Page 58 of Remember Her Name

“Which was?” Josie asked.

He told them.

Gretchen met Josie’s eyes briefly. The unspoken agreement between them was that it was hard to blame Edgar for taking her up on her offer.

He continued, “But I told her I didn’t want to know why. I didn’t want to know her name or anything about her. I didn’t want to know anything at all. Cash only. I’d leave her the padlock key in a hidden spot. The keys for the older cars would be in the consoles. All she had to do was not get caught and make sure the cars were always returned and the gate was always locked afterward. I can show you the key in case you want to try to get prints. Seems like something you would want to do.”

Josie wasn’t sure Hummel could pull a clear print from a key that had been handled by Edgar and this woman, but it was worth a shot. “Great. How did she pay you?”

“Cash in the glove compartments. I checked every morning ’cause I never knew when she was coming.”

Gretchen arched a brow. “She wasn’t caught on camera taking the cars and returning them?”

Edgar chuckled. “My boss got a padlock on the gate out there. You think he’s springing for cameras? Please. One of the guys out front talked him into Ring cameras but the batteries ran out a month after he put them up and he didn’t bother to rechargethem. He said no one would know they were dead and just having them was a deterrent.”

That happened more than people thought. Josie said, “What did this woman look like?”

Edgar sighed. “I don’t know. Like someone’s grandmother.”

FORTY-THREE

“Someone’s grandmother.” Gretchen kept repeating Edgar Garcia’s words as she and Josie got off the elevator on the sixth floor of Denton Memorial Hospital. The woman he’d gone on to describe could have been any woman over seventy with short white hair, slightly hunched shoulders and a little extra weight around her middle. At first, Josie thought Garcia had decided to lie to them. What kind of elderly woman stole classic cars in the middle of the night and used them to pick up a murderer at a remote location?

Then she realized that it was entirely possible that the ‘grandmother’ wasn’t the one actually moving the cars. Maybe she was just the set-up person. She made the arrangement with Garcia, ensured that the key to the lot would be available, and then the killer was the one who took them off the lot, stashed them at the murder scenes ahead of time, and returned them when he was finished. Garcia had confirmed that since the classic cars didn’t belong to clients, his boss hadn’t noticed when a couple of them were missing from the lot during the day.

“What kind of grandmother would help a serial killer?” Gretchen said as they turned down the hallway toward Jared Rowe’s room. Almost all the patient doors were closed. Still,the muffled sounds of hospital machines, televisions, and conversations filtered through.

Josie didn’t answer because they’d reached room 604. Noah and Turner had gone to the auto repair shop to oversee the impounding of the classic vehicles so that she and Gretchen could interview the boy. They had taken brief detours at both their homes to shower and change their clothes so as not to further traumatize him with the stench of his own mother’s decomposition. Gretchen rapped lightly against the door and pushed it open when they heard a muffled, ‘Come in.’

Jared Rowe’s eyes were filled with a deadness that sent a shiver up Josie’s spine. He was shut down, his emotions buried deep in a place he could not access. At least, not right now. Josie recognized the look. How many times had she done the same thing in her own life? Starting when she was a child, learning how to cut her psyche off from the trauma and pain being inflicted on her, until the habit became as natural as breathing. Whenever those excruciating emotions threatened to return, she drowned them with Wild Turkey, until it started affecting her relationship with Noah. She hadn’t had a drink in years.

Looking at Jared Rowe, she really wanted one now.

Gretchen approached the bed, introducing them, and flashing her credentials. Jared’s gaze flitted over them quickly and then focused on the ceiling above him. His face had regained some color. A blue hospital gown had replaced his bloodied clothing. Bandages covered his forearms. The hand that had been pierced through with the knife was wrapped in gauze. An IV fed fluids into a vein in his other hand.

Josie studied the vital signs on the monitor beside his bed. The numbers looked good considering what he had been through. “Jared, we need to ask you some questions.”

Eyes still on the ceiling, he gave a small nod.

“Jared,” Gretchen said. “I’m very sorry about your mom.”

“Can you tell us her name?” asked Josie.

“Ev—” He cleared his throat. “Everly.”

Gretchen jotted the name down on her notepad. “Is your dad at home?”

His tone was flat. “He doesn’t live here. My parents are divorced. He lives in Jersey.”

Josie glanced at his vitals again. Still stable. “Jared, can you tell us what happened? How did you and your mom end up in the church at Harper’s Peak?”

He licked his lips. For a heartbeat, his eyes met Josie’s and she knew, in spite of his flat affect, that he was only a hair’s breadth from losing control of his emotions, to giving in to the terror she saw behind his mask.

There wasn’t a damn thing anyone could do for him.

Josie knew that from experience. His heart rate ticked upward. She reached over the bedrail to the hand with the IV in it and covered his fingers with her palm. “Breathe.”

Nodding, he tipped his head back and closed his eyes, drawing in deep breaths. Josie watched his heart rate return to its baseline. His fingers trembled under her touch. They waited. When he opened his eyes again, he said, “I don’t know if I can do this.”

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