee down and ran a hand over her mouth. “Shit.”

  “Well,” he said with a spark in his eyes, “I might have a bright spot on your horizon. I’ve got something you’ll want to see.”

  Saul stood and motioned for her to follow him, which she did. In his office, he opened the closet and knelt down to pull out a small storage box with the name Bernard written on it.

  He set the box down on his desk and pulled off the lid. Inside was a mass of information—crime scene photos, case files, interview cassette tapes. She shuffled them around and saw the edge of a copy of the suspect’s fingerprints. Her fingers went numb as she lifted them out of the box. She looked up at Saul.

  He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Now, don’t gimme that look. None of this is admissible, you know. I’m fairly certain that a box in the bottom of my closet will somehow
not stand up against chain-of-custody requirements. All of these are copies or duplicates of the originals, but you’re welcome to them if they’ll help you. They’re not doing anybody any good here, collecting dust, not when this case has been dead as a doornail for thirty years.”

  “Saul, this means the world to me and maybe to the parents of Hannah Mills.”

  “That’s her name?”

  “It is.”

  “Well, I’ll be sure to light a candle for the girl. And I hope you find the bastard who took her.”

  On the flight back to New York, Josie read through Jane Bernard’s case and autopsy report.

  Jane had been raped and strangled, but no other evidence had been found, not after she was left in the elements for days. Josie spent a long while looking at a photo of Jane, a blond-haired, blue-eyed girl with an air of confidence about her though not quite innocent.

  Her physical features were close enough to Hannah’s that Josie found herself unnerved.

  By the time she trudged up the stairs with the box of clues and stacks of articles, she was exhausted. The look on Anne’s face when she saw what Josie had found was priceless, and Josie wondered how close it was to the look she had worn when Saul gave the box to her. Her mouth hung open, her eyes big, like they’d discovered the holy grail of evidence, though it was all still a stretch.

  It was then that Josie’s phone rang, and her exhaustion instantly left her when she saw that it was Dennis, the lead detective on Hannah’s case.

  Josie hit Accept. “Dennis, I have news.”

  “Me too, but…it’s not good, Josie.” He paused for a second, and she held her breath. “We found Hannah’s body.”

  “Oh my God.” Josie sat down on the couch. She realized then that she’d been holding out some small hope that Hannah was still alive, hope that left her in a rush. “Where?”

  “Delaware Water Gap, in the national park. She was found by some hikers, washed up on the riverbank. We just got a positive ID.” He waited through a stretch of silence. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.” She took a deep breath. “I just got back from Montana with a boxful of case files on the murder of a sixteen-year-old cheerleader, the girlfriend of Corey Rhodes in 1984.”

  “Oh, shit,” he breathed. “What did you find out?”

  “The old sheriff believes he did it. I have fingerprints, Dennis.”

  “Willing to share?”

  “Of course. But I want to see her body.” She leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees.

  “Josie…”

  She laid her forehead in her palm. “I know. I just want to see her.”

  He paused, and when he spoke again, he was resigned. “All right. They took her body to the Sussex County Coroner. I’m here waiting for her family. Meet me in an hour.”

  She looked at her watch. It was seven, plenty of time with no traffic. “Okay. Anne will get everything scanned, and I’ll bring you copies tomorrow.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you.”

  “Good luck with the Mills, Dennis.”

  “I tried to convince them not to come, that they don’t want to see her like this, but they wouldn’t hear it. They never do.”

  “I know. I’m sorry for all of it.”

  “Thanks, kid. I’ll see you in a bit.”

  She hung up and turned to Anne, who had paused to listen to Josie’s half of the conversation with her lip between her teeth.

  Josie nodded, and Anne hung her head.

  “I’ve got to get going if I’m going to get to the coroner’s in time.”

  Anne looked solemnly down into the box. “I’ll get all of this scanned, and we can start the real dig tomorrow.”

  Josie peeled herself off the couch, her body heavy from exhaustion and the weight of knowing that Hannah was dead. She wanted to see Hannah with her own eyes, to have her own perspective to compare the case files to in the hopes that she could find some connection, some parallel.

  “I’ll be back,” Josie said as she grabbed her keys.

  “I’ll be here.” Anne gave her a sympathetic smile and ran a hand down Josie’s arm. “Good luck.”

  “You too.”

  Josie hit no traffic, and the city fell behind her as she drove through rural New Jersey with her windows down and radio blaring, her hair whipping around her face, her mind rolling over and over everything she’d learned.

  When she reached the coroner’s office, she hauled herself inside and found Dennis in the waiting room, looking rumpled. He sat low in his chair, his tie was a little loose, his coat hanging on his sloped shoulders. He looked tired, his mocha skin ashen, with dark circles under his eyes.

  He looked up at her and raised an eyebrow, shifting to sit up straighter. “I cannot believe I’m about to let you in there.”

  “You said that last time.” She sat down in a chair next to him. “How did it go?”

