by Staci Hart
“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, 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?” Dita remembered those moments when he was soft and open, when she’d truly believed he loved her, 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, Perry. 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. I did my best to break the bond, but it’s stronger than me. It’s hard to explain 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.”
And she knew Perry did, probably better than anyone. “I loved him. I trusted him. He has seen me at my most vulnerable. And he turned on me. He betrayed me. And if he could have killed me, he would have.”
Perry let her breathe, let her think, let her speak.
“Our bond is beyond my control. We’re connected, but I don’t want to be connected to him. I don’t want him to have power over me. But he does. He always will. And I have no control over my life.”
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 bolted out of the tree line, the sun hitting her like a wall. Hills rolled around her in lazy swells, carpeted in green grass, with cypress trees lining the ridges, stretching up to the sky like spears. The rhythm of Calix’s body under her as he galloped across the open field comforted her, a natural metronome to her thoughts.
The moment Jon and Josie had parted ways, Artemis had taken off with Calix and had been riding ever since.
Jon was persistent, so persistent that Artemis was losing faith that Josie would stand her ground. If he continued making declarations as he had, Josie wouldn’t last long. Artemis could sense her losing her resolve.
The feeling left Artemis uneasy.
Josie was still angry, of course, but not angry enough. And, now that Jon had information on Rhodes, he really could help her.
But Jon had to be stopped. If Josie agreed and the players ended up working together, the result would be a disaster for Artemis.
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 had passed only proved one glaring, unavoidable truth—Jon would move mountains for her. He knew he was wrong and had been trying to do right by her, pay penance. Artemis had been so focused on Josie that she found she didn’t know Jon at all, and the more she learned, the sicker she felt.
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?
Had she ever really known?
She leaned back. “Whoa. Whoa there.”
Calix slowed to a trot and 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. And if she could keep them apart, she would win.
Human nature.
She had to consider Jon and how he would react. He would try to help, want to help. But as long as Josie believed she had things handled, she wouldn’t accept his offer.
Artemis looked in on Josie as she lay on her couch, staring a hole through her wall of evidence and the avalanche of paper and photos and facts that her life had become.
“Now,” she whispered.
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, and the pictures lived in her dreams.
But what else could she do? Until she had more, like an ID from one of the girls or a slipup by Rhodes, she was at a dead stop.
Out of nowhere, Ricochet took off. His claws dug into the soft skin of her stomach as he leapt onto the coffee table and toward her bedroom, toppling a glass of water that smashed as it hit the hardwood floor.
“What the fuck, Rick? Jesus.” Josie stepped around the glass with her eyes on the carpet and made her way into the kitchen where she grabbed a towel and the trash can.
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 the window at the fire escape. “There’s nothing there, buddy.”
He arched his back and rubbed the window, growling again.
“You want out?”
She slid open the horizontal window, and he jetted out as soon as there was enough space for him to fit through. She stuck her head out, shaking it as he paraded up the stairs and sat on the platform above, 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 hadn’t made it out of their apartment. That window had been opened and closed a hundred times since then, inspected by the police and by her, and she wondered how in the hell it had stayed hidden for so long.
She trotted into her living r
oom 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 when he climbed out the window, and when he’d closed it, it had hooked on something that dragged it back, something it was still hung on. She wiggled the chain with shaking hands, 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 opened, 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. 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 four of the Campbell kids had been educated on lifting prints, which had driven their mother crazy. Sunday afternoons usually meant everything was covered in powder and that all the Scotch tape was gone.
Once she got the baby powder, she took a seat at her desk, her breath shallow and hands cold. Josie dumped out a small amount of powder onto a sheet of paper and dipped her brush into the pile, tapping 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 to cover the pendant. She pulled it off slowly and stuck it to a black piece of paper before dusting the back of the pendant, though she found nothing there.
When Josie put away her supplies, burying her trash under other garbage, all that was left was to get rid of the powder from the necklace with the help of a pressurized air can. She could still see the swirling print on the metal, faint and glimmering.
Josie held up the small black paper with the print, the answer to the question that had plagued her every waking moment for half a year. She had him. The man who had haunted her nightmares and killed her best friend. Who had raped and murdered dozens of innocent women.
The paper she held reverently in her hand contained the power to finally put him away.
Day 6
IT WAS EARLY THAT morning, but Josie didn’t care. She’d been sitting there in her car for an hour, watching the digital clock on her dash like she could will it to move faster as she waited for Rhodes to leave for work.
Her heart skipped a beat when he stepped out his front door. He looked just 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 figured his pastimes were things like drinking beer and playing golf, not strangling young girls and dumping them into the river.
Her father had called her the night before with news that the print had been processed, and when she’d told him she lifted one of her own, he’d said he already knew. Josie had run her plan by him, and he’d agreed to it, knowing he couldn’t stop her anyway and knowing his hands were tied. They had nothing, not even probable cause.
So, she would go to Rhodes’s house and find a little trash to lift prints from for comparison. If it was on the curb, it was public property. The proof would be enough to convince her father to call Rhodes in as a suspect in the hopes that they could get official prints.
Josie watched the clock until the bus she knew he took was sure to be gone, waiting another twenty agonizing minutes just in case, before grabbing rubber gloves and freezer bags from her passenger seat. She walked around to the side of his house and through the gate where his trash cans stood behind the tall fence.
The neighborhood was quiet, but her heart was a jackhammer, thundering in her ears as she closed the gate behind her.
Josie flipped back the lid to his recycling, digging 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 trash can 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 wholly focused on each step to come, afraid of what she would or wouldn’t find, so anxious, she could barely pay attention to drive. When she finally 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 lids and labels where they had been held while he 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 can. There were two solid sets of prints—one with placement from holding the can while it had been opened, the other from pouring it.
Anne’s necklace had a clear, full print so clean that she knew he’d intentionally touched it. 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’d 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, bouncing 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 thumbprint 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. Starting at the center point, she 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. Did you get it?”
She took a breath, her mouth so dry, her lips stuck together. “It’s him.”
Hank sucked in a breath in her ear. “Okay.” He paused. “All right.” Another pause. “What happened?”
“Waited until he left, dug through his recycling. No one saw.” She took a breath and looked at her computer screen in disbelief and relief and fear that he’d somehow slip away. “Dad, he did it. I’ve got proof right here.”
“Is the trash admissible?”
“No. It was in his backyard.”
“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. I’ll get you into the observation room while we interrogate him.”
“Okay.” Josie could barely comprehend what was happening, but it was happening whether she understood it or not.
“You okay?”
“I really don’t know, Dad. I think I’m in shock. Sometimes I wake up and don’t believe any of it’s real, like I made up the whole thing. Like I fabricated the connections to him just so I had someone to blame. 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 waited quietly in the cold, gray interrogation room 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.