Page 51 of Remember Her Name

Noah pressed the end call icon on his phone. “Celeste wasn’t thrilled, but she gave us permission to search the premises. She’s sending Tom Booth, the managing director, over to the church to make sure no guests wander up that way. However, that area hasn’t been used or open to guests since…”

He trailed off.

“I know,” said Josie.

They hardly ever talked about their failed wedding. The one they had planned meticulously for months. The one that hadcost a fortune. The one where a young girl had been murdered and staged outside the tiny church where their ceremony was supposed to take place. That case had not only delayed their wedding, but it had resulted in the death of Josie’s beloved grandmother, Lisette. It had also uncovered Harper family secrets that nearly destroyed the resort. Celeste Harper had been trying to rebuild their reputation for years now.

When Josie had told Noah that she thought the third polaroid was taken at Harper’s Peak, he hadn’t questioned her. His faith in her was unshakable. Now, probably hoping to steer the conversation away from that horrible day, he asked, “Was it the proposal and all the talk of weddings that made you think of Harper’s Peak?”

“That was part of it.” She told him what Trinity had said about Stella Townsend before they went inside the atrium the evening before. She hadn’t had a chance to discuss it with him in the rush to get to Harper’s Peak, even though Josie was certain that it would be too late for the victim they found there. “I kept thinking about Drake’s lanterns and how they were meant to tell a story. Photos. Just like this killer is leaving at each scene. Noah, he’s trying to tell us something. He’s telling a story. If he wasn’t?—”

“Then he’d just kill his victims and leave it at that.”

Josie noted the nearly hidden driveway closed off by a metal gate as they flew past. The driveway led to a property owned by some of the Harpers, though, as far as Josie knew, it had been abandoned since the Harper’s Peak case. The gate had been installed afterward to make it more difficult for curious citizens and mischievous teenagers to access the property—by car anyway. Briefly, she wondered if she’d made a mistake. That residence was extremely remote. It would be an even safer place to commit a murder than the church on the main resort grounds.But no, nothing in the polaroid resembled any part of that house. The image resembled the church.

Noah’s voice drew her out of her thoughts. “What story is he trying to tell?”

“I don’t know yet,” Josie admitted. “But it has to do with us.”

“You and me?” His voice took on a note of dismay.

She took a quick glance at him. “Us as in the police department. Law enforcement. The justice system. Neal was an ADA. Lampson was a police officer. The locations of the bodies and even where this guy dumped Sheila Hampton’s car have all been the sites of previous cases. The lot. The creek. Rowland’s house.”

“Those cases were well-known.”

“Exactly. They all got a lot of press coverage. The killer wants us to find each victim. He wants us to play his game. What better way to keep us chasing after him, always too late, than to reference our earlier, well-known cases? Ones he could easily find in news reports.”

She took another quick look at Noah in time to see him pushing a hand through his thick, dark hair. “Is that why he’s using more recent cases in the polaroids as opposed to clues from fifteen years ago when Lampson and Neal were active?”

Josie slowed as the entrance to the resort came into view. A sign as big as her vehicle sat in the middle of the large driveway, separating the entrance and exit lanes. Flowers of almost every color surrounded it. Such a beautiful place to have been the site of so much pain and violence. Her stomach did a somersault as she turned onto the drive leading to the main buildings. The Harpers were about to get another dose of bad luck, of that Josie was certain.

“I’m not sure,” she told Noah.

“Maybe this whole thing isn’t about a specific case then, but about law enforcement in general?” he suggested.

At this juncture, that seemed the most plausible explanation, but Josie couldn’t shake the feeling that it was something more. Something personal. But to her or to Noah? Or both? He’d joined Denton PD two years after her. He’d had to deal with both Lampson and Neal just as often as she had. Every one of the recent cases that the killer had drawn attention to so far were cases both of them had worked.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Noah said quietly.

She pulled up in the rear parking lot of the main building, where many of the employees parked. The line of cars behind her stopped as well. Celeste hadn’t asked them to attempt to be discreet, but Josie knew that was what she’d want and right now, they needed Celeste’s cooperation just as much as they needed as few guests as possible to post on social media about the heavy police presence here.

“We’ll talk about it later,” Josie said. “Let’s go.”

THIRTY-SEVEN

Dark clouds hung low and heavy over the peak where the church sat. Josie adjusted her vest for the third time, but no air was getting between it and her soaked polo shirt. The humidity was worse today than it had been in weeks. Although rain never made processing a crime scene easy, she found herself wishing for it as fat drops of sweat slid down her spine and between her breasts. Next to her, Noah, Gretchen, and Turner all trudged along, looking just as drenched and exhausted as she felt. No one spoke. Even the uniformed officers behind them were silent.

They’d parked near Griffin Hall, the more intimate bed and breakfast that sat apart from the main resort buildings. The path from there to the church wasn’t that long, but it was on an incline and there was no breeze. They’d decided not to wait for a staff member to bring one of the golf carts. Josie didn’t want to waste a single second. Even once they passed through the hedgerow that surrounded the church, at the very top of the mountain, the air didn’t move at all. It felt dense and thick. Breathing it in felt like hard work. Noah conferred with the Harper’s Peak managing director, Tom Booth, while the uniformed officers circled the church. Josie watched as a few ofthem cupped their hands around their faces and tried to peer through the gauzy curtains covering the windows.

She approached the stone steps at the front, pausing at the bottom step. A shudder worked through her as she recalled the body they’d found here on the day she and Noah were supposed to get married.

Something bumped her shoulder. Turner stared down at her, sweat beading along his forehead. In a low voice, he said, “You okay, Quinn?”

He actually sounded concerned, which was odd. Flashing back to her conversation with Trinity, Josie wondered if he was really human under all his horrid, sexist, inappropriate behavior. Was it some kind of act? It was awfully damn convincing. She’d still bet money he had been acting for Trinity’s benefit and that the douchebag was his real personality.

“Fine,” she mumbled.

Gretchen joined them, a set of keys in her hand. “Tom said someone definitely broke in through the back door. The padlock looked like someone took a hammer to it. These are for the front door.”

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