Kiss Me, Kill Me (17 page)

He kissed her. Then again. He could make love to her all night. He wanted to.

“We need to eat. And sleep.”

“We do,” she agreed, but made no move to get up.

He kissed her again. “Stay.”

“I couldn’t move if I wanted.”

He smiled and reluctantly rose from the bed. He walked to the bathroom and stared at his reflection in the mirror.

“Sean Rogan, you are hopelessly, irrevocably, in love.”

He wanted to tell her. But he didn’t want to scare her. Lucy wanted slow and steady. He would be slow and steady.

For now.

He finished in the bathroom, and returned to find Lucy sitting on the edge of the bed in his T-shirt eating one of the sandwiches.

“I thought I said don’t move.”

“I worked up an appetite.”

Sean found his boxers on the floor and stepped into them, then sat next to Lucy and grabbed a sandwich.

“This doesn’t count as our weekend away,” Sean said, reiterating what he’d told her last night.

“It doesn’t?” Lucy feigned ignorance.

“Nope. We’ll call this a prequel.”

She sipped her wine with a smile. “Fine by me.”

EIGHTEEN

Wade Barnett sat in the interview room with his lawyer, James Thorpe. Suzanne hadn’t dealt with Thorpe before, but Panetta knew him. “Five hundred dollars an hour,” he’d grumbled to her before they walked into the room. “Attorney for the rich and infamous.”

“I gather you’re not a fan of his?”

“So perceptive, for a Fed.”

She rolled her eyes and opened the door. “Mr. Barnett, thank you for coming down here this morning.”

“I didn’t have a choice,” Wade grumbled.

“You always have a choice,” Suzanne said.

“Then I’m leaving.”

“Well, of course, you’re not under arrest, but I can fix that since you lied to me Thursday. Did you know that lying to a federal law enforcement agent is a crime? Now, if I hadn’t joined Detective Panetta, we wouldn’t be able to arrest you right now. But, because you lied to me—a
federal
agent—I came up with a damn good reason to get a warrant for your apartment and your office.”

“You can’t—”

Thorpe put a hand on Barnett’s forearm. “Hear them out.”

Suzanne was having fun with the interrogation. This was her favorite part of the job.

“Thank you,” Suzanne said, filling her tone with sincerity. Barnett was wary. He was squirming. He was acting so guilty she expected him to make a full confession this morning before lunch.

She’d go out and celebrate. With champagne.

Panetta said, “Mr. Barnett, you told us on Thursday that you didn’t recognize any of these young women.” He spread the four photos in front of Barnett.

Barnett didn’t say anything. Suzanne took out the
New York Post
photo of Barnett and Alanna Andrews kissing in the Barnett box at Yankee Stadium.

“Do you remember this?”

No response.

“Mr. Barnett,” Suzanne said, “please answer the question. Do you remember taking Alanna Andrews to this Yankees game? That is you, correct? And Ms. Andrews?”

Again, he didn’t answer. He stared at the pictures.

Suzanne could play this game all day.

“Mr. Thorpe,” she said, “your client can answer questions now, or he can answer them from Rikers. Jurisdiction can go either way. New York doesn’t have a death penalty. The United States does.”

Thorpe leaned over and whispered in Barnett’s ear.

It still took Barnett a full minute before he replied. “Yes.”

“Yes, this is you and Ms. Andrews kissing?”

He nodded.

“That wasn’t too difficult, was it?”

Thorpe said, “Agent Madeaux, with all due respect, cut to the chase. Of what do you accuse my client?”

“I haven’t accused him of anything except lying to a federal officer about knowing these women.”

Thorpe said, “When you approached him in his office, he was in shock. He didn’t understand what you meant.”

“He didn’t understand, ‘Do you recognize any of these women?’ ” Suzanne shook her head. “I have a witness who says that you met this young lady,” she tapped Jessica Bell’s photograph, “at a New Year’s Eve party. Less than a mile from where this college student”—she pointed to Heather Garcia’s image—“was murdered.”

