Kiss Me, Kill Me lk-2

by Allison Brennan

  “You know what Dr. Vigo needs. Give it to him.”

  Sean wasn’t happy. “You want us to do your paperwork?”

  “You created it.”

  Lucy was elated. “I’m happy to do it.”

  Sean glanced at her and frowned. She ignored him. Sean was all action, but Lucy loved picking through reports for the gold nuggets that solved puzzles.

  Suzanne said, “This isn’t a punishment. Dr. Vigo asked me to do this, and I’m trusting that you know what you’re doing. Otherwise I’ll be the one who looks bad.”

  “I promise, you’ll look good.” Lucy hesitated, then said, “Sean might be more use to you outside the building.”

  “That’s okay,” Sean said. “I’ll help you.”

  “No, you’ll hinder me. I know what I’m doing.”

  Suzanne said, “I don’t need a partner.”

  Sean grinned. “You got one.” He winked at Lucy and mouthed thank you.

  After Suzanne and Sean left, Andie asked, “Are you related to Dr. Dillon Kincaid?”

  “He’s my brother.”

  “I worked on a case with him years ago when I was in the L.A. office. He’s probably the best forensic psychiatrist I ever worked with.”

  “He’s good.”

  “Tell him I said hi. Is he still in San Diego?”

  “Washington. He’s married now, to an agent, has a private consulting practice but works mostly for the Bureau of Prisons.” Lucy walked over to the whiteboard. “This is Jessica Bell’s autopsy report. I need all four. Do you know where they are?”

  “Certainly. Suzanne might seem disorganized, but she’s logical, if you know the way she thinks.”

  “And you do.”

  “I’ve been here seven years, and if I were murdered, she’s the one I’d want investigating the crime.”

  Sean gave Suzanne some space. Even though she’d accepted their assistance-almost seemed to appreciate and want the help-she was irritated that the case was getting out of her control. Sean understood that feeling.

  She parked near the coffeehouse where Erica Ripley had worked and wrapped up a phone conversation. “If you can stay there for another hour, I’ll be there.” She hung up. “That was the cousin of the first victim. She works at an art gallery near Central Park.”

  “Erica Ripley was the second victim, correct?”

  Suzanne nodded. “The only victim who didn’t attend Columbia.”

  “But she was on the Party Girl site,” Sean reminded her.

  Suzanne shot him a glance. “Right, the website I can’t access.”

  “I’m working on that.”

  “How?”

  “My partner, Patrick Kincaid, used to run the San Diego P.D. e-crimes division, before cybercrime was as big as it is. He’s rebuilding the site from the cache on my computer in D.C., and through Google, which usually retains cache information only seventy-two hours, but if you know what you’re doing you can pull out older data. We might not get everything, but it’ll be good enough for court.”

  “I don’t know-the defense could argue that the data was manipulated when it was rebuilt.”

  “Patrick is an expert witness. He has clearance up the wazoo; I’m not worried about the defense.”

  “Kincaid, huh?”

  “Lucy’s brother.”

  “She is well connected. You are, too. I checked your file. You have high clearance.”

  “I have to. I’ve been hired by federal agencies to hack their security. I break in; my brother Duke plugs the holes.”

  Suzanne was obviously surprised. “What are you doing looking for a missing teenager?”

  “Long story. But Kirsten’s my cousin.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “She’s a cousin by marriage. I haven’t seen her since she was little, but Duke is very loyal to family, even family that we don’t talk to. Kirsten’s dad called, we jumped.”

  “And you don’t want to?”

  “Of course I do. It’s not what RCK usually works on, so I’m stumbling a bit in the dark.”

  “Could have fooled me.”

  Suzanne went up to the counter and spoke to the manager, then motioned for Sean to sit down near the back. “The manager is sending over the two people closest to Erica.”

  Less than a minute later, a petite girl with short, dyed red hair and a skinny guy, both in their early twenties, came over.

  Suzanne glanced at their name tags. “Jordan, Ken, thank you. I’m sorry about your friend.”

