by Kate Kessler
Hannah would have been naive enough to trust someone like him. She would have jumped at the opportunity to tell her absent twin that she missed out on hanging out with a fashion icon. She wouldn’t do it to be mean. She’d do it so she could share it with Rachel, and someone—Carnegie—had taken advantage of that.
“I’ll be paying a visit to Mr. Carnegie,” Mancusi informed them. Her expression softened when she looked at Rachel. “I’m not dismissing him, Rach. Not at all.”
Rachel hated when she used her first name. It made everything more personal. She nodded. “I know you’re not.”
“Should you even be working today?”
“Oh, shit,” Trick muttered. “I’m going to talk to the techs.”
Rachel’s nostrils flared as she watched him walking away, trying to find the right words. “Should I be home in bed? Or maybe on my shrink’s couch? Neither of those things is going to bring Hannah back.”
“Neither is crucifying Alex Carnegie—guilty or not.”
“Yeah, well, we can talk about all that shit when your sister gets taken by a serial killer.” She closed her eyes and sucked in a breath. “Does Carnegie have a connection with Sydney Cole?” Rachel asked.
“Not sure yet, but her mother was a model—she might know him. You’d think they wouldn’t have reported her missing if she was with a family friend.”
Rachel adjusted her sunglasses against the glare. “Unless there was something going on between them.”
Mancusi stared at her. “Seriously?”
She shrugged. “Teenage girl, older man, it’s an old story. Maybe she threatened to tell.” After Hannah’s disappearance she had gone through a bit of a wild period and had an affair with the father of a friend. Not one of her proudest moments, but the sex had been amazing. He hadn’t been pleased when she ended things.
Mancusi didn’t agree, but she didn’t argue either. “She was definitely attacked in the car, given the amount of blood splatter. So whatever the circumstances, the attacker was in there with her at some point.”
“Any sign of the knife?”
“Nope. We’re searching for it, but as you can see, there’s a lot of area to cover.”
Rachel nodded absently. Nothing about this felt like Gemini, yet she’d been certain Sydney had been taken by him. By Carnegie. She glanced around, looking for cameras. “Did you get security footage?”
“Working on it,” Mancusi informed her. “EMTs said that from the amount of blood, they guessed the girl had been here for about an hour, which means she would have been attacked between six and six thirty.”
“Is that a heavy travel time here?” Rachel asked. She normally took the train into the city from New Haven, and rarely during rush hour.
“Sure,” the detective replied. “It’s an hour commute to the city, and taxes aren’t too bad. Lots of people travel this route into New York every day—more than one hundred thousand, I’m told.”
They could kiss evidence good-bye, Rachel thought. With that kind of traffic the entire scene was already completely contaminated.
“So, our stabber could have come here to catch a train, but why bring her along?” Rachel wondered out loud.
“Yeah,” Mancusi agreed. “Maybe they figured Carnegie would report the car stolen. We’re checking with MTA regarding trains going to and from Grand Central in that block.”
Rachel doubted they’d come up with much. Like the detective had already stated, a lot of people made the trek from Connecticut to New York every morning. Though not normally splattered with blood.
But no one had reported seeing anything? A girl gets stabbed in a car and no one heard her scream?
“I don’t think she was stabbed here,” Rachel said, giving voice to her thoughts. “Unless Westport commuters see something but don’t say anything.”
Mancusi’s lips twisted at her misuse of the slogan posted all over MTA trains and most public places in the state.
“So he drove to the train station with a bleeding girl in the back seat, but not to his final destination.” Mancusi shrugged. “Less chance of getting pulled over, I suppose. Hard to explain that to highway patrol.”
“How is the girl?” Trick asked as he rejoined them. Rachel kicked herself for not having asked the question earlier. She was just so used to not finding the people she was looking for alive. Today of all days, she ought to have been focused on the miracle of Sydney Cole. Instead, she was numb. No, not numb. She was cold with rage.
“Not sure. She was in pretty rough shape. They’ve taken her to the hospital.”
“Parents been notified?” Rachel asked.
Mancusi shot her a wry gaze. “Not my first rodeo, Agent Ward.”
Duly chastised, Rachel offered a sheepish grin. “Habit. Gotta ask. Okay, we’ll leave the crime scene in your capable hands and head to the hospital. Let us know what you find out from Carnegie.” The Connecticut police and the FBI had been working together for years to find the Gemini Killer, and both agencies would be painfully thorough in their investigation. They’d also be forthcoming with information—contrary to popular belief, cops and feds generally worked well together.
Just as they turned to go, a CSU, who had obviously been processing the car, jogged toward them. “Excuse me, but I think you might want to see this.”
He held a digital camera, the screen turned toward them.
“Shit,” Mancusi said as she took a look.
Rachel wanted to feel vindicated, but all she felt was that spreading cold—it was everywhere now. “It’s him,” she said, her jaw tight. “He’s Gemini.”
She didn’t care what Trick or Mancusi said. It could not be a coincidence that Sydney Cole had left a one-word message on the back of one of the pale leather seats. She’d written it in her own blood.
RACHEL.
By Kate Kessler
Seven Crows
Dead Ringer
Audrey Harte Novels
It Takes One
Two Can Play
Three Strikes
Four of a Kind
Zero Hour (novella)
