seventh floor at the desks by the elevator, where fluorescent lights burned all night, and studied in perfect peace, letting themselves out through a window at dawn.
Darcy bit her lip, realizing she was on the verge of tears again. Impatiently, she dabbed at her eyes, reached for the phone, and called Nona. “I tried you last night, but you were out.” She told her about going to Erin ’s apartment, about Jay Stratton, about finding the Bertolini necklace, about the missing diamonds.
“Stratton’s going to wait a few days to see if Erin shows up before he makes a report to the insurance company. The police can’t accept a missing-person report because it interferes with Erin ’s right to freedom of movement.” “That’s nonsense,” Nona said flatly.
“Of course it’s nonsense. Nona, Erin was meeting someone Tuesday night. She’d answered his ad. That’s what worries me. Do you think you should call that FBI agent who wrote to you and talk to him?”
A few minutes later, Bev poked her head in Darcy’s office. “I wouldn’t bother you, but it’s Nona.” There was sympathetic understanding in her face. Darcy had told her about Erin ’s disappearance.
Nona was brief. “I left a message for the FBI guy to call. I’ll get back to you when he does.”
“If he wants to meet you, I’d like to be there.” When Darcy hung up, she looked across the room at the coffee brewer on a side table near the window. She made a new pot, deliberately heaping a generous amount of ground coffee into the filter.
Erin had brought along a thermos of strong, black coffee that night they had hidden in the library. “This makes the gray cells stand at attention,” she had announced after the second cup.
Now, after the second cup, Darcy was finally able to fully concentrate on the apartment plan. You’re always right, Erin-go-bragh, she thought as she reached for her sketchpad.
Vince D’Ambrosio returned to his twenty-eighth-floor office from the conference room in the FBI headquarters on Federal Plaza. He was tall and trim, and no one observing him would doubt that after twenty-five years he still held the record for the mile run at his high school alma mater, St. Joe’s, in Montvale, New Jersey.
His reddish-brown hair was cut short. His warm brown eyes were wide-set. His thin face broke easily into a smile. People instinctively liked and trusted Vince D’Ambrosio.
Vince had served as a criminal investigative officer in Vietnam, completed his master’s degree in psychology on his return, then entered the Bureau. Ten years ago, at the FBI training academy on the Quantico Marine Base near Washington, D.C., he’d helped set up the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. VICAP, as it was called, was a computerized national master file with a particular emphasis on serial killers.
Vince had just conducted an update session on VICAP for detectives from the New York area who had taken the VICAP course at Quantico. The purpose of today’s meeting had been to alert them that the computer which tracked seemingly unrelated crimes had sent out a warning signal. There was a possible serial killer loose in Manhattan.
It was the third time in as many weeks Vince had delivered the same sobering news: “As you all are aware, VICAP is able to establish patterns in what heretofore have been considered isolated cases. The VICAP analysts and investigators have recently alerted us to a possible connection between six young women who have vanished in the past two years. “All of them had apartments in New York. No one is sure whether they were actually in New York when they disappeared. They’re all still officially listed as missing persons. We now believe that is a mistake. Foul play is a probability.
“The similarities between these women are striking. They are all slender and very attractive. They range in age from twenty-two to thirty-four. All are upscale in background and education. Outgoing. Extroverted. Finally, every one of them had begun to regularly answer personal ads. I am convinced we have another personal-ad serial killer out there, and a damn clever one. “If we are right, the profile of the subject is the following: well- educated; sophisticated; late twenties to early forties; physically attractive. These women wouldn’t have been interested in a diamond-in-the-rough. He may never have been arrested for a violent crime but could have a juvenile history of being a Peeping Tom, maybe stealing women’s personal items at school. His hobby could be photography.”
The detectives had left, all promising to be on the lookout for any reports of missing young women who fit that category. Dean Thompson, the detective from the Sixth Precinct, lingered behind the others. Vince and he had met in Vietnam and had remained friends over the years.
