From Darkness (Hearts & Arrows Book 3)(24)

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.

“I know, Ricky. I still have you, right?”

He just looked at her with wide eyes.

Her heart was in a vise, the screws so tight, she couldn’t breathe. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”

He kneaded his paws on her chest, and she ran her hand down his neck and back, but even as exhausted as she was, she couldn’t be still. She grabbed her cat under his arms and stood, cradling him to her chest as she made her way into her bedroom, dumping him onto the bed. Then, she peeled off her sweaty clothes and discarded them in the hamper in her bathroom.

She’d almost moved, even stayed with her parents for some time, but in the end, she’d decided to come back. Her older brother, Paul, had offered to let her have his place since it was also a family property, and their place was bigger, but with Gia pregnant, she couldn’t agree. Instead, she’d renovated. The once cheery yellow walls had been painted gray, and the claw-foot had been replaced with a standing shower. It still smelled of paint and new construction, the scent lingering along with her memories.

Josie turned on the water and stepped into the stream. A shiver ran through her, subsiding as the water warmed, then steamed. She turned it as hot as she could stand it and ran her hands over her hair, lifting her face to the water as she wished she could wash everything away, scrub and clean her heart until she was new again.

The skin on her shoulders and chest were bright pink when she finally turned the shower off and stepped out. She dried off and dressed, feeling a little more grounded after the hot water burned down her memories until they were quiet again. She twisted up the damp copper mess as she walked into the kitchen to grab a Pop-Tart, not even bothering to put it in the toaster.

Josie stopped in front of Anne’s door and laid her hand on the wooden doorframe. Maybe she was ready. She’d eventually have to go inside, but she hadn’t been able to enter the room, not after the first time.

It had only been a few weeks after Anne died, and Josie had been armed with boxes and resolve. But one look in that room had been enough, and Josie had closed the door. She hadn’t opened it again.

Her hand slipped away, and she turned for her living room, glancing at the breakfast pastry. It looked like cardboard all of a sudden, and she dropped it in her desk trash can, no longer hungry.

Instead, Josie lay down on the couch to face the long wall where her crime shrine hung.

Stretched across the length of the wall were columns of articles and photographs of the girls Rhodes had killed, papers and newspaper clippings, all connected by a web of red string with Rhodes in the center. They were divided by year, starting with when Jane Bernard had been killed, running all the way through Anne, with every murder in between, every kill she thought he might be connected with. Using the details of how Hannah and Jane had been killed, Josie had found dozens of unsolved murders that fit, mostly of prostitutes who had been found in the Hudson.

It had started off innocently enough for Josie, just looking for any connection, anywhere. But, before long, she had obsessively scoured the daily papers and the old archived databases, looking for any murders that fit the bill. Strangulation. Women wrapped in plastic, dumped in a waterway. When there was an ID, the family members and friends had claimed jewelry was missing.

Josie had searched for the keys to Rhodes’s MO and found dozens of cases starting in the late ’80s that she believed he was responsible for. She’d weeded through them at lightning speed, quickly assembling the wall of connections. Saul had recounted all the lost evidence by memory and sent photocopies of the old newspaper articles on Jane Bernard’s death. Josie had had access to all the evidence on Hannah and Anne already, and from there, it had been filling in the gap between Jane and Hannah.

Hannah looked so much like Jane, even down to the bright red cheerleading uniform, and Josie knew Hannah must have triggered him. And Anne…the only thing that made sense was that Rhodes had somehow known they had information, and Anne had surprised him when he came to steal it. All the girls in between Hannah and Jane had been clean kills with no connections, missing for days and days before they were even reported.

Josie had enlisted the reluctant help of her father, who was the captain of the station handling Anne’s murder. Their agreement was that she would pass off anything she found to him, though she suspected he’d only consented so that he could keep an eye on her, knowing she would never give it up. Hank had agreed on Rhodes’s pattern and the connections Josie had made, but without DNA, evidence, or witnesses, they had nothing.