Kiss Me, Kill Me

TWENTY-ONE

Ryan lived in a nondescript, run-down, brown, eight-story apartment building with at least one hundred units in the Fifties near Third. Whereas the Upper West Side near Columbia was a mix of quaint old and new, this section had a mix of office buildings circa the 1950s and a hodgepodge of apartment housing.

Sean appreciated New York, he liked visiting, but seeing so many people packed together reminded him that he was a bit homesick for California and the elbow room he’d enjoyed.

“Keep your mouth shut,” Sean told Trey when he buzzed Ryan’s apartment.

“But—”

Sean shot him a stern look and Trey scowled, but didn’t talk back.

“Yup,” a voice said in the speaker.

“You called about a phone.”

“Come on up.”

The door buzzed and Sean led the way to the third-floor apartment. The hallways were so narrow he and Trey had to walk single file. The entire building smelled of stale food from poor ventilation, but it wasn’t a tenement.

When Ryan opened the door, he seemed apprehensive at the sight of Sean and Trey. Ryan was of average height, gaunt but clean-cut enough that he might still be considered attractive to the opposite sex.

Sean handed him his card. “The phone you found belongs to a runaway. I need to ask you a few questions.”

“You’re a private eye?” Ryan asked, skeptical.

“I was hired by her parents to find her. I know she was supposed to be at a party in Sunset Park. Can we come in?”

Sean took Ryan’s moment of hesitation to enter the apartment. Trey was right behind him.

The place looked like a typical, sloppy college student’s studio apartment. Bed in the corner that doubled as a couch; large-screen television that dwarfed the room; a couple of chairs; desk with computer, books, and papers; and a small lopsided table. Dirty clothes were heaped in one corner. Two posters were tacked to the beige walls—one showing a sleek red Lamborghini with a naked blonde on the hood, the other commemorating the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Super Bowl XLIII victory.

“I just found the phone.” Ryan stood next to the open door as if he would bolt at the first sign of trouble.

Sean spotted Kirsten’s smart phone next to the computer. He picked it up. It had a crack on the front of the screen, but he didn’t know whether the damage was old or new. It was on, with only one battery bar.

“You just now found the phone? I couldn’t get a GPS lock on it, but it has one bar.”

“I mean, I found it Saturday night, but I forgot. I was pretty wasted, didn’t know I had it in my pocket. I was doing laundry this morning and found it. It was totally dead, but I had an old charger that fit and, um, I liked the girl who dropped it, thought we could go out if I gave her the phone.”

Trey stepped forward and opened his mouth to talk, but Sean cut him off. He showed Ryan Kirsten’s photo.

“Is this the girl who dropped the phone?”

Ryan grinned. “Yeah. Ashleigh. She’s hot.” Then he looked nervous and said to Trey, “You’re not her brother, are you?”

“Boyfriend,” Trey said.

“I doubt that,” Ryan snorted.

Sean said, “Trey, do you need to step out?”

“No,” he grumbled.

To Ryan: “Tell me what happened Saturday night.”

“Is she really missing?”

“Yes.”

“It was a rave. Seven hundred people, maybe more. I lost track of her.”

“When did you find the phone? I know she used it late Saturday night.”

“Um, no. I was, um, dancing with her. We had a little action, she said she had to meet a friend but would be back. She took off, then I saw her phone on the floor.”

Sean kept his face neutral, but he knew what Ryan meant with his euphemisms. He wanted to pound sense into the jerk, but that wouldn’t get them any closer to finding Kirsten.

“How did you know it was hers?”

“Saw her with it. She said she was coming back. But she didn’t, and I pocketed her phone, got another drink. Forgot all about it until I found it this morning and remembered how she—” He cut himself off with a glance at Trey.

Trey burst out, “And you didn’t go look for her? You weren’t worried that something might have happened?”

“Hey! It was a big party. I figured she hooked up with someone else. She was dressed for it.”

Trey stepped forward aggressively, and Sean had to put his hand on his chest to physically hold him back. Ryan backed up, obviously not wanting a confrontation. He was definitely not the stand-up-and-defend-your-girl kind of guy. Trey, however, was, and Sean needed to defuse the situation.

Sean showed Ryan Wade Barnett’s photograph. “Know him?”

“Sure. Wade.”

“Was he at the party?”

“Oh, yeah. He knows how to have fun.”

“Do you remember what time he arrived? When he left?”

Ryan shook his head and leaned against the door-jamb. “Have no idea when he showed up, but he made a stink as the party was winding down that his ride had left.”

“Did he call a car service? Do you know how he got home?”

“He left with some girl, but he didn’t look too happy about it.”

“Can I take your charger? You said it was an old one.”

“Well—”

Sean put a twenty-dollar bill on the desk and picked up the charger. “Thanks for your help.” He walked out, Trey on his heels.