Barnett was slowly shaking his head. Suzanne continued. “I have solid proof that you knew two of the victims but lied to me about it. When we search your home and office, I’m pretty confident that we’ll find evidence that you killed them.”

“No. No, I didn’t kill anyone.”

“I’ll tell you my theory,” she said. “I think you have some problems, sexually speaking.”

Barnett laughed. “I have no problems in bed.”

“Let me just play this out a bit. There was this website—it’s not there anymore, but fortunately, we have an archive of it. It’s called
Party Girl
. Are you familiar with it?”

Barnett didn’t say anything, but he was no longer laughing.

“Mr. Barnett, answer the question.”

Thorpe and Barnett consulted, then Barnett said, “I’m not certain.”

“You’re not certain of what? Whether you have sexual problems or that you visited the
Party Girl
website in order to have online mutual masturbation parties?”

Thorpe cleared his throat. “That’s uncalled-for.”

“On the contrary,” Panetta said, “we have four dead women; two of whom we know your client associated with.”

Barnett said, “I dated Alanna for a while. We broke up about a week after the Yankees game.”

“Why?”

“She found out I was cheating on her.”

“With whom?”

He didn’t say anything.

“Please answer,” Suzanne snapped.

Barnett closed his eyes. “With Erica.”

Suzanne avoided the overwhelming urge to give Vic Panetta a high five.

“Erica Ripley?” Suzanne gave the name of the Cinderella Strangler’s second victim.

“Yes,” he confirmed.

Instead of celebrating, she slid over Kirsten Benton’s senior portrait. “Do you know this girl?”

Barnett was shaking. “Yes,” he whispered.

“How?”

“She’s a friend of Jessica’s.”

“Where is she?”

He stared at her and looked surprised. “What do you mean?”

“She came to New York last weekend to stay with Jessica Bell. Jessica is dead; Kirsten is missing.”

“She told me her name was Ashleigh.”

Suzanne glanced at her notes—they were Lucy Kincaid’s meticulous notes that she’d brought into the interrogation—and sure enough, Kirsten’s
Party Girl
screen name was Ashleigh. Why would Barnett deny he knew who she really was? Maybe because he didn’t know—he knew the girls by their screen names. Except he had known Jessica’s and Erica’s real names. Suzanne put aside the discrepancy to ponder later, and asked, “Where is Kirsten Benton?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’d better figure it out.”

Thorpe said, “My client said he doesn’t know where the girl is. It sounds to me like you’re fishing.”

“Hardly,” Suzanne snapped. “We have proof that he personally knew three of the four Cinderella Strangler victims.” She slapped her hand on Heather Garcia’s photo. “Did you know Heather?”

Barnett nodded.

“Sleep with her?”

He hesitated, then nodded.

“Did you kill these women?”

“No. No. No. I did
not
kill anyone. I swear on my father’s grave, I didn’t kill anyone!”

When Suzanne and Panetta walked out of the interview room fifteen minutes later, Barnett was on his way to arraignment for lying to a federal officer—Suzanne’s way of making sure he didn’t flee before she had hard proof he was guilty of murder.

“Good job,” Panetta said.

“I feel like I should take that Lucy Kincaid out to celebrate. I can’t believe I missed the connection between Alanna Andrews and Wade Barnett.”

“His name didn’t come up until this week,” Panetta said. “And it’s me who should be beating myself up. You didn’t even get the case until after New Year’s.”

“We got him now. It’s just a matter of crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s.”

Her boss, SSA Steven Blackford, walked down her cubicle row. “Good work, Suzanne, Detective.” Blackford shook Panetta’s hand. “But it’s not over yet. I have a warrant here that you’ll probably want to execute personally.”

She smiled. Life was good. She’d stopped a killer.

Really, it seemed a sin to have this much fun putting away the bad guys.

NINETEEN

Sean’s cell phone rang when he stepped out of the shower. He grabbed it, not recognizing the number.

“Rogan.”

“This is Trey Danielson.”

Sean quickly dried off as he said, “Where the hell have you been? I called you half a dozen times and told you to get your ass back to Woodbridge.”

“I got the messages, but you don’t understand.”

