Kiss Me, Kill Me

FOURTEEN

Lucy methodically went to every apartment in Jessica Bell’s building looking for information on Kirsten. More than half the apartments didn’t have anyone home, but it soon became clear that among the college-age crowd, most knew Jessica and “Ashleigh” from a wild party on the top floor New Year’s Eve.

She couldn’t help but think about Wade Barnett and his connection to both Josh Haynes and the underground parties. Coincidence? The police were looking into him, and Lucy trusted them to do their job. Later, she would turn over whatever information she found, but she believed exactly what she’d told Jessica’s boyfriend: The police would catch the killer; Lucy needed to focus on finding Kirsten.

She walked two short blocks to a Starbucks on Broadway and booted up her laptop while sipping her mocha. She logged onto her fake profile on the Party Girl site and looked through Kirsten’s friends to see if she recognized the other three victims.

There were so many beautiful young women endangering themselves, Lucy had to consciously close off her emotions to review each profile impartially. She saved a photo of each friend into a separate file, along with the person’s online name, to review more closely later.

Almost immediately, she found the second victim, Erica Ripley. She was a pretty, short-haired redhead with big green eyes. She smiled seductively in the photo, pixie-like and coy.

Lucy saved her profile and information, and continued her search. Ten minutes later, she found Heather Garcia, a light-skinned Latina, who posted on her profile that she was studying to be a teacher.

Not anymore. They were both dead.

These two victims were friends with both “Ashleigh” and “Jenna.”

Lucy doubted the police had uncovered this thread. Otherwise why would they have kept the profiles up there? Unless they were using them to lure a killer, so he didn’t know the police suspected how he trolled for his victims.

Still, she was disturbed to see three of the four Cinderella Strangler victims on the Party Girl site. She searched the site more broadly for the first victim, Alanna Andrews, but couldn’t find her. Maybe her profile had been removed, or she’d never had one.

Three out of four of the Cinderella Strangler’s victims—and Kirsten, who was in hiding—were part of an online sex group. Their photographs and videos were there for anyone to see, and sexual predators fed on explicit images. Even though the girls had used false identities, they weren’t protected. Lucy’s sister, a detective in San Diego, had had a case years ago where a young man learned that a girl he had a crush on had an anonymous online sex diary. He killed her and two others before he was stopped.

Lucy logged into Kirsten’s email, but there were no new messages from Kirsten or Trey. She checked the “sent” box, then went to the deleted files. Nothing.

She created a chronological sequence of events, and incorporated the Party Girl profiles, the dates of the four murders, and the weekends Kirsten had left home.

Though the spreadsheet created a clear time line, there was no clear connection between Kirsten and the four victims. The first victim, Alanna Andrews, didn’t have a Party Girl profile, but Lucy added a question mark in case she’d had a profile that was taken down. Kirsten was in New York when the last two college students were killed, but not the first two. Lucy searched Kirsten’s email for any messages from any of the victims. She found only Jessica Bell in her address book. After reading a few of the messages, Lucy realized they had become close friends and Kirsten was thinking of going to Columbia. They also had a lot in common—parents who’d gone through a nasty divorce and changing high schools in the middle of the year were two of the big similarities.

Lucy felt for Kirsten and Jessica. She appreciated the close bond the girls had. There was no doubt in her mind that if Jessica was in trouble, Kirsten would drop everything and come to New York to help her.

Lucy would do the same for her family, but she had no close friends. The friends she’d made in high school didn’t know how to respond to Lucy’s very public attack nearly seven years ago. Instead of staying in contact, they’d gone off to college, never emailing, never calling. At the time, Lucy didn’t much think about it because she’d been so wrapped up in Patrick’s coma and her own guilt and pain. It wasn’t until she was in her second year of college that Lucy realized how alone she truly was. By that time, she found it difficult to maintain more than superficial friendships. Her one boyfriend in college had told her she was emotionally cold and hard to get close to. He was right. She couldn’t warm up to anyone. She wasn’t skittish, but she was wary.

Which made what was happening between her and Sean unusual and daunting and wonderful, all at the same time.

Lucy logged out of Kirsten’s email and Googled Wade Barnett to see what popped up. She was surprised by the hundreds of results.

Skimming the first ten links, she realized that Wade Barnett was a wealthy twenty-five-year-old investor. He worked for his brother, CJ Barnett, and had graduated from NYU. Both were die-hard Yankee fans.

The third victim had been a student at NYU.

Wade Barnett had thousands of mentions in social and sports articles. He’d majored in finance, but seemed to be drawn to architecture and real estate. He was in charge of real-estate investments for CJB Investments, and had bought several abandoned buildings in the city. Additionally, he’d donated a large chunk of money to a historical preservation society to restore several decaying landmarks.

Barnett’s photo showed an attractive guy with an engaging smile. He obviously played to the camera. The police had talked about him with Josh Haynes, but based on what Josh said, he’d been the one who’d brought up Barnett’s name.

Wade likely had met both Jessica and Kirsten at Josh’s party. Did he know the other girls personally through the parties in New York? If the first victim’s profile had been deleted from Party Girl, he could have known all of them through the site.

Lucy logged back onto her own Party Girl profile. She searched the site for males, under thirty, in New York. One thousand profiles popped up, the limit that the site would allow for a search. She went back to Kirsten’s profile and looked at the profiles of all the men following her. She didn’t see any of the Barnett brother, but half the profiles didn’t have photographs.

She thought she was onto something, but would need to spend more time on it than she had right now.

She went back to her Google search and narrowed it to Barnett images. Maybe she could find a screen name he used, or an email address, that she could plug into the Party Girl site to find him.

She didn’t expect to find a photograph of him with the first victim.

