“Find any Keiths yet on those call lists?”
“Nope,” Rogan said.
“Anything else in there to get excited about?”
“Nope.”
“Any chance I can get a few more words, just so I can pretend you’re listening to me?”
“Sorry,” Rogan said, finally leaning back in his chair and turning his attention to her. “Maybe I’m in a piss-poor mood after all.”
“Gee, you think? If the tables were turned, you’d be on your fifth PMS joke by now.”
“All right, so you were saying about the Lou?”
“She just left the building looking a hell of a lot better than I’ve ever seen her around here, and jumped into a car driven by Nick Dillon.”
“She told you yesterday she knew the man.”
“Knowing him’s different than boning him.”
“You think you might be jumping the gun? He called her yesterday to give her a heads-up about your ass being in jail. They go way back to patrol days, decide to get a drink—no big thing.”
“Well, you didn’t see her.”
“So cut the woman some slack. She wants to look decent around a guy like Dillon. I seem to recall you primping your hair and shit when you first met with Max Donovan.”
“Yeah, and look where that got me. She’s got something for Dillon.”
“So what if she does? The dude’s been decent to us, right?” He pointed an index finger at her. “You might’ve been in the doghouse with Tucker if he hadn’t schmoozed her and her smitten little ass on your behalf.”
Ellie plopped herself down at the desk across from him. “Maybe. So what’s up with the call records?”
“We got a ton of calls back and forth with her parents—I guess that’s normal for college students these days, can’t cut the cord. Local carry-out joints every couple of days. Bunch of girlfriends—the reverse directory listings come back to a handful of girls on that list you got from the mom.”
“Including Courtney Chang?”
“Yep, a bunch between her and your girl Courtney. No Keith. No other dudes. No late-night booty calls. This girl was chaste, man.”
Ellie shook her head. “Courtney couldn’t help us find this Keith guy either. I did get a photograph, though. Figured I’d search records for first name Keith with a lip piercing. See what comes up.”
Ellie’s phone buzzed at her waist. According to the screen, it was Jess.
“Hey,” she said.
“You busy?”
“Always. What’s up?”
“Please tell me you don’t have something going on with DJ Anus So Hottica.”
“Do I even want to know what you’re talking about?”
“Your e-mail.”
“How many times do I have to tell you to stay out of my cyber shit? There’s, like, actually real laws against that stuff. I
“Can’t help it, El. You leave your new-mail alert open on your laptop so your messages pop up and interfere with my porn surfing.”
“Nice. That’s an image I want in my head all day.”
“Oh, trust me, the images I’ve been working on are so much better.”
“So, I’m sorry. What was the point of all this?”
“Your e-mail. I couldn’t exactly ignore a subject line like ‘Predator,’ could I? So I opened the message, and what do I see but that electronica-loving poseur. I’m all for you finding some barely legal boy toy, but that lightweight?”
“Seriously, Jess. Who are you talking about?”
“The picture in your e-mail. He goes by DJ
“What picture? Wait. Are you talking about an e-mail from someone named Courtney Chang?”
“Yeah, I guess. The sender address says ChangBang@macmail. That plus the subject line had me, shall we say, intrigued.”
“Jesus, Jess. It’s an e-mail on a case. You mean you know the guy in that picture?”
“Duh. What have I been saying? You’re not going out with him, are you?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
6:00 P.M.
In the bedroom of her Upper East Side Yorkville apartment, Katie Battle removed a beaded necklace and matching chandelier earrings from the thin top dresser drawer that held her jewelry. She was thirty-one years old and still used the same dresser that she had taken from her parents’ home when she moved out after college.
A few years ago, after selling enough real estate to buy a small chunk of her own, she had nearly splurged on new furniture to fill the place. The market had been going strong for three straight years. She had a five-digit savings account. She was feeling confident. She picked out each and every piece herself, circling items in different home decorating catalogs, making sure that everything would work together.
But then, for whatever reason, she had not gone through with the purchases. Had she sensed that the market would slow? Did she know her mother’s physician would suddenly conclude that she could no longer negotiate living on her own?
Now the savings account was gone, and Katie got by month to month, barely managing to cover her own mortgage, her mother’s assisted living, and the taxes on her parents’ Forest Hills home, which she was renting out for some extra income in the hopes that she could get more in a sale once the market turned around. She used credit cards as necessary to cover unexpected expenses and then “saved” as she could to pay down the balances. Just when she thought she might be caught up and could begin building a nest egg again, some other cost arose and she’d be back in the red.
In short, Katie was well into adulthood and still playing financial Whack a Mole.
She threaded the hooks of the earrings through each of her lobes, and then draped the necklace across her bare collarbone and clasped it beneath dark brown, wavy hair that fell just past her shoulders. She closed the jewelry drawer of her dresser, opened the next drawer down, and selected a black lace bra and matching thong bikini panty. She spritzed herself with a lavender-scented body spray that rested on top of the dresser, and then turned to the black cocktail dress already laid out on her bed.
Before walking out of the apartment, she pulled a tube of lipstick from her metallic clutch purse and slid a gloss of berry stain across her full lips. She blotted her lips against each other, checking out her pout in a compact mirror for good measure before locking the bolt on her apartment door.
On the elevator ride to the lobby, she began the transition into another persona. The vestiges of Katie Battle—devoted daughter, dogged real estate agent, incessant BlackBerry fiddler—began to melt away. She ran a dark burgundy fingernail across the beads of her necklace, felt the plunging neckline of her silk jersey dress, hugging the curves of her figure like a second skin. She stood up straighter. Taller. Pushed the locks of dark hair away from her heart-shaped face.
By the time she completed her taxi ride down to 44 East Forty-fourth Street, her mental transformation was complete. Good-bye, Katie. Hello, Miranda.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