“Explain yourself.”

Sean wasn’t in the mood to listen to Trey’s excuses, but he didn’t want the kid wandering around New York causing problems for him while he searched for Kirsten.

“I should have stopped her last summer. I knew what she was doing, and I was more angry than anything, and hurt, and I said things I shouldn’t have. I turned my back on her, and now she’s in trouble—”

Sean cut him off. He forced his voice to be calm. “I understand what you’re saying, Trey, but consider that you are the only person Kirsten has contacted since she disappeared. She trusts you. I’m in New York and I’m not leaving until I find her.”

“Neither am I.”

“Trey, there are a lot of things going on that you don’t know about. I can’t have you getting in the middle of it.”

“But I found something. That’s why I’m calling you.”

Sean slipped on his jeans and left the bathroom. “What did you find?”

“Her phone.”

Sean caught Lucy’s eye and mouthed
Trey
.

“You found Kirsten’s phone. How?”

“Some guy called me. Said he was working his way through her speed dials. I was number three.”

Sean didn’t know what to think. “What’s his name?”

“Ryan.”

“Ryan what?”

“I don’t know.”

“I want his address.”

“I’m in this for the long haul, Sean. I need to find her.”

“Give me his address.”

“I’ll meet you there.”

“You don’t know who he is or if he knows something about her disappearance.”

“I called you, didn’t I? I’ll admit, I’m nervous, okay? Her message freaked me out. It’s not like her! But if I have to talk to him myself, I will.”

Sean hit the hotel-room desk with his palm. “I’m on my way,” he said through clenched teeth. “Where?”

“I’m at a Starbucks near his apartment. Third and Sixty-first.”

“Don’t move. I’ll be there in less than thirty minutes.”

Sean hung up and told Lucy, “Someone found Kirsten’s phone and called Trey because he was on speed dial.”

He finished dressing and said, “Do you want to come?”

She shook her head. “While you were in the shower, Suzanne called and said they’d arrested Wade Barnett and she was about to go out with a search warrant. He admitted to knowing Kirsten by her screen name Ashleigh, but denied knowing anything about the
Party Girl
site.”

“He’s lying.”

“Probably. He’s now admitted knowing all four of the Cinderella Strangler victims, but denied killing them, and says he hasn’t seen Kirsten in two months.”

Sean sensed that Lucy’s mind was elsewhere. “What’s bothering you? Something is on your mind.”

“I want to know more about him. I read all the newspaper articles yesterday, about his background, and his efforts to preserve some of the historical buildings—”

“Lucy, some bad guys aren’t one hundred percent evil. It doesn’t mean he isn’t a killer.”

She frowned and pursed her mouth. “I know that. And if he was using the
Party Girl
site for cybersex or real sex, then he’s a jerk. And he could be a killer. But, well, I don’t know that he’ll fit the profile.”

“Hold it—you told Suzanne yesterday that there wasn’t enough information to come up with a profile.”

“There wasn’t because they didn’t know whether it was sexually motivated or not.”

“Why does that make a difference?”

“On Jessica Bell’s autopsy report it stated that she hadn’t had sex for several hours, or longer, before she was killed.”

“Maybe he was interrupted.”

“None of the girls had torn clothing or any indication that they fought off an attack.”

“How do you know that?”

“It was all up on the board in the office.”

“I didn’t catch that.”

“It helps that I’m used to reading police reports.”

“Well,” Sean said, playing devil’s advocate, “Wade knew the victims. They may not have thought they were in danger.”

“But
why?
Maybe that’s what’s messing me up. They all had sex with him, at least online—”

“Maybe they were fine when it was online, but not when it was physical, and he snapped.”

“Maybe.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cut you off.”

“It’s okay. I’m just thinking out loud. You need to go and meet Trey. I’m calling Hans, and maybe he’ll see where my thinking is wrong.”

Sean stepped forward and kissed her. “Lucy, don’t assume that you’re wrong.”

“I don’t know what I think, but Suzanne is now positive Wade is guilty.” Yesterday, Lucy was as well. But the more she thought about the method of murder, the more she felt that she’d jumped to a faulty conclusion.

