Page 85 of Remember Her Name

Dread clutched at her heart, squeezing painfully. All around them, the abyss of blackness pulsed against the glow of the drone lights.

If he’d just wanted to kill the girl, he would have done so already.

“What do you want, Roger?”

His fingers flexed around the handle of the knife. “What do you think I want, Detective Quinn?”

“You want people to pay. You’ve accomplished that. You don’t need to kill Juliet. You’ve already made your point. All over this city—and beyond—you’ve made families suffer. Just like you and Sheila are suffering now that Jenna’s gone. It’s over. You got what you wanted.”

He lurched toward her, knife spearing the air. In spite of the jolt of sheer terror that rattled her body, Josie held firm.

“If you think that I got what I wanted, then you weren’t paying attention. I thought you got my message. I thought you understood.”

She thought about the report Lamay had sent over just before she got Bell’s call. No one had been paying attention fifteen years ago, or if they were, they hadn’t cared. Her mind worked frantically to put together the bigger picture—to see what had led them here to this moment, but she did understand one thing. Roger Bell wasn’t just after revenge. He could have gotten thatwithout all the dramatics, without offering himself up to police on a silver platter.

He wanted his story told. These murders had been about getting the attention of the people who’d failed him, who’d failed the Cook family, as much as they’d been about retribution.

“Roger, I get it,” Josie said quickly.

Roger dropped to his knees, hovering over Juliet. “I picked you. I spared you! Because I thought you were better than them. I thought you saw things that other people don’t. You saw the girl on the street that day, didn’t you? Do you remember her name?”

“No.” She’d scoured the Cook file, but the girl had declined to make a statement, much less file a complaint against Lampson.

“Tory,” Bell said.

Josie didn’t know where he was going with this, but it didn’t matter because he lowered his free hand to Juliet’s hip. Josie stumbled forward, boot catching on a divot in the stone. Her body wobbled and flailed as she tried to regain her footing. “Stop!” she cried, thinking Roger was going to roll Juliet off the side and into oblivion.

Instead, he held Juliet’s body in place and lifted the knife high above his head. Josie reacted without thought, closing the distance between them, and wrapping her hands around his wrist. His back was to her, so he wasn’t prepared for her attack. As he struggled against her grip, still trying to bring the knife down into Juliet’s side, Josie had a sudden moment of perfect clarity. Snapshots of the Cook crime scene photos flitted through her mind, like a deck of cards being shuffled.

Simon Cook in the hospital, three stab wounds to his back. The kitchen. The butcher block. The bag in Miranda O’Malley’s bedroom, packed full to bursting. The furniture pushed almost up to her door. Simon Cook’s overturned backpack, its contents scattered across his bed. The leather case too large for an iPod.Another image came—not from photos but from memory. Little Felicity Cook’s chest flayed wide open. Being trapped under her big brother had probably saved her life, in an ironic twist. Then loose bits of information Josie had gathered in the last week from interviews and a review of the Cook file coalesced. The witness who had said that Bell was unnaturally fixated on Miranda O’Malley. Jenna Hampton dying of cardiac issues. Bell’s message. Don’t overlook it.

Josie tried to control the knife, yanking back on his wrist, trying to pull him away from Juliet. “Stop, Roger! Stop! You don’t need to do this. I know! Okay? I know!”

He hadn’t just been leading her here. He’d been asking her to see what everyone else had overlooked—intentionally or not, including the DNA results from the knife that didn’t make it into evidence at trial.

A shadow moved at her back, Noah approaching from the side, his pistol aimed at Bell’s rib cage. “Put the knife down! Put it down now!”

It wasn’t a good shot. One look down over Bell’s shoulder told Josie that Juliet’s position was more precarious than ever. He no longer grasped her hip, instead using his other hand to try and pry Josie’s fingers from his wrist. His upper body twisted. Their fight to control the knife caused Bell’s body to nudge Juliet closer to the edge. Her head lolled over it, hair fluttering into the abyss.

Josie shouted more loudly. “I know, Roger! I know! Please, stop.”

Noah holstered his weapon and joined Josie, taking hold of Bell’s free hand and whipping it down and behind his back. The motion stunned him long enough for Josie to pry the knife from his grip. She tossed it away and wrenched his arm behind his back as Noah had done. Both she and Noah slid hands under his armpits and dragged him backward. His legs kicked out, hittingJuliet’s back. Her body teetered for a brief, frozen moment. Around Josie, the entire world went silent and still. Even the air in her lungs froze. Then Noah let go of Bell and dove for Juliet, just as she rolled into the darkness.

SIXTY-FOUR

“No!” Josie pushed Bell aside and scrambled toward Noah. He was on his stomach, arms hanging from the edge. She dropped to her knees and leaned her head over as far as she dared. A long breath gushed from her lungs as she saw Noah’s hands looped through one of Juliet’s elbows. The zip ties binding her wrists gave him more traction, but Josie could see from the veins bulging in his forehead and the way he bared his teeth that he wasn’t going to be able to hold her for long. Juliet was completely limp, dead weight. Josie sprawled onto her stomach beside Noah and reached for the girl. Her arms weren’t as long as Noah’s. With a groan, he tried to lightly swing Juliet toward Josie. It cost him a few inches, his body sliding forward. Josie was too focused on grabbing onto Juliet’s shoulder to register the panic building inside her. With a hand hooked into Juliet’s armpit, she pulled with all her might. Sweat poured down her face. The toes of her boots dug into the stone and her knees pressed against it. Her abs pulled taut, using every ounce of strength she had to help Noah bring the girl back to safety.

They managed to raise Juliet’s body upward, pulling her arms across the stone floor so that the ledge was tucked under her armpits. Her chin dipped to her chest, almost touching therocky surface. Then a large hand gripped the back of Josie’s neck and dragged her upright. Bell held her against his chest. The blade of the knife bit into her throat. Then came the warm trickle of blood. It pooled in the hollow of her throat. With both hands, she yanked at Bell’s forearm but he was too strong and she was too worried about Noah at their feet, trying to hold Juliet in place. There was no way he’d be able to pull her up entirely. Not without help.

Bell’s hot, rancid breath skated down her jaw. “What do you think you know?”

“Everything,” Josie said.

Noah’s legs trembled with the effort of keeping his body from sliding. The muscles of his forearms twitched as he tried to keep Juliet’s arms pinned in place. Josie’s heart was going so fast, it felt like there was no time at all between beats. Under normal circumstances, she would fight back against Bell, but hand-to-hand combat was messy and unpredictable. Josie couldn’t afford a single misstep. It could get one or all of them killed.

“Tell me,” Bell said.

Josie tried to steady her breath, willing her pulse to slow. She needed to think clearly over the adrenaline barreling through her veins, setting every cell on fire. “Let me help them,” she said.

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