Jocelyn pushed her fears aside and tried to focus on the miracle right in front of her. Her sister was clean, finally, and she was here. She was making a real effort. She wanted to be a part of their lives. Jocelyn wanted to take a photograph of the two of them but worried the flash would wake Olivia. Instead, she kissed them both on their foreheads and went back to her room, where Caleb waited. They’d have an hour together before he had to go to work. He lay on her bed, fully clothed, an arm bent behind his head. He smiled as she climbed onto the bed and curled up beside him. The tension in her body dissipated as he pulled her to him, enveloping her into his arms. She closed her eyes, inhaled his scent and sighed. She wished like crazy that he didn’t have to work. She wanted nothing more than to sleep the entire night in his arms.
“So,” he said. “Raz got a confession.”
“Mmmmm, yeah,” she murmured.
“I thought you’d be more excited.”
She opened her eyes, which were level with his chest. She traced the hollow of his throat with her fingers. “I did too,” she admitted. “I don’t know. I was listening to Cash Rigo talk about killing Sydney, and he just seemed so . . . insincere.”
Caleb shifted so he could look at her face. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. It was almost like he was making it up as he went along. Raz asked him why he kept the jewelry but not the gun. He said he didn’t know, that he wasn’t thinking straight so he buried the gun in Fairmount Park near Sydney’s body.”
“Why would you bury the murder weapon near the body?” Caleb said. “That makes no sense.”
“I know he’s not the brightest bulb on the tree,” Jocelyn agreed. “But really, I expected more from him.”
“Where’d he get the gun?”
“He said he doesn’t remember. He can’t even remember the type of gun he used.”
Caleb snorted. “He doesn’t remember?” Skepticism dripped from every word.
Jocelyn laughed. “I know. It’s absurd. I just don’t get him. He showed so much emotion when he talked about her, about what happened between them, but when he confessed to murdering her, it was like he was reading from cue cards.”
“You’ve never thought he did it,” Caleb pointed out. “Maybe that’s coloring your perception.”
“Maybe,” she yawned. “It doesn’t matter, does it? Knox finally got his man. The case is closed.”
“Where is Knox, anyway? I thought for sure you two would be out celebrating.”
“I don’t know. Home, I guess. I was at the office earlier to talk to Anita, and I tried calling him a few times, but he didn’t answer.” She closed her eyes again and nestled closer to Caleb. “I’ll try him again in the morning.”
She must have fallen asleep, the exhaustion of the last few days catching up to her. She woke up thrashing against the hands gripping her shoulders.
“Joc, Joc! Calm down. It’s okay. You’re safe.”
It was Camille’s voice, and Jocelyn followed it from the dark chaos of her dreams to her dimly lit bedroom. Caleb was gone. Her beside lamp was still on, its small circle of light illuminating a piece of paper on her nightstand. Camille snatched it up and handed it to her. “He left a note,” she explained.
You were snoring.
Didn’t want to wake you.
Call you tomorrow. Love you.
Caleb.
As she read it, Jocelyn wiped the sweat from her brow.
“You were screaming,” Camille said.
Jocelyn winced. She looked toward the door. “Olivia?”
“She slept through it.”
“She sleeps through a lot, thank God.”
“You were dreaming,” Camille said. A statement, not a question.
“Yeah. I still have nightmares about last year. When I was at that house today—the wife used a hammer to find evidence her husband hid in a picture frame. I think seeing the hammer brought it back.”
Camille gave her a pained smile. She sat beside Jocelyn and slung an arm across her sister’s shoulders. “Yeah,” she said. “I have a hard time with hammers too.”
In the dream, Jocelyn was being pursued by her attacker. When he finally caught up to her, she looked at his face, but it wasn’t the man who’d assaulted her. It was Francine Rigo.
Jocelyn patted Camille’s knee. “Do you remember when we were kids and mom took that pottery class?”
Camille laughed. “How could I forget? Remember she made that hideous vase and insisted on displaying it in the living room?”
Jocelyn smiled at the memory. In spite of everything, sometimes she missed their mother very much. “I remember,” Jocelyn said. “Dad always wanted to move it—”
“But mom wouldn’t let him touch it under any circumstances.”
Jocelyn nodded. “Right,” she said. “Mom could have hidden something in that vase for decades, and dad would never know.”
“What?” Camille said, her face puzzled.
Jocelyn shook her head. “Nothing. Never mind.” She stood and went to her dresser, looking for her phone. “I was just thinking about the frame this lady had.”
Her phone wasn’t on her dresser, or her nightstand, or in her coat pocket. It wasn’t in the living room or kitchen. Camille called it three times, but it was nowhere to be found. Jocelyn searched her car but didn’t find it. “Shit,” she said. “I must have left it at the office.”
“Well, that doesn’t surprise me.” Camille stood outside of Jocelyn’s vehicle in her pajamas and bare feet, hugging herself. “You were just poisoned, and you’ve had a non-stop day. You’ve been going a million miles an hour since I got here. You need to take a rest.”
Fully aware that she was about to do the exact opposite of what Camille was getting at, Jocelyn said, “I’m just going to run up to the office and see if it’s there.”
Camille rolled her eyes but smiled. “Of course you are.”
The truth was—and she realized it while she was driving to her office—that she didn’t want to be out of contact with Caleb that long. He always texted her when he worked overnight. Sometimes she couldn’t sleep, and his texts got her through the difficult parts of the night. Sometimes she loved waking up to two dozen messages from him, some silly, some sweet, and some overtly sexual. Besides, he would worry if she didn’t respond when she woke up, which was usually the same time he was headed home to sleep.
The phone wasn’t in her office either. She tore the place apart, growing more and more frustrated with each moment that passed, but it was nowhere to be found. Back in the car, her blood pressure up ten points, she finally heard it. She was sitting at the red light at Ridge Pike and Cathedral Road, heading back into Roxborough when she heard the weird, tinny ring of her new phone.