From Darkness (Hearts & Arrows Book 3) by Staci Hart
“Understood,” Jon said, relieved and surprised at the feeling that he’d just gotten Hank Campbell’s blessing in Josie’s stairwell. “We’ll see if I’ve got a chance.”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure you do, if you can make it past the firing squad,” Hank answered, amused. “Josie always shoots when she’s upset, and she’s a member at the Westside Range. If I was a betting man, I’d put my money on her being there.”
“Yes, sir, I recall that she’s a member. So am I, and we’ve bumped into each other there before, so I’m certain I can get by without making her suspicious.”
“That’s appreciated. She’d flay me if she knew I’d spoken to you.”
“And then you’d flay me.”
Hank chuckled. “I don’t care what anyone else says about you, kid. You’re all right,” he said with twinkling eyes.
The corner of Jon’s mouth lifted. “Thanks, Mr. Campbell.”
“Call me Hank, and don’t make me regret any of this,” he said as he made his way down the stairs.
Jon followed. “Yes, sir.”
The two men parted ways at the sidewalk with the invitation for Jon to contact Hank if he needed anything.
And Jon finally had an in. He didn’t even know how it had happened, but there it was.
But the game had changed. The evidence board didn’t matter. Connecting Rhodes to the murders was moot. They had to find him, and the slate had all of a sudden been wiped clean.
Jon walked the few blocks to the subway station so fast, it was more of a slow jog, his thoughts whirling around his head the whole way. He pictured Josie finding the necklace, and his chest squeezed and tightened.
She’d found a way to pin Rhodes, and he’d escaped. Jon couldn’t even imagine what was going through her head, what she’d been through since he saw her last, and wished again he had been able to be there for her.
He had missed so much.
By the time he reached the Westside Range, he was wound up and nervous as all hell. And once he signed in and made his way into the range and through the threshold of stalls, his heart skipped a beat, starting again like a hammer as he walked toward her.
Josie stood in the aisle, her long legs in black running shorts, her copper hair pulled back in a ponytail. Her eyes, behind safety glasses, were trained down the range, her body as tight as a bowstring. The overhead lights cast shadows on the gentle slopes of her biceps as she fired, not stopping between shots.
She didn’t register him when he stopped near her, not until she lowered her arms and dropped her magazine. The second she caught sight of him in her periphery, she turned to him with shock and anger and pain written in every line and angle of her face.
She flipped off her ear protectors. “What in the actual fuck are you doing here?”
He played it off like it was chance, him being there, smiling at her with his heart on fire. “This is the only firing range in Manhattan, and I’m a member, same as you. Is it really all that crazy that I’d see you here?”
“You have got to be fucking kidding me. This has to be some sick joke.”
She reached into the box of ammo in front of her and slid the bullets into the empty magazine, one by one. Jon didn’t miss that her hands trembled as she popped them in.
“You okay, Josie?” Jon asked innocently like the fucking asshole he was.
Josie couldn’t even look at him, couldn’t believe that, of all days, of all times, he had walked in right then. She couldn’t go one day without him showing up, and that day, in that moment, there was no way she could deal with him. She couldn’t deal with anything.
“No, I am not fucking okay.” Her voice wavered as she slammed the magazine into her pistol and picked up an empty one to load it.
Josie could feel him even though he was several feet away, could feel his sadness and worry as he watched her in silence.
When she couldn’t stand the quiet anymore, she filled it with words. “Rhodes is gone. He’s fucking gone because I found his fingerprint, and Dad brought him in. Anne’s necklace has been in my apartment this whole time. The entire time. It was right there.” She slapped the magazine down on the counter, though her hand didn’t move from over it as she leaned on the surface and closed her eyes. “He’s gone, and now, I have to find him.”
“I’m sorry.” His words were heavy with concern.
“It’s not your fault.” She opened her eyes and picked up the last empty magazine, keeping her attention on her hands.
“I’m sorry all the same.”
“I can’t fucking handle you right now. Not today.” She finally looked at him, but her jaw was tight, and she hoped the warning was clear.
“Josie, I’ve been staring at a replica of your wall for days. I want to help. You know I do, and you know I can.”
She shook her head. Of all the people in all the world, he might be one of the last who she’d ask for help, who she would ever trust. She also knew he was the only person who could. But she couldn’t. She wouldn’t.
“I care more than just about anybody, and I don’t doubt that you can figure this out because you’re the most capable woman I’ve ever known. I saw what you did with the evidence wall, and it’s one of the smartest, most terrifying things I’ve ever seen. I know you can do this on your own. But that doesn’t mean you should.”
Josie raised her gun and fired through another round. He waited as she dropped the magazine and slammed another home before unloading it again. Somewhere in the third magazine, he finally turned and walked away.
Her ears rang with each shot, her eyes burning as she emptied the chamber. And when he was finally gone, she dropped her arms, pressing her palms on the counter, head bowed where he could no longer see her cry.
