A Perfect Obsession

by Heather Graham

  Once again he picked up his glass and swallowed the scotch in a gulp.

  Kieran wasn’t sure why she turned to look at the front door when she did; it was always opening and closing. Maybe she wanted to look anywhere except at John Shaw. She was a working psychologist, and yet she wasn’t sure what to say to the man.

  She glanced up just in time to see Craig Frasier come in, blink, adjust to the light and walk toward the two of them.

  She wasn’t surprised Craig was there; they were seeing each other and had been since the affair over the “flawless” Capeletti diamond. It had all started as they danced around each other following a diamond heist. They were both assigned to the case, but Kieran’s involvement had been more than a little complicated. They’d progressed to each having a dresser drawer at the other’s apartment, and were now talking about moving in together.

  While she had truly fallen in love with Craig, she was a little hesitant—and a little worried that the man she believed to be her soul mate also happened to be a special agent with the FBI. Her family was striving to be legitimate now, but that hadn’t always been the case. Growing up, her brothers had had a few brushes with the law.

  And trusting her beloved brothers to behave wasn’t easy. They were never malicious; however, their ways of helping friends out of bad situations weren’t always the best.

  Then again, she’d met Craig because of the Capeletti diamond and Danny’s determination to do the right thing...

  And because of some criminal clientele.

  “Excuse me,” she murmured to John, assuming that Craig had come to see her.

  The door was still open; he stood in a pool of light, and her heart leaped as she saw him. Craig was, in her mind, entirely impressive, tall and broad-shouldered, with extraordinary eyes that seemed to take in everything.

  But he had not, apparently, come to see her.

  He greeted Kieran with a nod, held her shoulders for a minute—and then offered her a grim smile as he gently set her aside so he could move past her.

  Something was up. Craig spent his free time here with her and her family. Her friends, coworkers and the usual clientele all knew that Craig and Kieran were a couple.

  Today, however, there wasn’t even a quick kiss. Craig was being very official.

  He was heading straight to the booth where John Shaw was seated.

  Kieran stood there for a minute, perplexed.

  Jeannette Gilbert had been killed, but as a local woman her death should’ve remained a matter for the New York City Police Department, not the FBI. And John Shaw had left the body less than an hour ago.

  Why would Craig be here so quickly? And more to the point, why was the FBI involved?

  She didn’t get a chance to slide back into the booth and find out what was going on; she felt a tap on her shoulder and turned.

  Her brother Kevin was next to her. He was a striking man—in anyone’s opinion, she thought. He was tall and fit, with fine features, dark red hair and deep blue eyes. They were twins, and it showed.

  “I have to talk to you,” he said urgently.

  “Sure,” she said.

  “Not here. In the office,” he told her. To her surprise, he glanced uneasily at Craig, whom he liked and with whom he was pretty good friends.

  Kevin whirled her and headed her down the entry aisle toward the bar, and then to the left and down the hallway to the business office. He peered in, as if afraid their older brother might be there, since it was, basically, Declan’s office.

  He closed the door behind them.

  “She’s dead, Kieran! She’s dead!” Kevin said, looking at her and shaking his head with dismay and anxiety.

  She stared at him for a moment. He couldn’t be talking about Jeannette Gilbert—no one knew that she’d been found at the church yet, not according to John Shaw.

  Her heart quaked with fear. She was afraid he was talking about an old friend, or a longtime customer of the pub.

  Someone he cared about deeply.

  “Kevin, who?” she asked.

  “Jeannette.”

  She frowned. “Jeannette Gilbert?”

  He nodded.

  “Okay,” she said slowly. “I know that, because John Shaw just told me. But he only found her body a few hours ago. The police asked him not to say anything.”

  Kevin took a deep breath. “Well, John Shaw might not have said anything, but one of the workers down there—a grunt, a student, I don’t know—came out and told people on the street, and the story was picked up, and there are already media crews there.”

  She studied her brother. “Kevin, it’s terrible. A beautiful young woman has—I’m assuming—been murdered. But, Kevin, I’m afraid that terrible things do happen. But...we didn’t know Jeannette Gilbert. Not personally.”

  “Yes,” he said. “We did.”

  “We did?”

  “I did,” he corrected. “Kieran, I was the so-called ‘mystery man’ she was dating! I might have been the last one to see her alive.”

  * * *

  The NYPD had been called in first; that was proper protocol, since New York City was where the body had been found.

  She’d last been seen by her doorman entering her apartment; she was a longtime Manhattan resident. She had, in fact, grown up in Harlem, a little girl who’d lost both parents and gone on to live in a household filled with children and an aunt who hadn’t wanted another mouth to feed.

  By the age of seventeen, however, she’d had an affair with a rock star.

  While the rock star denied any kind of intimate relationship with her at the time, he’d gone on to put her in one of his music videos soon after.

  An agent had picked her up and it had been a classic tale—little girl lost had become a megastar. By twenty-five, she was gracing runways all over the world and, because of her modeling, doing cameo spots on television shows and even appearing in small roles in several movies. She was considered a true supernova.