  Jordan nodded soberly. “It’s just so awful.”

  “I still miss her,” Ken said. “Erica was always happy.”

  Jordan agreed. “Our manager said you needed to talk to us?”

  “I just have a few follow-up questions. You told Detective Panetta that Erica didn’t have a regular boyfriend.”

  “Right.”

  “What about past boyfriends?”

  The two looked at each other and shrugged. Jordan said, “Erica really wasn’t into the dating scene. I mean, she saw a few guys, but nothing that was remotely serious.”

  Suzanne put out a picture of Wade Barnett. “Do you recognize this man?”

  “No,” Jordan said.

  Ken looked longer at the picture. “Yeah, I think so. He came in once near closing to see Erica. Erica was surprised to see him, but happy, too. I asked her about it and she said they’d had a one-night stand the week before and he wanted to go out again.”

  Jordan added, “Erica was way casual about sex. She used to be really overweight, but lost it all and was in totally great shape-worked out all the time. Kind of an obsession.” She looked at Ken for confirmation.

  “Every day,” he said. “I think she liked the attention she was getting.”

  Suzanne showed the two the pictures of the other victims. They didn’t recognize them.

  Sean asked, “In the days before Erica was killed, did she express any concern that she was being watched? Maybe followed?”

  Ken shook his head, but Jordan piped up. “Yeah, she did. I didn’t think about it, but for two years she rode the subway here from Brooklyn. Then she started asking me to walk with her. At first she said she just wanted to talk, but then I asked her if she was worried about something. She said she thought someone was following her, but wasn’t totally serious, you know? Like she thought she was being stupid.”

  Suzanne wrapped up the interview and they left. “We have time to swing by Jessica’s building.”

  On the way there, Suzanne got a call. She didn’t say much, but Sean knew immediately that she was livid about something. She said, “Make sure Panetta knows,” then hung up.

  “Bad news?”

  “The fucking press released the news that Wade Barnett is our suspect. No one knew!” She glanced at Sean.

  “Not me.”

  She shook her head. “I’ll bet a million bucks it was the manager at Barnett’s apartment building. Mousey little bastard. Just makes my life more difficult. My idea of hell is standing in the middle of a sea of reporters shoving cameras and microphones in my face, wielding little stubby yellow pencils like swords, and all of them shouting questions at me.”

  Neither Lauren nor Josh was at home, so Suzanne drove around the top of Central Park and down the east side to their next destination: an artsy dessert place. She explained, “Whitney Morrissey is the cousin of the first victim. According to Alanna Andrews’s closest friend, Whitney is the one who introduced Alanna to underground parties when she was seventeen.”

  Suzanne approached a leggy blonde with enough curly hair for three women, dressed impeccably in a stylish blue suit that matched her eyes. “Thank you for waiting for us,” she said to the attractive woman. “This is Sean Rogan; he’s a private consultant helping on my case.”

  Whitney nodded and gave him a half-smile. She seemed preoccupied to Sean, but she had been waiting for them quite a while.

  “You work at a gallery?” he asked her as he and Suzanne sat.

 
“The contemporary art museum across the street. I give tours on the weekends, unless I have an art show.”

  Suzanne said, “I’ve been reexamining each victim’s background, specifically men they were involved with in the weeks or months before they were murdered. Do you know if your cousin was seeing anyone in particular?”

  Whitney shook her head. “You should talk to her friend Jill. Alanna and I weren’t all that close.”

  “But she stayed with you for half a summer.”

  “And I liked her, but I’m twenty-four, she was nineteen. We didn’t have a lot in common.”

  “Other than the raves?” Suzanne said.

  “We went to a few together.”

  “Do you know if your cousin was romantically involved with a real-estate investor named Wade Barnett?”

  Whitney was noticeably surprised.

  “You know him?” Suzanne asked.

  “Of course. The Barnetts are major benefactors of the arts. They give away numerous art grants every year. I’d be stunned if Alanna was dating a Barnett.”