It was just after dusk that evening, the sun slipping away with Josie’s hope. She shifted on her aching feet, standing on the porch of one of Rhodes’s neighbors, who apologized for not having more information before closing her door.
Josie turned and walked down the steps. She had spoken to anyone who would listen as she waited for the police team to leave Rhodes’s house. But, of course, no one had seen or heard anything, and she found herself feeling helpless and numb and empty.
It was the worst kind of tired, like nothing mattered enough to stop you from curling up wherever you were, closing your eyes, and sleeping forever. She had no new information by the close of the day, and neither did Hank.
There was only one thing left on her list for the day—break into his house.
Josie walked down the block and to the alley, stopping by her car to grab her gloves and picks before making her way up his driveway, sneaking into his back gate and quietly closing it behind her, ignoring the police tape. It wasn’t the first time she’d broken into his house, though she’d never been there at night. It was eerily quiet as she unrolled her leather pick case and pulled on her gloves.
She looked around the door for a tamper seal, but there was none. Hank had said they hadn’t found anything other than his fingerprints, which were a match to the one on Anne’s necklace. Rhodes had been raised from potential suspect to wanted man, but nothing in his home connected him with any other murders or indicated where he’d gone. Josie wasn’t convinced that she would fare any better, but she had to do it.
She had to see for herself.
Josie turned on her flashlight, gripping it between her teeth to illuminate the lock as she slipped her picks in, twisting and wiggling them to manipulate the pins inside, smiling when she heard the click. Her gloved hand wrapped around the knob and pushed, and the door swung open into the dark kitchen. She gathered her things and stepped across the threshold, closing the door behind her with a soft snick.
The only light in the silent house was the small beam from her flashlight as it swept the room.
“Where to start?” she whispered to herself.
The quiet house was neat and tidy, everything dusted and symmetric, which had always creeped her out. In the living room, two love se
As she climbed the stairs, she noticed that nothing seemed out of place. There were no signs of a hasty exit throughout the house, strangely not even in his bedroom where the bed was neatly made and topped with throw pillows, the drawers all buttoned up tight. Josie opened them anyway, and though they were almost bare, everything left was folded in neat little rows. She rummaged through his nightstand, looking for any papers he might have scribbled a note on, but found nothing.
There was nothing.
Artemis looked in as Josie walked into Rhodes’s office and sat down to go through his desk drawers. When she opened the long middle drawer, Artemis thought of the business card, and it appeared in a corner where Josie wasn’t looking as she sorted through rubber bands and paperclips. The name and information of a man who knew who had helped Rhodes get away were printed on it, and Artemis sat back, smiling. Josie would find him, and she’d be on her way after Rhodes in no time.
Dita gasped when she saw it, instantly recognizing the logo with the fat panda on it. “Perry! Look at that! What the fuck?”
“Get rid of it! Dammit, hurry!” She slapped Dita on the arm.
“Good gods.” Dita huffed, and the card disappeared just as Josie turned her attention deeper in the drawer where the card had been. Dita sat back on her couch. “That was close. She never would have accepted Jon’s help if she’d found it, and my plans would have been fucked sideways.”
“Crisis averted.”
“For now,” Dita said, not feeling so sure.
Josie smelled roses and looked up, baffled. She glanced around, certain that Rhodes wasn’t the type to keep flowers in his home, but shook her head when she found nothing amiss and turned back to the drawer.
She felt around the base as she always did, looking for a false bottom. Just once, she wished she would find one, just for novelty’s sake, but she was pretty sure IKEA didn’t make furniture with secret panels.
Leaning back in the office chair, she looked around the room, wondering how long before he’d sat in that spot and what he had been thinking. Where he would go.
Earlier that day, Josie had called in a favor to a friend who worked at a big bank chain where Rhodes had an account. Off the record, no large amount of cash had been withdrawn, though he’d been steadily pulling out several hundred dollars in chunks from ATMs ever since Anne was killed. And with that, she knew he’d planned on leaving all along.
Her job was infinitely more difficult with that knowledge. He wouldn’t have slipped up, not with time to prepare.
So the question was, where had he gone?
There were so many things he would need to be able to disappear, including a new identity and a car since his was still in his driveway. He wouldn’t go where anyone would recognize him, so the New York City area was out, as was Boston and Deer Lodge, Montana.
He could be anywhere else.
She wondered how deep he’d gone in getting new identification and guessed it would be all the way, as meticulous as he’d been to that point. He would have needed a connection, some way to get fake IDs. But Rhodes had no one to trust. He was antisocial and reclusive, and she didn’t believe he would clue anyone in who could be linked back to him. He would have been more likely to seek out someone sketchy in a seedy bar under an alias than to ever discuss something so direct with anyone he knew.
She’d stop by and talk to his coworkers for good measure, but she didn’t suspect she’d find much. Rhodes was smarter than that; he’d been getting away with actual murder for thirty years.
Her only other idea was to paper junkyards with flyers, hoping someone would remember him and praying he hadn’t bought his getaway car off Craigslist.