It was early October, taken at a Yankees playoff game. The caption: Wade Barnett, real estate investor, celebrating Yankee win with latest girlfriend.

Though only the young woman’s profile was in the picture, there was no doubt in Lucy’s mind that the girl embracing Wade Barnett was Alanna Andrews. The picture had been taken four weeks before Alanna was murdered.

Lucy’s heart raced. The pieces of the puzzle were falling into place, and she felt on the cusp of an important discovery. Maybe the police already knew about Barnett and Andrews. Maybe they were investigating him or following up on his alibis. But until the killer was publicly identified and in jail, Lucy feared Kirsten would stay in hiding.

Sean needed to know about the Party Girl connection between the last three victims and Kirsten, and Wade Barnett’s connection to the first victim and possible connection to Jessica Bell and Kirsten. Lucy called him, but his phone went to voice mail after five rings.

“Sean, it’s Lucy. I found something. Three of the four Strangler victims are Party Girl members. Wade Barnett, who was at the same New Year’s Eve party as Kirsten and Jessica, dated the first victim. I’m sending you a spreadsheet of everything I found. We need to call the FBI.”

Sean couldn’t reach for his vibrating phone because a security guard old enough to be his grandfather had a gun pointed at him. The guy already had a shaky trigger finger, so no way was Sean going to startle him. He was standing thirty feet away. He probably wouldn’t miss if he fired.

Keeping his hands up, Sean said, “Sir, my name is Sean Rogan and I’m a private investigator.”

“Just shut up, the NYPD is on their way.”

“Great,” Sean said. Dammit. He wanted to talk to the cops on his terms, not as a trespasser. They were more apt to take him seriously, as well as keep him in the loop, if he went to them with his facts and theories.

The guard didn’t seem like an amateur. Instead, his squinting and shaking indicated that the man’s eye-sight was poor. He was scared of screwing up, Sean realized. “What’s your name?” he asked.

“Just stand there. Don’t move.”

“I’m not moving,” Sean said. He hated having a gun pointed at him. He’d been shot once before, but had been wearing a bulletproof vest at the time. Still, it had hurt like hell and given him a bruise that had lasted for weeks. His brother Duke told him he was lucky not to have a cracked rib. Sean didn’t want to compare the difference between being shot with and without the vest.

A few raindrops blew at him from a gust of wind strong enough to make him sway and to push the tall weeds flat to the ground. The guard stepped to the side. “Don’t move,” he repeated louder, to be heard over the howl of the wind.

“I’m from Washington looking for a runaway.”

“Save it.”

Sean’s charm wasn’t winning this old man over. And the fact that he carried a gun—illegal in New York City—was going to get him into trouble. He had two options when the cops arrived: tell them about the weapon, or risk being searched and having them find it. Duke always told him to be straightforward and honest when dealing with law enforcement, but in Sean’s experience that didn’t always turn out so well.

A white sedan turned off the road and came toward them. It was obviously law enforcement, lights in the grille, a tall antenna attached to the trunk. Federal? This just got better and better.

A tall blonde got out of the car, her hair a mess from the weather even though she had it pulled back. Her eyes were on Sean, but she approached the security guard. “Panetta said you were just watching.”

“The detective told me not to let him leave.”

“Okay, thanks. Why don’t you put the gun down?” She had her eyes on the gun, but Sean knew if he made any sudden moves, she’d draw on him. She had that look about her, as if she could see ten things at once and react to a single threat accurately and without hesitation.

The guard still frowned and lowered his weapon, though he still had it in hand.

The cop said, “I’m FBI Special Agent Suzanne Madeaux. And you are?”

“Sean Rogan, private investigator.”

“Rogan?”

“Rogan-Caruso-Kincaid. Heard of us?”

“No. Do you have identification?”

“Yes. May I put my hands down?” He gestured to his front pocket.

She nodded. “Slowly.”

He complied, and held out his wallet.

Suzanne approached and took it, but stepped out of reach while she looked through it. She glanced at the back of his GT. “California plates?”

“I opened an office in D.C. in December. Haven’t gotten my new plates yet.”

“What are you doing out here this afternoon, Mr. Rogan?”

“I was hired to find a runaway. In the course of my investigation I traced her here, and connected her with one of your Cinderella Strangler victims.”

Suzanne frowned. “She’s one of the victims? I’ve talked to all the families.”

“She was friends with Jessica Bell, the fourth victim. In fact, my partner and I found some evidence that may help in your investigation.”

“Where’s your partner now?” Suzanne glanced around quickly but methodically, her posture alert.

Sean wasn’t going to tell the Fed that Lucy was talking to Jessica’s friends. “Trying to trace her location.” Close enough, not exactly a lie.

“Why are you here?”

“Kirsten Benton is a seventeen-year-old habitual runaway who always came home after a couple of days, until now. I started working the case on Wednesday.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” the fed said. “Why are you at the crime scene?”

“Kirsten called the Clover Motel on Friday night, paid cash for two nights, but she left without her suitcase or return train ticket. My partner learned that Kirsten’s friend Jessica was murdered last Saturday, and I came out here to get a sense of Kirsten’s mindset. I think she was here the night Jessica was killed. And, I think she saw something.” The rain came down harder and Sean was practically shouting over the wind. “I have a lot more, and I’d be happy to tell you everything while we stand here and get wet, but maybe we can get coffee or something?”

“How about this? You follow me to FBI headquarters. If everything checks out, you’re free to go.” She pocketed Sean’s ID. “I’ll keep this as collateral.” She looked pointedly at Sean. “Do you have a weapon on your person?”

“Holstered, on my belt.”

Suzanne’s glare narrowed and darkened. She disarmed him and said, “You should have informed me immediately. Strike one, Mr. Rogan.” She walked toward her car. “Call your partner and have her meet us.”