  Jeannette’s physical appearance had been called perfect by every critic out there.

  She could walk a runway.

  She had beautiful skin, luscious hair, long legs and a body that didn’t quit.

  Craig Frasier had learned all this about Jeannette in the last few hours. Before that, she’d only been a face he might have recognized on a magazine cover.

  But he’d made it his business to read up on her quickly.

  Because her death had suddenly become the focus of his life.

  He’d been in his office, reading statements from witnesses about the murder of a known pimp, when he’d been summoned, along with his partner, Mike Dalton, to Assistant Director Richard Egan’s office.

  Craig and Mike had been partners for years. Craig had been assigned a young, new agent when Mike was laid up on medical leave—a shot to the buttocks—about a year ago. He’d learned then how much he appreciated his partner; they knew each other’s minds. They naturally fell into a division of labor when it came to pounding the pavement and getting the inevitable paperwork done.

  And there was no one Craig trusted more to have his back, especially in a shoot-out.

  Egan, a good man himself, was hard-core Bureau. His personal life had suffered for it, but he never brought his personal life into the office. He was the best kind of authority figure, as well—dignified, fair, compassionate. And efficient. He never wasted time. There were two chairs in front of his desk, but he hadn’t waited for Craig and Mike to sit down. He’d started talking right away.

  “I had a back-burner situation going on here,” he’d told them. “We’d been given information, but the local police down in Fredericksburg, Virginia, were handling the case. A girl—a perfect-looking girl, an artist’s model—disappeared about six months ago. A few weeks later, her body was found in a histo
ric cemetery outside Fredericksburg, in a mausoleum. She’d been stabbed in the heart, then cleaned up, dressed up and laid out in a family mausoleum. She was discovered when the family’s matriarch died, since she’d been put in the matriarch’s space. As I said, it seemed to be a local matter, and the Fredericksburg PD and Virginia State Police had the murder. We were informed because of the unusual aspects.”

  Egan had paused, running his hands through his hair. Then he’d resumed speaking. “We’re all aware of the high-profile disappearance of Jeannette Gilbert.”

  Mike had nodded. “Yeah, we were briefed with the cops about her disappearance when she went missing. We weren’t really in on it, as you know. But we were on the lookout.”

  “Ms. Gilbert’s been found. An archaeological dig at old Saint Augustine’s.”

  “You mean—” Mike began.

  But Egan had cut him off. Yeah, he meant the new nightclub. Egan wasn’t a fan. He’d gone on and ranted for a full minute about the destruction of old historic places. In his opinion, that suggested New York City had no real respect for the past.

  Craig knew Mike hadn’t been asking his question because of the club; he’d been trying to ascertain if she’d been found dead.

  Mike had glanced over at Craig, who shrugged.

  They’d both just let Egan rant, figuring it was obvious. The poor girl was dead.

  Egan had ended by saying, “Yes, she’s dead. And it is bizarre—as bizarre as that Fredericksburg case, maybe even more so. Because in this case, the perp had to know she’d be found quickly. He placed her in a historical site where anthropologists and archaeologists were expected to arrive imminently. Later, you can go over the info on the Virginia case, do some comparisons. We’re part of the task force on this, but we’re taking the lead, and you two are up for our division. Because, gentlemen, I believe we have a serial killer on our hands.”

  They’d asked about the security tapes at the club.

  Techs were going over those now, Egan had said.

  “That’s a bitch!” Egan had exclaimed. “Try looking for something out of the ordinary when every damned customer in the place looks like an escapee from a B Goth flick or worse! Not to mention that the club closed down when the crypt was discovered. There’s no club security overnight other than the cameras, but cops have been patrolling the place since the historic folks stepped in.”

  From the office, he and Mike had gone straight to the church. The ME on duty was Anthony Andrews, a fine and detail-oriented doctor, but he hadn’t really started his examination of the body yet.

  Photographers were still taking pictures, trying to maintain the scene just as it had been after Professor Shaw had opened the first coffin and seen Jeannette Gilbert.

  A half-dozen members of a forensic team were moving around, but Dr. Andrews delicately stopped the photo session to show Craig and Mike what he’d discovered. Gilbert had been killed in another location, stabbed through the heart, and then bathed and dressed and prepared before being placed in the old coffin.

  Seeing her was heartbreaking. Craig hadn’t known the woman or really anything about her until today, but she’d been young and beautiful, and her life had been brutally taken. She lay in the old coffin, dressed in shimmering white, a wilted rose in her hands. With her eyes closed, it looked as if she slept.

  Except, of course, she’d never wake again.

  “Defensive wounds?” he’d asked Andrews.

  “Not a one. She was taken by surprise. Whoever killed her stood close by—had to be someone who seemed trustworthy. Maybe someone she knew,” the ME had speculated. “Or she could’ve had some kind of opiate in her system. Anyway, she didn’t expect what was coming.”

  “Time of death?” Mike had asked. “She’s been missing about two weeks.”

