Kiss Me, Kill Me

more glamorous picture of her from the Party Girl site, though it wasn’t risque. “Have you seen her in the last week or so?”

“Ashleigh,” Lauren said. “She stayed here a couple of times when I went home to visit my parents.”

The excitement of being right gave Lucy a thrill. “What about last weekend?”

Lauren shook her head. “Jessica was killed by the Cinderella Strangler last weekend. At least, that’s what the police think. It’s awful.”

“The Cinderella Strangler?”

“You had to have heard, it’s been in the papers for months. The killer takes a shoe. It’s weird, and I didn’t really think about it, but now that Jessie’s dead, it’s so real, and much scarier.”

“I’m from Washington,” Lucy said, tapping the address on the business card. “What did the police say?”

“They don’t know anything, at least that’s what the newspapers said. No leads, nothing.”

Lucy had a hundred questions about the murders, but Lauren wasn’t the right person to ask. Instead, she said, “Do you have a paper I can see?”

“No, I read it online. The Post had a big thing on the murders yesterday.”

“Was Jessie supposed to meet Ashleigh last weekend?”

“I don’t know. I don’t have classes on Friday and usually leave by noon to go home. I’m not really into the weekend scene here. Jessie was more into the parties and stuff. But Jessie’s friend Josh knows Ashleigh. He told me the police talked to him about Jessie, because Josh sometimes goes out with her. They weren’t really dating, but he’s been so upset about what happened he hasn’t left his apartment since Wednesday. I made him a tray of tamales. I was going to bring them up, but I feel kind of weird.”

“I can do it for you,” Lucy said. “I need to talk to him. Ashleigh might be in trouble, and I need all the information I can get to find her.”

“Was she out with Jessie Saturday night?”

“We think so, or they were supposed to meet.”

“Oh, God, that’s awful.”

Lauren handed Lucy the tamales, and directed her to Josh Haynes’s apartment on the top floor. She walked up the stairs while pondering what could have happened last Saturday. What if Kirsten had seen her friend murdered? Her message could have been so odd because she was still in shock. Or if she’d been drugged, she might not know what she had seen. But if the killer saw her, he might be looking for her.

She had to talk to Sean, but first she needed to get up to speed on the murders and talk to Jessica’s boyfriend. She stood in the hallway outside Josh’s apartment and used her phone to search for the article Lauren had mentioned. She read it carefully, committing the details to memory.

Four young women, two of whom had been students at Columbia University, appeared to have been killed by the “Cinderella Strangler,” who suffocated them and took one of their shoes. There was no mention of sexual assault, but the paper also didn’t state that the victims hadn’t been sexually assaulted. The police traditionally held back key details from the media and public in order to prevent copycats and help them know if they had the real killer when they found a suspect. Lucy was surprised the detail about the missing shoe had been released. She would have held that back. Perhaps the sexual assault wasn’t revealed because of the manner of death or specific violence done to the body.

The first murder was on October 30, nearly four months ago. Four deaths in four months. Serial killer? The FBI was involved, an Agent Suzanne Madeaux. Lucy wondered if she should call Noah and ask whether he could get her more information about the case. Or maybe just an intro to the field agent in charge, so Lucy could give her the information about the Party Girl website and Kirsten and Jessica’s connection.

Lauren had been right. The Post’s article was incredibly detailed and gave a time line of each crime, the location, and a victim profile. Each had been killed at an underground, or “secret,” party at an abandoned building. Each victim was under twenty-two. And each had been suffocated.

Lucy needed more information, because what was revealed by the press wasn’t enough to create a profile of the killer.

What was she thinking? That the New York FBI office was incompetent? Of course they had the information they needed for a profile. Why would they need her, when they probably had their own in-house profiler, considering the size of the regional office? Or they could call upon Dr. Hans Vigo, the legendary profiler now assigned to Quantico. They didn’t need Lucy’s inexperienced opinion, and there was no reason Agent Madeaux would share any case information with her.

Her job was to find Kirsten Benton, and she’d share what she knew of Jessica’s double life on the Party Girl website if the FBI didn’t already know about it.

First things first. Deliver these tamales to Josh Haynes and find out what he knew about Kirsten, aka Ashleigh.

She knocked on his door.

It took Josh several minutes to answer. Wearing pajama bottoms and a torn T-shirt, he looked as if he’d just rolled out of bed.

“Yeah?”

“Lauren asked me to bring these tamales up for you.”

Josh sighed and opened the door. “She thinks food is going to make everything better.”

Lucy walked in and put the tray on his small counter. The kitchen was not bigger than her bathroom-which was tiny-just a small alcove with a narrow stove, small refrigerator, and sink. The tray took up half the available counter space. The rest of the apartment was nice. Though not spacious, it had high ceilings and tall, narrow windows.

“She means well,” Lucy said.

“Yeah.” He stared out the window.

“You cared for Jessica.”

He didn’t say anything. “Are you Lauren’s friend or Jessie’s?”

“Neither. I’m Lucy Kincaid. I’m trying to find a friend of Jessica’s, Ashleigh.”

“Why?”

“She’s missing.”

“God, this is so fucked. You think something happened to her, too?”

“I don’t know, but I think Ashleigh was supposed to go to a party with Jessica the weekend she was killed.”

“I took Jess to that party.” Josh sat heavily on one of the two kitchen chairs. “She was acting weird that night. I should have stayed with her. She would still be alive.”

“Josh, you don’t know that. You don’t know what might have happened. What do you mean Jess was acting weird?”

“Just, I don’t know, skittish. Stressed. I thought it was because of her classes; she was taking a tough schedule. She couldn’t relax. And then she asked if I’d take her to the party, and I thought it was her way of making up, but then she was all weird about that, too. She didn’t talk on the subway, and I was mad because she wouldn’t tell me what was going on. Why wouldn’t she talk to me? Am I that big of a jerk?”

Lucy touched his arm lightly. “She asked you to take her to the party. That says something, don’t you think?”

“Then why didn’t she ask me to stay with her? If she was scared of something, why didn’t she want me to protect her? And why go to the party in the first place?”

An excellent question. Lucy suspected the answer also had to do with why Kirsten went to the party. Maybe it wasn’t that Jessie was scared for herself-maybe she wanted to tell Kirsten to be careful.

“Josh,” she said, sliding over one of her new cards, “here’s my number. If Ashleigh contacts you, would you please let me know? It’s important. If she’s in trouble, we can help. And if she knows anything about who killed Jessica, we can protect her.”

He stared at the card.

“Do you think Wade Barnett killed her?” Josh asked.

Lucy hesitated. She didn’t want to admit that she didn’t know who Wade Barnett was, but at the same time, she wanted to know why Josh had asked the question.

She replied, “I can’t honestly say; I’m not investigating her murder. Did he know Ashleigh or Jessica?”