Chapter 36

THIRTY-SIX

Josie punched the gas pedal. The SUV roared, picking up speed as she and Noah drove up the winding mountain road that led to Harper’s Peak. It was a homestead from the 1800s that had been turned into a modern-day resort. The grounds spanned two mountaintops and hundreds of acres. A glance in her rearview mirror revealed that Gretchen was keeping pace. Josie could just make out Turner in the passenger’s seat, his hand gripping the ‘oh shit’ handle above the door. He didn’t like when they drove fast. Behind Gretchen’s vehicle were marked units. No lights, no sirens. The press was already so rabid for any little nugget of information about the murders of Cleo Tate and Stella Townsend, they were keeping close tabs on all police activity.

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 had cost 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.”