From Darkness (Hearts & Arrows Book 3)(45)

Jon shifted in his seat as he processed his thoughts, and his knee bumped his keys with a small clink. He looked down at them and spread them out in his palm.

He still had a key to her apartment.

He didn’t know why he’d never gotten rid of it, though he’d thought about it a hundred times. It felt wrong to throw it away, and he couldn’t mail it to her and break their silence with something so final. He’d considered taking it off and throwing it in a drawer, but instead, he kept it on his key ring, that little piece of cold metal the only thing he had to remember her by.

Not that he needed help.

Jon weighed his options. She would be so pissed if he broke in. Actually, pissed was a gross understatement. Although technically he had a key. But surely she’d had the locks changed after Anne died.

Of course, that wouldn’t stop him if he really wanted to get in since he always had his lock picks.

Could he justify it? There was no other way to find out what was going on. He didn’t want to violate her privacy, but what other choice did he have? She could be in too deep, deeper than even she realized, as close as she was to the whole thing. What if Rhodes was dangerous? What if she got hurt?

That final thought was all it took. He left his lights off, turned his key in the ignition, and backed out of the alley to head to her place, buzzing the whole way with anticipation and guilt.

As he walked under the stone archway of her building entrance for the first time in three years, memories rushed over him so fast, he thought they might knock him over. He paused at the step in her stairwell where he’d kissed her for the first time, imagining the moment as he had so many times over the last three years. She had hung on to him like she would have dropped to her knees if he’d let her go.

She’d told him she’d follow him anywhere. Maybe she would have, too.

His feet felt like bricks as he kept moving. When he reached her door, he looked at the number hanging on it, thinking of all the times he’d stood there, saying long hellos and longer goodbyes. He thought back to the day his boots had rested in that exact spot—his crying, pregnant ex-girlfriend in a U-Haul out front—as he’d laid a note on Josie’s doorstep, one that she never got. He remembered touching her name on the envelope before walking his broken heart out of that building and driving it a thousand miles away.

Jon swallowed hard and pulled his keys out of his pocket, sorting through them in his palm until he came to hers. He took a deep breath and said a little prayer as he slipped the key in and turned, waiting for resistance that never came. The bolt clicked, and Jon was on the edge of giddy, just like that.

He pushed open the door to the dark apartment and closed it quietly behind him. Walking into her apartment was like stepping into a time machine. Anne’s desk was gone, and Josie had gotten a new rug and lamps, but otherwise, everything was the same. It even smelled like he remembered. It was almost too much to stand.

Jon reached for the lamp, and when he clicked it on, his heart fell into his stomach.

Across the long wall of the living room was an evidence board packed with papers, photographs, maps, and newspaper articles. Red string stretched across the wall in a web, and in the center was Rhodes.

Jon walked numbly to the wall with his mind racing as he stared, trying to comprehend what he was seeing. Murders across the years, starting in 1984. There were dozens of them, all documented right there in front of him. Crime scene photos of dead girls in shades of purple and gray, wrapped in plastic. He touched Anne’s photo at the end of the line and took a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

The weight of that wall hit him like a bucket of ice water. All those girls, all those years, and Josie had put it all together. He felt sick and impressed and scared for her in that moment, thinking about her sitting outside Rhodes’s place. How many times had she gone? If Rhodes knew, what would he do to her?

He pictured her photo on that wall next to Anne and felt the contents of his stomach rush up. There was no way he could let her go it alone. He couldn’t see her hurt. Because he knew damn well she wouldn’t quit, not until Rhodes was put away.

He stepped back and ran a hand over his mouth, studying the photos as ominous wonder twisted through him. There was only one thing he could do.

Jon pulled out his phone and moved to Jane Bernard’s case where he snapped the first photo.



Josie looked up from her worn paperback of Breakfast of Champions and scanned the still, quiet street. She didn’t even know if she actually expected Rhodes to leave, but she didn’t want to go home to the emptiness. At least she was doing something, putting energy into Rhodes. There wasn’t much else she could do.

Her stomach churned at the notion that she had nothing left to do. But she had to find a way. Because she needed to prove it. All of it.

A knock rapped at her window, and she jumped so hard, she whacked her elbow on her door handle. Her eyes bugged when she saw Jon smiling at her from outside the glass.

“What the fuck?” Her heart was a motor in her chest, and she took a long breath, trying to slow it down.

“You gonna let me in?” His voice was muffled, still clear enough to hear the timbre, deep and low, that soft lilt of his accent that made her lose her mind.

She didn’t answer, just hit the unlock button.

Jon popped open the door and slipped into her passenger seat, closing the door behind him with a thump. He angled toward her, putting his back to the door, and folded his arms across his chest.