  Suzanne said, “I have proof they were involved; I’m just trying to figure out when and why they split.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” she said. “But-I think I might have introduced them. It was a long time ago. Probably the first party I took Alanna to. But I didn’t know they kept in touch.”

  “That helps,” Suzanne said. “Confirms what we already know.”

  “I worked on that drawing you asked for,” Whitney said. She reached into her wide purse and handed Suzanne a manila file folder. “I finished it last night, but have been tweaking it on my breaks. It’s not perfect, but it’s close.”

  Suzanne opened the folder and Sean leaned over to take a look. Whitney was talented. The pencil drawing was as good as those of any FBI sketch artist. “You could have a career doing this,” Sean told her.

  “Thank you,” Whitney said.

  The man seen with Alanna the night she died was a young, attractive Caucasian roughly the same age as the victims. “I gather you don’t know what his eye color is?”

  She shook her head. “He had brown hair. I made the shading about right in terms of color density. Not dark, not light.”

  There was something familiar about the picture, but Whitney hadn’t drawn a full-on head shot. The man’s face was turned partly away, as if to kiss someone.

  It definitely wasn’t Wade Barnett.

  Of course, that didn’t mean Wade Barnett was innocent.

  “Did this guy kill my cousin?” asked Whitney.

  “I don’t know,” said Suzanne. “All I know is what you told me-you saw him with her the night she died. No one has come forward from those parties to say they’ve seen anything, and that’s the crux of our problem. I’d bet if I could talk to six people who were there, I could piece together what happened to Alanna. People observe things they might not necessarily realize are important. But-that was four months ago. Memories fade.” She leaned forward. “The party last Saturday in Sunset Park. Were you there?”

  “I told you I wasn’t.”

  “Do you know anyone who was?”

  She shrugged. “I might, I don’t know. I can ask around, see if I can get anyone to talk to you.”

  “I’d appreciate it.”

  Sean followed Suzanne out. “I can’t believe it took that woman four months to come forward with that sketch,” Sean said. “And that you didn’t call her on the carpet for it.”

  Suzanne walked briskly toward her car. “What can I do about it? No one talked to her after the murder, no one knew to ask her if she’d seen anything.”

  “But she was at the same party her cousin was murdered, but didn’t go to the police on her own.”

  “I can’t tell you how many cases I’ve worked where someone doesn’t cooperate because they think they’re going to get into trouble for a minor crime. The party was illegal, there were illicit drugs, some people think they’ll be culpable. Murder trumps trespassing, but people can be damn selfish. Only think about their own situation.”

  That was certainly true in many situations, but Sean had great disdain for such selfishness. He’d gotten his hand slapped any number of times when he’d admitted to breaking the law to expose a greater crime.

  “Where to now?” Sean asked.

  “Back to headquarters. It’s time to call it a night.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The three-story redbrick building stood alone in a vast cement field. It was silently guarded by construction equipment that twenty-one-year-old Sierra Hinkle doubted was operational. She stood on the top floor, where each window had been broken, leaving only empty holes looking out on the Upper Bay that was laid out before her like a black pit. The rain that had threatened all day now gushed from the sky in endless sheets of water. She stood at one of the openings, her long curly brown hair damp from the weather and her own sweat from hours of dancing.

  Holding the wall for support, she looked down. It seemed too far. Would she die if she fell? Three stories? No, but she might break something. Sierra was so stoned she wouldn’t feel it, and then she might die from the cold. Would anyone even see her tumble off the ledge? Would they even find her body, or would she float away in the bay? Would anyone care?

  Pounding music from below shook the building, but there was no one except the four hundred of them to hear. She smiled at the illogic. But it was true; to the north was open space, then another abandoned building; to the south was open space, then a road that led to a shipyard in Gowanus Bay. At least, she thought that’s where she was. She hadn’t come to the party alone.

