From Darkness (Hearts & Arrows Book 3)(58)

“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.

Definitely the bad cop.

“Thanks, but I’m fine.” Rhodes didn’t move his hands from where they laid threaded in his lap.

“It’s fresh. Just made it.”

“Can I ask again what this is about?”

Davis took a sip of coffee and nodded. “Sure, sure.”

He flipped the folder open, and inside lay a photo of Hannah. Her hair was so blond, her uniform so red, her smile so bright in what looked to be her yearbook photo.

Rhodes made a sympathetic face, his tone full of compassion. “Oh, I remember when that girl went missing a few months ago. I told you guys everything I knew then, which wasn’t much, I’m afraid.”

“Right, we have your statement here.” Davis handed Rhodes the sheet with his statement on it, and the photo underneath almost broke his facade.

It was another photo of Hannah, but she was almost unrecognizable. Her skin looked like stretched leather, her hair like brass instead of corn silk. The plastic that he’d wrapped her in was pulled back so the photographer could get a shot of her face.

Rhodes didn’t miss a beat. “Whoa, is that what happened to her?”

“Oh, sorry,” Davis said with nonchalance. “I forgot that was there.” He shuffled the papers around, flipping through photographs of different women, ghosts of Rhodes’s conquests.

Rhodes shook his head, his outward appearance and voice innocent even though he could barely hear over the sound of his blood rushing in his ears. “Did the same guy kill all of them?” he asked.

“We think so, yes.” Davis reached under the stack and pulled out a baggie, laying it in front of Rhodes unceremoniously.

Rhodes’s hands clenched in his lap along with every muscle in his abdomen.

Anne’s necklace lay inside, the small bird stamped onto the silver disc staring at him through the plastic. Everything came back to him in a rush. He could see her lying on the ground in front of him, could feel her pulse in his fingers.

He kept his face smooth, only showing an air of mild curiosity. “What’s that?”

“Have you ever seen this before?” Davis’s body language and tone were relaxed, but his eyes probed Rhodes.

Cat and mouse.

“I’m sorry. I can’t say that I have.”

Davis nodded. “We found it today in the window track of an apartment nearby. A girl was strangled to death and raped there on the night we found Hannah’s body. She was an investigator who had been looking into Hannah’s disappearance.”

“Wow. Do you think the same guy killed her too?”

“It’d make sense, wouldn’t it?”

“I guess it would. But I still don’t quite understand what exactly this has to do with me.”

Davis’s cool eyes didn’t leave Rhodes’s face. “We received an anonymous tip today that said you were involved in not only the murders of Anne Martin and Hannah Mills, but a number of prostitutes as well as a girl from your hometown, Jane Bernard. We take calls like that seriously, but those are some pretty wild accusations, wouldn’t you say?”

He let out a soft chuckle. “That’s crazy.”

“I know, right?” Davis said, his tone disbelieving. “Do you know of anyone who would want to defame you? There’s no accounting for crazy people. Maybe one of them called in the tip?”

“Gosh, not off the top of my head.”

“Would you mind giving us a DNA sample and your fingerprints? You know, just to rule yourself out.”

Rhodes laughed wholeheartedly at that one. “Yes, I would mind actually. Am I being charged with anything?”

Davis’s jovial face hardened a touch. “No, no, nothing like that. We just thought that, if you cooperated, we could clear up this whole misunderstanding right now.”

“Do I need to call my lawyer?”

“Well, now, that really is up to you. Let me give you a few to consider it.” Davis stood and jerked his chin at his partner, who pushed away from the wall and walked toward the door, his eyes on Rhodes the whole time.

Rhodes sat back in his seat. The detective had left everything there—the photos haphazardly spread out enough that it looked accidental, the necklace lying on the table in front of him.

The necklace.

His fingers twitched. He was so close. All he had to do was reach out and touch it. Time seemed to stop as the smell of coffee and the old, metallic scent of the station filled his nose, the distant sound of phones ringing and the whir of air conditioning in his ears. He memorized everything before breaking his gaze and pulling out his phone to play Candy Crush, as if none of it fazed him, though his mind and body hummed with such static, he was surprised his hair wasn’t standing on end.

But he would never let them know.



Josie watched Rhodes play on his phone with her face stone cold and her hands clasped behind her back. Hank stood next to her silently, and when Walker and Davis came in, they all stood there, watching Rhodes through the one-way glass.