“I thought he was innocent until proven guilty?”

“That’s the courts. Cops don’t arrest you unless they believe you’re guilty. She’s probably right.”

Sean kissed her again. “Trust your instincts, Lucy. Talk to Hans. Tell him I said hi. I’ll let you know what I learn from the guy who found Kirsten’s phone.”

Lucy called Hans, but it went to voice mail. She and Sean had gone to the hotel’s gym first thing in the morning, so she couldn’t run again. She didn’t want to be in the hotel all day. Maybe she should have gone with Sean.

But something was bothering her about the murders.

“This isn’t your case,” she mumbled to herself. And Suzanne Madeaux seemed to be sharp. Lucy liked her; Suzanne reminded her of her sister-in-law Kate. Straightforward, confident, smart. Maybe a little rough around the edges, like a tomboy who hadn’t accepted that she’d grown into an attractive woman. When Suzanne had called earlier, she’d invited Lucy and Sean out for dinner to celebrate Wade Barnett’s arrest. And maybe they would go, but Lucy didn’t feel right celebrating anything while Kirsten was still missing. Or while she had doubts.

Her cell phone rang, and she saw that it was a private 202 number. “Hello,” she answered.

“Lucy, it’s Hans Vigo.”

“Thanks for calling me back so quickly.”

“Of course. What can I do for you?”

“I’m in New York with Sean—”

“Noah clued me in on the runaway you’re looking for.”

“Good.” She thought it was odd that Hans and Noah were talking about the case—they didn’t even work in the same office—but she didn’t say anything. And now that she was talking to Hans, she didn’t know exactly how to bring up her concerns. “There’s a related investigation, the Cinderella Strangler who suffocated four young women, and I suggested that the agent in charge of the case contact you directly for a profile.”

“Of course, but the BSU staff is more than capable. I vouch for all of them.” Hans had been one of the early agents involved with the Behavioral Science Unit.

“Well, I don’t know anyone else but you,” Lucy said. “Sorry, I know you’re really busy.”

“There had to be a reason you thought of me. What is it?”

“It’s probably not even important anymore. Agent Madeaux arrested a suspect this morning and already got a search warrant.”

“Yet you called.”

Lucy sat at the hotel-room desk and stared at her notes from the past week without really seeing them. She felt like an idiot. What was she doing second-guessing a smart, seasoned agent like Suzanne? Wade Barnett had lied to the police about knowing those women. Someone had taken down the
Party Girl
site—and according to Suzanne, they’d spoken with Barnett Thursday morning. Sean said it would take at least twenty-four hours if Barnett wasn’t serving the site himself. “Never mind.”

“It’s always good to hear from you, Lucy.”

He was going to hang up. She blurted out, “Sean told me he talked to you about my application. I haven’t told my family.”

Hans said, “Neither have I, Lucy.”

“I would never have asked you to look into it. I know why I failed.”

“You do?”

“You told Sean I might be too controversial. I don’t think that’s it. I think—” She hesitated, then said, “I wanted it too much.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been thinking about this since I got the letter. One of the questions they asked was why I hadn’t settled on a career. I knew that the FBI had become a place for second careers—so few people are recruited out of college anymore, unless they have a special skill. But I said that I had always wanted to work in the Bureau, that everything I did was self-training—working in the morgue, working for the sheriff’s department. But the female panelist commented that I didn’t have a passion for anything.”

Lucy continued, her words tumbling out. “I kept talking because I was worried that they thought I was too cold or hardened or something. I rambled about my passions—for stopping sexual predators and working in cybercrime and everything I wanted to do to protect the innocent, and I said too much. Either they thought I was playing them, or that I was radical.”

“Lucy, don’t overanalyze—”

She interrupted, “The rest of the interview went so smoothly! Nothing stood out. Except—if it wasn’t wanting it so badly that I panicked, then it’s only because of one other thing.”

“Adam Scott.”

She said, “I killed an unarmed man.”

“There were extenuating circumstances.”

