Kiss Me, Kill Me

“I think Jess met him, here at one of my parties.”

“One of the underground parties?”

“No, right here.” He waved his arm around his space. “I have five neighbors on the floor, and they’re cool with it. My friend across the hall opens up his apartment and we take over the floor. A couple times a year.”

“Was Ashleigh at any of those parties?”

“Maybe. I don’t remember. She always disappeared when I was sober, and really, I just wanted to be with Jess. I should have told her how I felt about her; I just thought-I don’t know, we’re both in college, we both like to have fun.” He shrugged, his eyes red.

“Did the police mention Wade Barnett as a suspect?” she asked, surprised.

“No, I told the cops about him. They were asking about the underground parties and I said they should talk to him because he keeps tabs on the best parties.”

“Did you see him at the party where Jessica died?”

“No,” Josh admitted, “but there were hundreds of people there.”

“I’m sure the police talked to him, and they know what they’re doing. Let them do their job. I need to do mine. Remember, if you hear from Ashleigh-or even talk to someone who heard from her-call me. It’s important.”

Sean wasn’t entirely comfortable leaving Lucy on her own the first time she was in New York City, but she wasn’t reckless and he wanted her to rebuild her shattered confidence. He’d left her a block from Jessica’s apartment, and the cathedral would provide a distraction if she was done early. Still, he wanted to get his trip to Brooklyn over with as quickly as possible.

The three-story, U-shaped Clover Motel looked much better online. Situated in a desolate neighborhood, with faded blue paint, peeling in more places than not, its weather-damaged doors might have once been green but now looked puce. The entire structure and grounds were in dire need of repair. There didn’t seem to be much of anything in the area except a few businesses and several boarded-up buildings.

Sean parked where he could see his GT from the office. The room was small, and the clerk sat behind a thick sheet of Plexiglas.

“Sixty-four dollars a night single room, or three hundred for the week, paid up front.”

Sean said, “I’m a P.I. looking for a missing girl.”

The clerk looked at him with disinterest. He was chewing tobacco, his lips stained, a bit of snuff caught in his greasy black mustache. “So?”

Sean held up the picture of Kirsten. “She called the motel a week ago, on Friday, about eleven p.m.”

“Like I’m going to remember a call.”

“Do you recognize her?”

He shrugged, but Sean saw him looking closely while pretending to be nonchalant.

Sean slid him a twenty through the narrow slot in the window. “Well?”

“She rented a room for two nights. Paid cash.”

“Was she with anyone?”

“Not that I saw.”

“When did she check out?”

“She didn’t. People don’t check out all the time, they just leave the key. I didn’t think anything of it until the maid got there Monday to change the sheets and found her suitcase.”

“Did you call her?”

The clerk sighed and spat a wad of chaw into the cup. “Nope.”

“Where’s her suitcase now?”

“In the back.”

Sean tempered his anger at the drawn-out questions and answers. The clerk knew what he wanted.

He slid another twenty through the slot. “Can I see it?”

The clerk palmed the twenty and slowly stood and sauntered across his small space. He reached under a table and pulled out a small black suitcase with wheels, the kind seen en masse at any airport. Bright pink duct tape had been wrapped around the handle.

The clerk opened the door and handed Sean the suitcase. “It’s all yours; just sign a receipt. I’m keeping her deposit, because she didn’t leave the key-it wasn’t in the room. You know how much it costs to rekey the locks in this place?”

The clerk wrote out a sloppy note, and Sean scribbled a signature.

“When did you last see her?”

“I checked her in late Friday, but I don’t work weekends.”

“Had she stayed here before?”

“I’d never checked her in. I’d remember that hot blonde in a heartbeat.”

Sean stared at the old pervert with distaste, couldn’t summon a thank-you at that point, and left with Kirsten’s suitcase.

He put the suitcase in his trunk and opened it. Clothes. Toiletries, shoes. Enough for two or three days. Inside the zippered front pocket was a canceled Amtrak ticket from D.C. to New York, plus an unused return ticket for last Sunday at 3:10 p.m. A hundred dollars in twenties was tucked away in the same pocket.

He closed her suitcase and the trunk and sat in the driver’s seat.

Had he found the suitcase but not the message Kirsten had sent to Trey, Sean would think she was dead. But something had happened over the weekend that had left her disoriented, and possibly injured, and she was in hiding.

He pulled out his phone and saw that Lucy had sent him an email.

Jessica Bell is dead. She was murdered last weekend at a warehouse party in Brooklyn. Maybe you can check it out if you’re still there? An article about four identical murders is attached.

Both Jessica’s roommate and her boyfriend recognized Kirsten as “Ashleigh,” and the boyfriend saw her a few weeks ago. I’m going to talk to a couple neighbors to get a better idea of the last time they remember Kirsten visiting. What if the other three victims were also on the Party Girl site? I’m going to check into it before meeting you at the church.

Sean read the article Lucy had found. Nowhere in it did it mention Party Girl or Jessica’s alter ego “Jenna.” Had the police made the connection but were keeping it quiet? Lucy was smart; she’d discover if there was a connection. If there was, maybe Kirsten had a legitimate reason to go into hiding.

Sean understood people, but he understood computers and networks better. He might not be able to trace Kirsten’s steps after she checked into the Clover Motel, but he could retrace her steps on the Party Girl site; namely, all her contacts. Like Jessica Bell, there were probably others Kirsten trusted, people she could turn to if she was in trouble.

Or, he thought, someone who was trouble. If Party Girl was the connection to the four murders, then a psycho was targeting girls from the site. Sean would have to turn that information over to the police, but first he wanted to check out the abandoned warehouse where Jessica had been murdered. He didn’t expect to find any clues to Kirsten’s disappearance, but it would help for him to know where she had been, and where her friend had died.

He plugged the location identified in the newspaper into his GPS. The abandoned warehouse, a former printing supply chain, was only a few blocks from the Clover Motel.

THIRTEEN

Suzanne risked Friday afternoon traffic and drove directly to Whitney Morrissey’s place from Hamden. The twenty-four-year-old lived in Brooklyn, in a warehouse that had been converted into artist studios, with two businesses on the ground floor: an insurance agency and a rental company.

She buzzed 3A, Whitney’s apartment, and waited. Then buzzed again. She had tried calling when she was driving, but there had been no answer. She hadn’t left a message.