“Vince, a young woman came in yesterday, wanting to file a missing-person report on a friend of hers, Erin Kelley, who hasn’t been seen since Tuesday night. She’s a young woman who fits the profile you’ve described. And she was answering a personal ad. I’ll stay on top of it.”
“Keep me posted.”
Now, as Vince flipped through the messages on his desk, he nodded with satisfaction when he saw that Nona Roberts had called him. He dialed her, gave his name to her secretary, and was immediately put through. He frowned as Nona Roberts’s troubled voice explained, “Erin Kelley, a young woman I talked into answering personal ads for my documentary, has been missing since Tuesday night. There is no way Erin would have dropped out of sight unless she’d been in an accident, or worse. I’d stake my life on that.” Vince looked at his list of appointments. He had meetings in the building the rest of the morning. He was due at the Mayor’s office at one-thirty. Nothing he could skip. “Would three o’clock work out for you?” he asked Roberts. After he replaced the receiver, he said aloud, “Another one.”
A moment after she telephoned Darcy about the three o’clock appointment with Vincent D’Ambrosio, Nona received an unexpected visit from Austin Hamilton, CEO and sole owner of Hudson Cable Network.
Hamilton had an icy, sarcastic manner which his staff regarded with intense apprehension. Nona had managed to talk Hamilton into the personal-ads documentary despite the fact that his initial reaction had been: “Who cares about a bunch of losers meeting other losers?”
She had secured his reluctant go-ahead by showing him the pages upon pages of personal ads in magazines and newspapers. “It’s the social phenomenon of our society,” she’d argued. “These ads aren’t cheap to place. It’s the old story. Boy wants to meet girl. Aging executive wants to meet wealthy divorcee. The point is, does Prince Charming find Sleeping Beauty? Or are these ads a colossal and even humiliating waste of time?”
Hamilton had grudgingly agreed that there might be a story there. “In my day,” he’d pointed out, “you met people socially at prep school and college and at coming-out parties. You acquired a select group of friends and through them met other social equals.”
Hamilton was a sixty-year-old professional preppie, and the consummate snob. He had, however, singlehandedly built Hudson Cable and his innovative programming was a serious challenge to the three big networks.
When he stopped in Nona’s office his mood was frosty. Even though he was as always impeccably dressed, Nona decided that he still managed to remain remarkably unattractive. His Savile Row suit did not quite conceal his narrow shoulders and thickening waist. His sparse hair was tinted a silvery blond shade that did not succeed in looking natural. His narrow lips, which were capable of selectively breaking into a warm smile, were set in an almost invisible line. His pale blue eyes were chilly.
He got right to the point. “Nona, I’m damn sick of this project of yours. I don’t think there’s an unattached person in this building who isn’t placing or answering personal ads and wasting time comparing results ad nauseam. Either wrap this project up fast or forget it.”
There was a time to placate Hamilton; a time to intrigue him. Nona chose the second option. “I had no idea how explosive this personal-ads business might be.” She fished on her desk for the letter from Vincent D’Ambrosio and handed it to Hamilton. His eyebrows went up as he read it.
“He’s coming here at three o’clock.” Nona swallowed. “As you can see, he points out that there’s a dark side to these ads. A good friend of mine, Erin Kelley, answered one on Tuesday night. She’s missing.”
Hamilton ’s instinct for news overcame his petulance. “Do you think there’s a connection?”
Nona turned her head, abstractly noted that the plant Darcy had watered two days ago was beginning to droop again. “I hope not. I don’t know.” “Talk to me after you meet with this guy.”
Disgusted, Nona realized Hamilton was salivating over the potential media value of Erin ’s disappearance. With a visible effort to sound sympathetic, he said, “Your friend’s probably fine. Don’t worry.”
When he was gone, Nona’s secretary, Connie Frender, poked her head in the door.
“Are you still alive?”