Before Ryan had even closed the door, Trey said, “Do you believe that guy? Kirsten would never go out with a loser like that.”

“At least he tried to get her phone back to her. This is going to help.”

“He didn’t even know her name!” Trey said, shaking his head.

“And you have to let it drop. He’s a witness; don’t tell him anything he doesn’t already know, got it?” Sean was already scrolling through the text messages on Kirsten’s phone. He skipped the messages that had been sent Sunday and Monday before the phone died—they were from her mother, Trey, and a few friends at her school—and looked at the messages during the time frame of the party.

At 1:13 a.m., a message from “Jessie” came in: Don’t be such a slut and meet me outside. Now, Ash.

Twenty-three minutes before that last message from Jessie, she had sent another: Plz, K, need 2 talk 2 u. I’m freezing.

And eight minutes before that, at 12:42 a.m., Jessie had texted: i see u with that guy. we need 2 talk now. im getting worried. outside 10 min.

Sean frowned. There were other messages between Jessie and Kirsten, but the battery was flashing low. He saw that there were nineteen voice mail messages, but didn’t know if the phone would last until he could retrieve them all. He pocketed the phone. He’d go back to the hotel, charge the phone, and download everything. He’d listen to the voice mail while Lucy put together the text message threads chronologically.

“What did it say?” Trey asked.

“I’m trying to create a time line before she lost her phone. I need to download the text messages and retrieve her voice mails. Go home, Trey.”

“No.”

Sean stopped walking. “I appreciate you calling me. You did the right thing, and I have information that may lead me to where she’s hiding out. But it’s going to take all my time and concentration, and I can’t worry about you getting into trouble.”

“I’m not!”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t think about going back to talk to that guy.”

“No,” he said, averting his eyes.

“Trey, you’re eighteen, you can do what you want, but I’m telling you to stay out of it.”

Trey glared at him.

“You’re not going to listen to me, are you? What are your plans? How are you going to find her? You don’t know anything about her life as Ashleigh, and you damn well better not go back to Ryan’s apartment.”

“I have to do something!”

Sean sympathized with the love-struck teen. If it were him, he would have gotten into far more trouble if he were looking for his missing ex-girlfriend.

“Do you have a picture of Kirsten?”

“The same one you have, but wallet size.”

“Good. Get a list of all the hospitals and clinics in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Show her picture to several staff members; see if anyone has seen her.”

“The police sent out a notice to all hospitals,” he said.

“Yes, and so did I. But some of these places get busy; they might not have made the connection. And in her message, she said she couldn’t walk. She might have broken her leg or sprained her ankle, which means she may have gone to a clinic to get it looked at.”

“There have to be hundreds of those places—it would take all week to go to all of them.”

“Start in Brooklyn closest to Sunset Park. That’s where the party was. Work your way out from there.”

“She said she could see a bridge,” Trey said.

Smart. “Good point. Find clinics near the bridges leading out of Brooklyn. She also said it was a nice place, so the neighborhood may be a bit upscale.”

Trey nodded. “Okay, I can do that. Do you really think it’ll help find her?”

“Yes, it gives us one more avenue.” He got out his wallet and handed Trey all but a few of his business cards. “Give these out. Tell people to call me if they remember anything after you leave, got it?”

“Got it.”

Sean waited across from Ryan’s apartment to make sure that Trey didn’t circle around and go back. Sean considered going up himself—he didn’t think Ryan knew anything more, but he needed a lesson in how to treat women. Trey hadn’t quite figured out what “a little action” at a rave meant, but Sean knew exactly what Ryan was doing. Had he been the one to drug her? Would he do it again to another girl?

Sean crossed the street and went back up to Ryan’s apartment. He didn’t need to be buzzed in—the buzzer was a standard electronic gadget that Sean easily bypassed.

Ryan was leaving with a basket of laundry. “Hey,” he said, nervous.

Sean grabbed the basket and dropped it to the floor. He got in Ryan’s face until Ryan backed up against the wall.

“I don’t like you,” Sean said. “You use women without a thought.”

“I-I d-didn’t,” Ryan stuttered. “Sh-sh-she was willing. I swear.”

“Did you drug her?”

“No!”

“I know she was high on something.”

“Everyone was. The drinks were spiked. It was a really wild party, but I swear, I didn’t give her anything. I wouldn’t do that! P-p-please believe me.”

Ryan tried to squirm away and Sean put his forearm across the skinny kid’s chest and held him there.

“You may not have given her a mickey, but you sure took advantage of it.”

“I’m s-sorry!”

“I have a lot of friends. I’m putting the word out on you. If you ever show up at another rave and take advantage of another girl, and I find out, you won’t have a dick left to screw around with.”

Sean turned and walked away, confident that the kid believed everything he’d said.