  He leaned forward, shaking his head as he looked down at the linoleum between his feet. “It never gets easier, and when they’re so young…”

  She laid a hand on his shoulder. “I know.”

  Dennis glanced at her. “You ready for this?”

  “Can anyone be ready for what I’m about to see?”

  “Not a single person in the world,” he said as he stood.

  They walked down the long hallway and through a set of double doors to the morgue. Metal walls lined one side of the room, marked by a grid of compartments with handles on each. The only sounds were their footfalls, underlined by the hum from the refrigerated wall and the buzzing from the fluorescent lights. Goosebumps broke out up and down her arms when they came to a stop in front of a metal door, and Dennis laid his hand on the handle.

  He gave her an apologetic look before he slid the compartment out.

  The musty smell of damp leaves hit her nose, and Josie took a step back when she saw the girl on the slab. Her skin was dark and tight, pulled over her bones and cracking like leather, a shocking contrast to the life in her crimson cheerleading uniform. Her hair, which was once blond and bright, was now dull and yellow, thin and sparse.

  Dennis handed her a file. “It seems she was in the water for about thirty-six hours before she washed up. We didn’t have much rain after she was exposed, and the dry conditions combined with the plastic she was wrapped in did this to her. The coroner’s report says she died of asphyxiation, determined by a crushed hyoid bone.”

  Josie went numb. “Strangled?”

  He nodded. “There was nothing to suggest a garrote was used. She was likely strangled by hand.”

  Her hands were cold as it clicked together. “Dennis, Rhodes’s high school girlfriend was killed the same way. Raped and strangled with a broken hyoid.”

  Dennis stood still. “We believe Hannah was raped.”

  “Oh my God,” she whispered with her eyes on the girl.

  Dennis hung his hands on his hips. “I need those files, Josie. Can you bring them to me first thing? It’s circumstantial, but it’s a lead.”

  “Absolutely. I’ll even bring them to you tonight.”

  “Tomorrow’s fine. You look like you could use some rest.”

  Josie couldn’t take her eyes off Hannah. “I have a feeling I won’t sleep much tonight.”

  “I know what you mean,” he said as he looked down at the girl’s body.

  Josie read through the autopsy file and looked over Hannah, feeling the gravity of it all, shrugging off her anger and focusing on what she could change. She could help find who had killed Hannah Mills.

  It was almost eleven by the time Josie trudged up the stairs of her apartment, wanting nothing more than a long, hot bath and a tall, stiff drink. She unlocked the door and opened it, freezing in the doorframe when she saw what waited inside.

  Her eyes caught every detail.

  A lamp lay on the ground, shining light at wrong angles, casting long, odd shadows against the wall. Josie scanned the room, noting that Anne’s laptop wasn’t on her desk and neither was
the case file box.

  She pulled her gun and silently made her way through the living room with her heart thumping in her chest. She spotted a small pool of blood on the floor and stared at it for a moment with her mind charging through scenarios (maybe she’d cut her hand, maybe the cat was hurt, maybe, maybe, maybe).

  It was then that she heard the shower running and moved toward the bathroom.

  The sound was so familiar, it convinced some corner of her brain that the common noise meant everything had to be fine. She walked toward the door, a slit of light from the crack stretching toward her like a pathway, drawing her forward. When she reached the door, she pushed it open with her foot, and her arms fell, her gun clattering to the wet tiled floor.

  Anne was lying in the claw-foot tub with one arm draped over the side and her face turned to Josie, her blue eyes sightless and dim and empty. Water spilled over the brim of the bathtub, running down Anne’s auburn hair and to the ground, dripping on the tiles, as the shower endlessly streamed down.

  “Annie,” Josie whispered, rushing to her side. She touched Anne’s cold, wet face, desperate and disbelieving. “Annie, wake up,” she begged uselessly, the words like fire in her throat.

  She laid her trembling fingers at Anne’s bruised, purple neck but could find no pulse. Anne’s shirt was torn, her bra exposed. Her panties were gone, her leggings shredded and hanging off her ankles.

  And Josie climbed into the tub with her, the cold water spilling out, seeping into her bones. Her tears mingled with the water raining down on her as she pumped Anne’s chest, knowing it was futile but trying to save her all the same.

  Josie’s legs and lungs burned as she stood in front of the river with her hands on her hips, her chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath. Tears rolled down her sweaty cheeks, but she didn’t even bother to wipe them away, just turned and sprinted back toward her apartment.

  There hadn’t been a single official lead on who had killed Anne. No fingerprints. No DNA. But Josie knew who had done it. She just couldn’t prove it, and that was the worst kind of hell she could live through.

  By the time she reached her place, she was spent, her legs numb and lungs on fire. She unlocked her door and closed it behind her before lying out flat on her living room floor, panting and aching. Ricochet slinked up and climbed onto her chest, purring like a little motor.