Dread crept into her stomach as it dawned on her for the first time that she might never find him. There might be no justice, no closure. It might never be over, and she didn’t know how she could move on.
She pushed the thought away and stood, looking over the room a final time before making her way back downstairs and through his kitchen to descend the stairs of his basement.
Josie swept her small light around the cold, dark room, and a shiver rolled down her spine. She fought the urge to turn and run back up the stairs and had to force her legs to move her through the room.
A weight bench and elliptical as well as a rack of free weights were the prominent decor. The only other items in the room were an old couch and coffee table that sat in the nook created by the stairs. As she walked over to the furniture, she couldn’t stop thinking how odd it was that a couch and table were there when the room was so sparse. There was no TV to watch, no bookshelf. Just a couch and a coffee table and a bunch of weights.
She wondered why she’d never considered it before, a sick feeling of realization rolling through her.
The crawl space opening was blocked by cardboard boxes, and she knelt down to move them out of the way, shining her flashlight inside.
Something had been hidden there.
Her heart pounded. She could see the square in the dust on the ground where it had rested and drag marks where it had been pulled out. Her mind flashed with the possibilities of what it might have been as she stared inside.
It almost killed her not to know.
She stood and turned as she let out a breath, looking over the basement with an icy hollow in her chest. She was standing in the room where he’d killed them. Somehow, she knew. He had brought them to that room and murdered them, and their last moments had been filled with the rafters and naked light bulbs, the cold concrete underneath them and Rhodes’s face above, the smell of the musty basement in their noses as they had taken their last breaths.
He had killed them, wrapped them up, taken them away, and dropped them in the river to be forgotten.
But Josie would never forget. And she would make him pay for every one.
“I actually hate not letting Josie find that card.” Dita sank into her overstuffed couch and tugged her throw over her legs.
“I know, but damn, that would have been a disaster.” Perry pulled her black hair out of its knot and shook it out with her fingers.
“I still cannot believe that Artemis did all this.”
“Maybe Artemis does know something you don’t. Maybe Josie has some psychic superpower.”
“You know good and well she doesn’t. But if Jon can find something before Josie does—”
“He could take that to her—”
Dita nodded. “And she’d let him help. She’s going to go after Rhodes, but I’d feel loads better if Jon went with her.”
“Well, you’d definitely have a better chance at winning.”
“What?” Dita wrinkled her nose. “Don’t be asinine. That is seriously the last thing I’m worried about right now.”
Perry raised an eyebrow.
“Okay, maybe not the very last thing, but it’s not on the level with keeping them safe, not even close. Rhodes is dangerous, and if Josie’s on her own with him…”
“Yeah, I don’t want to think about it.” Perry paused, clearly thinking about it before changing the subject. “Well, your plan sounds solid. I think you can make it work.”
“I can definitely make it work, but I’m still worried.” Dita put her forehead in her hands. “I am so tired, and I am beyond mad at Artemis. Look.” She held her trembling hand out flat to illustrate. “I mean, what if they can’t catch him?”
“Poor Josie. This is so hard on her.”
Dita’s anger rolled around in her, and she felt herself scowling.
“Did you sleep?”
“Nope. After my meltdown yesterday, I was sure I’d pass out. After you guys left last night, I took a super-long bubble bat
“Did you doze at all?”
Dita took a deep breath. “Yeah. Not okay.”
“Want to tell me?”
“Not the details, but last night was the Adonis show. He died over and over again in my arms, and I couldn’t stop it. Then, I’d realize that I was holding the knife, and the dream would start over.”
“Gods, Dita.”
“I know. I’m sick, and I don’t know how to get better. No one can help me.” She let out a sigh. “You know something else? I was thinking about why Echo had brought me the mirror in the first place. That timing was really fucking convenient.”
“I know. I’ve been thinking about that too. It just seems really strange to me that she would bring it to you, unprompted. How did she even know you would be interested in it? She didn’t know about Adonis. Someone had to tell her. She never leaves her cave, like, ever.”
Dita’s thoughts fired in her head like Black Cats in a tin can. “Artemis.”
“Yeah,” Perry said flatly.
“Motherfucker,” Dita breathed. “She did it to fuck with me, to mess with my head.” She shook her head with her eyes out of focus, not believing it. “If it wasn’t for her, you and I wouldn’t have fought. I wouldn’t have gone through the pain that the mirror had caused. It’s her fault. It’s all her fault.”
“Hang on, you’re the one who went crazy when you got it,” Perry reminded her.
“I know that, but she instigated the whole thing. She set it all up to hurt me on purpose.”
“We don’t know that she wanted to hurt you. In fact, we don’t even know for sure if she did it.”
That was all Dita needed. She flipped her blanket off and stormed to the elevator. “Well, I’m going to fucking find out. Right now. Are you coming?”
Perry eyed her warily. “I don’t know if you can handle her in your current state of zombie brain, but is there really any way to stop you?”
“No.” Dita practically ran for the elevator, untethering her anger and letting it fly. “I’m pretty much running strictly on adrenaline, which will go really badly for her if she crosses me.”