  Sierra enjoyed the peace up here on the third floor, though it was so much colder without hordes of frenetic bodies moving to the music. Still, she’d nearly passed out from the heat and sweat and wet dog smell as people ran inside to get out of the rain. Even an umbrella couldn’t keep anyone dry. While downstairs the windowless walls protected the dancers from the rain, up here, the wind pushed the rain through the broken windows.

  She laughed out loud, stoned, but she could still think. She didn’t remember what had she taken. Pot and some pills-something that made her see colors and rainbows and slowed down time. And a delicious drink someone handed her, even though she knew better than to drink anything but bottled water.

  Up here on the third floor, people got a little privacy. Here they could do anything. Sierra laughed again. Privacy in this large, open room with forty people here and there? A guy and girl were fucking in the center, as if they were onstage, and some people watched. In the corner a group of seven was sitting in a circle holding hands and passing around a pipe. Off to one side another group was dancing completely naked, eyes closed, moving to the music that came up from two stories below. She watched them and considered joining. Naked and free.

  She wanted to escape.

  Downstairs, where it was wild, she’d screwed two guys. She’d never done that before, not two in one night. She’d enjoyed the physical sensations that had been enhanced by whatever drugs she’d consumed, the freedom of being someone she wasn’t. But in the back of her mind, the deep inside part she pretended didn’t exist, she chastised herself for her reckless behavior.

  You’re letting him hurt you when you do things like this.

  And she lied to her inner voice, told it that though her stepfather had hurt her and stolen her innocence, she was now in control. She could fuck who she wanted and when. He no longer had power over her.

  Why was it, then, that she always thought about him when she was partying? Did he still have such control over her that even though she’d escaped, she lived wild to punish him? Wasn’t it she who was being punished?

  Self-hate flowed through her veins.

  I hate you I hate you I hate you!

  Maybe she should jump.

  She held her arm out the opening and let the rain pummel her flesh. It felt wonderful. Suddenly, the need to be clean overpowered her. She didn’t want to jump, she didn’t want to die; she wanted the
rain to cleanse her, to make her whole and complete and fully alive again.

  Sierra jumped off the ledge and skipped across the floor, down two flights of stairs, bumping into people but no one cared and neither did she. She ran out the back exit, toward the open field that led to the bay she’d seen from the window. The rain soaked her before she’d gone twenty feet.

  She laughed and spun around. She didn’t know how long she danced alone, drenched but giddy. All she knew was that this was true freedom, standing in the rain in the middle of nowhere, black all around, no sound but water hitting the broken ground.

  She tripped, caught herself, then stopped and looked around. She didn’t hear the music anymore; the lights were way far away. And she was freezing.

  How long had she been standing in the rain? Her short hair was plastered to her head and she was shaking so violently her teeth chattered.

  Her vision blurred, but she stared at the lights until the building came more into focus. Wow, she’d run a long way! Hugging herself, she headed back and hoped Becca hadn’t left. She wouldn’t do that to her, would she? Make her walk to the subway alone?

  Now she heard it. The party was still going full blast. She had sobered up some, and had a headache and a nasty taste in her mouth. She was starving. She hoped she could find Becca and they could head back to their apartment in Brooklyn, hitting an all-night diner on the way.

  She passed a bulldozer that had been stripped of everything but the metal body. The music got louder; she was close. How foolish she’d been to run outside, alone, in the rain! What drugs had she taken? Her mouth was so parched, all she wanted was to drain an entire water bottle. She stopped walking and tilted her head up, opening her mouth to quench her thirst.

  Sierra felt something on her forehead and put her hand up thinking it was a bird, but that was silly in this weather. Then the rain stopped, because no more water was falling into her mouth. Something was on her face, and she realized with panic that a plastic bag had been pulled over her head.

  She stumbled back, trying to grab the bag that was wrapped around her neck. She bumped up against someone and opened her mouth to scream. She stayed silent; she had no air. Hands flailing, she tried again to grab the plastic around her neck, but it was slick and wet and smooth and she couldn’t get a grip. She scratched herself, then thought, break the plastic!