“I shot him six times. And I would do it again. And those two facts are in my record, and there’s nothing I can do to change it.”

Hans didn’t say anything.

Lucy said, “I wouldn’t blame anyone for thinking I could end up just like Fran Buckley.”

Fran, a retired FBI agent, had been her mentor at WCF, the victim’s rights advocacy group Lucy had volunteered with for three years. But Fran’s illegal activities had shut WCF down and caused the FBI untold problems from which Lucy was certain they were still reeling.

“The Bureau likes to believe they always make the right hiring decisions,” Hans said. “But in any business, government or private, there are always rotten eggs. I had one who worked for me and I didn’t see how psychopathic she was. No one did, until she shot her partner and left her for dead.

“You may be right,” Hans continued, “on either theory. I don’t know. I told Sean I would discreetly look into your application, but if you want me to pull back, I will. Whatever you want me to do, I hope you’ll still appeal the decision.”

“I haven’t decided. I wasn’t going to, but—”

“You still want it.”

“Yes.”

“You’ll have to fight for it. But you’re more than capable.”

“Thank you.”

“Now what did you really call me about?”

Lucy said, “It’s how these girls were killed. The killer either didn’t have sex with the victims or it was consensual. The last victim hadn’t had sex recently. No sign of physical trauma, no defensive wounds on any of the victims, and they were all suffocated with some sort of plastic bags—which were then removed and taken by the killer. Their bodies weren’t moved after they died—the killer suffocated and dropped them right there. No postmortem abuse, either. The killer took one shoe—hence the moniker ‘Cinderella Strangler.’ ”

“Did the killer tie the bag around the victim, or hold it in place?”

Lucy thought back to the autopsy report she’d read. “There were no ligature marks or anything to indicate rope or tape was used to hold the plastic in place. There was some bruising, but not in a strangulation pattern. I didn’t see photos of bruising, but the coroner wrote ‘inconsistent with strangulation.’ ”

“Bruises likely left from how the killer held the bag.”

“The victims weren’t restrained, but they were drugged. And because they were all at raves, the drugs were most likely taken voluntarily by the victims. All the victims left the party and no one has come forward to say they saw anyone in duress. There aren’t a lot of witnesses—though my missing teenager may have seen something when the last victim was killed. She wrote something to that effect in a convoluted message she sent her ex-boyfriend.”

“But you said the FBI made an arrest?”

“Yes. Wade Barnett. I haven’t met him, and maybe if I do these doubts won’t linger—”

“They had good cause to arrest him?”

“He lied about knowing the victims; he lied about having a physical or online sexual relationship with the victims. He then admitted it, but of course denies killing them.”

“It sounds like sex was consensual?”

“Yes, it appears so. Of course there are many cases where a killer has a relationship and, in anger or because the victim cuts it off, he stalks or kills her. But
four
times? And then there’s the method. This killer is cold. He or she puts plastic over the heads of their victims, who are so drugged they hardly fight back, and then waits. Five to seven minutes before the victim is dead. That’s a long time to watch someone die. More than that—there are no premortem injuries consistent with the victims being on the ground
while
they were dying. I was looking for cuts from glass or rocks that might have indicated the victim fighting from a prone position. But if the killer didn’t use a rope to tie the bag—”

“He used his hands.”

“Right. To hold the bag in place.”

“Which suggests that the victims were upright and the killer held them while they died. That’s a very intimate way to kill.”

“That’s what I said!” Lucy exclaimed, excited that Hans saw the crime the same way she did.

“Which could in its own way be a sexual murder, even if the killer didn’t attempt intercourse.”

“I hadn’t thought of it like that.”

“Did you realize what you said before?”

“That I didn’t think about it as a sexual crime?”

“No. You said
he or she
in reference to the killer.”

“I didn’t notice. Considering the victim profiles and the intimate aspect of the crimes, of course the killer would be male.”

“I think I know what has been bothering you about the murders,” Hans said. “It’s that the victims were suffocated. Suffocation is traditionally a more feminine method of murder. Along with poisoning, it is more common among female killers than male killers.”