  “I’m thinking one to two weeks,” Andrews replied. “And I don’t believe she’s been embalmed—but she was somehow preserved. Maybe in a freezer while he worked on her or made arrangements or...” He sighed. “I need to get her on the table.”

  Two patrol officers, the first on the scene, had closed off the area. Luckily, the club had been closed, pending the investigation of the newly discovered crypt. Detective Larry McBride, with the major crimes division, had been the first to arrive. Craig and Mike had worked with him before. He was particularly mild mannered, but he had a brilliant mind and nothing deterred his focus.

  “Glad you guys are lead on this,” McBride had told them. “This is... Well, I believe we have a real psychopath on our hands. Bizarre! Wherever he killed her, he bathed away the blood. I’ve got officers who’ll be doing rounds with pictures of the dress. Pending notification of the so-called aunt who raised the girl, they’ll be asking all her friends if she owned the dress. It’s possible the killer obtained it.”

  “Checked the label,” Andrews had said. “It’s from Saks.”

  McBride had nodded. “Nice dress. She looks like a princess.” He paused. “I have a daughter her age... So, anyway, no inside security by night—but cops watching on the street. The men on duty swore no one went in until Roger Gleason opened up to wait for the archaeologists. Gleason says he comes in every day, even though the club’s closed for a few days. I interviewed him personally, and he seems to be on the up-and-up. Says he’s personally not that interested in the historical stuff, but seeing that the work goes well will actually make his club more famous. Still, he’s not one of those guys who lets his own property go unattended. He was working up here—and heard Shaw’s screams. Shaw swears there was no one down there at the time but him, an associate professor and a few grad students. I have names and numbers, which I’ve emailed to you already. They were all questioned. I don’t think they had anything to do with Ms. Gilbert’s death. The mystery here is, how the hell did the bastard get in with the body? Anyway, the security footage is down at your office now. And, of course, we’re hoping Forensics can come up with something. This killer...well, they’re calling in shrinks. You know, profilers. The murder was cold, swift and brutal. But then, the killer takes all this time with her. He comes in like a shadow, and then leaves her on display, waiting to be found. I talked with Egan, and I’ve been hanging in for you guys. Actually, I’m almost afraid to leave. It’s a media frenzy out there.”

  By now, the frenzy on the streets involved more than just media. Word had spread; dozens of celebrity-stalkers and those inclined to the macabre had congregated outside the club.

  New York City’s finest were dealing with the facility and crowd control.

  Craig had questioned Gleason himself before leaving. He seemed like a Wall Street type, and although his club might be Goth, he was far more prone to the elegant in his manner and dress.

  “I need to talk to Shaw,” Craig had said.

  But Shaw wasn’t there. They’d heard that when he’d first gotten up close and personal with the body, he’d screamed like a banshee.

  And Allie Benoit, John Shaw’s grad student and assistant, had told him that Shaw had spoken with the police, and then freaked out and fled. Allie was pretty sure he’d gone to the pub—the pub whose back wall abutted that of the old church-turned-nightclub.

  Finnegan’s.

  He swore, walking around the corner and reaching the pub.

  The damned man just had to go to Finnegan’s!

  The pub had stood there almost as long as the church. It had seen the New York draft riots during the Civil War, and the violence of the Irish gangs that had once held huge sway in a city where immigrants poured in daily from around the world.

  The pub had witnessed so much history.

  Including the recent history of the diamond heist that had nearly cost his girlfriend her life.

  “She won’t be involved!” he said firmly, speaking aloud.

  But before he entered, he knew, somewhere in his gut, that the die was already ca
st.

  Of all the pubs in the world.

  Finnegan’s.

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  AS HE ENTERED the pub, Craig’s attention was all for his search. With luck, Kieran would be at the office today or—

  But, no, she walked directly over to him.

  And he couldn’t do what he wanted to do—tell her that she wasn’t to have the least interaction with anyone connected to the murder.

  He didn’t have the right to make that kind of demand.

  And since she was here, she might have already served John Shaw, and John Shaw would’ve talked to her...

  At the moment, though, he needed Shaw. She’d understand that; he never had to explain himself or his intentions to Kieran.

  She knew what he did for a living; he knew about her professional work for Drs. Fuller and Miro. They respected each other’s professions and discussed things when they could—or when the other might have a useful insight. Or when, as occasionally happened, they became involved in the same case.

  Fuller and Miro worked with the police and the FBI. They often gave their considered opinion of a suspected criminal’s state of mind or behavior.

  They’d been involved, all four of them together, in a situation before—the so-called Diamond Affair.

  But now...

  He wanted to hold her and yet he couldn’t; he was here professionally. He strode past her, his eyes on Shaw.

  Even as he approached the booth where John Shaw was seated, he was still hating the fact that the church where Jeannette had been found was directly behind Finnegan’s. He’d come to terms with being in love with Kieran—and the fact that she, too, dealt with criminals.

  However, it was still difficult for him to accept that she was sometimes too quick to put herself in danger in defense of others.