Kiss Me, Kill Me lk-2

by Allison Brennan

  But he wondered if her work last night analyzing the four murder cases had contributed to the terrifying nightmare she’d had. Or had she told the truth, that the bad dreams had returned after one of her rapists had been killed, propelling her attack to the forefront of her carefully rebuilt life?

  He shifted in his seat, antsy, waiting for Trey. He’d been thinking about last night-the nightmare, Lucy’s confession of feeling alone and empty, his declaration of love. He did love her; there was no doubt in his mind. Lucy loved him, too; she just didn’t know it yet. But when she made love to him, she showed it. The intensity of her response, the urgency, had intoxicated him. He’d remembered at the last second that he hadn’t put on a condom, and he thought he’d said something to her, but then he’d pushed thoughts of protection aside. She sent him over the edge, and he didn’t want to hold back.

  So many problems could come from forgetting to wear a condom, pregnancy at the top of that list. It was his responsibility, he’d always believed that, and Duke had pounded it into his head from the minute he’d found out that Sean was having sex in high school.

  Sean would be thirty this year. Lucy was twenty-five. They were certainly old enough to get married and have a family, but Sean wasn’t ready, and he doubted Lucy was, either. For him, it was the whole family dynamic. He hadn’t had the same kind of close-knit family that Lucy had. He was afraid he wouldn’t make a good father. But marriage? He’d never considered it an option before he met Lucy, yet he’d marry her in a heartbeat.

  But he wanted her to marry him because she loved him, when she could tell him that she loved him with words as well as actions. Not because she was pregnant. Not because she thought they had to get married.

  He had to talk to her about their slipup. He couldn’t ignore it. Surely she’d noticed as well. And knowing Lucy, she’d convince herself that not only would she not marry him because she was pregnant, but that she couldn’t even though she knew he loved her. She’d think up some logical reason, but love wasn’t logical. Love was beyond reason, and there was no way he’d let Lucy raise their child by herself, family support or not. He’d somehow figure out how to be a good father.

  But truly, the chances were against her getting pregnant from one slipup. He’d be extremely diligent from now on, not let himself get carried away again. He had known what was going on, he should have found a way to reach his wallet, but he didn’t want to stop Lucy for fear of severing the overwhelming physical and emotional passion between them.

  A knock on the window startled Sean, and he glanced over. Trey peered in, and Sean unlocked the door. The cold air that rushed in cleared his thoughts so he could focus wholly on the present.

  “I found Kirsten,” Trey said.

  “Where?” Sean started the car.

  “Manhattan Catholic Hospital.”

  Sean typed it into his GPS. “Manhattan?”

  “I started in Brooklyn like you said, spent all yesterday going from hospital to hospital, and only got through a fraction of my list. When it started raining, I started calling. I had my spiel down, went through the entire list. There were two unknown females in hospitals in Brooklyn that fit Kirsten’s description. I went to see both, and they weren’t her.

  “So this morning I started in Manhattan. There are so many hospitals and clinics, so I focused on public hospitals thinking that if someone didn’t have a name or insurance, that’s where they’d end up. MCH has her. I know it. I talked to the head nurse, who was super nice, and I told her Kirsten had an oval-shaped mole on her upper right thigh.” Trey cleared his throat. “You can see it when she wears a bathing suit.”

  “And the nurse confirmed it.”

  “Yes. I didn’t want to call Mrs. Benton, not until I know for sure.”

  “Good idea.” Sean frowned. He should have been calling the hospitals. He’d thought that between the police bulletin and the RCK memo, any hospital would have contacted one of them. Would they have found her sooner? Been able to talk to her, find out if she’d seen who killed her friend Jessie before Sierra Hinkle died?

  Trey continued talking. “She was found unconscious in a church Friday night.”

  “A church?”

  “The priest was locking up at midnight and found her lying on a pew. He brought her to MCH. They wouldn’t tell me anything else on the phone, only confirmed her description.”

  “Evelyn gave me power of attorney so I can find out more at the hospital about Kirsten’s condition,” Sean said.

  It took less than ten minutes in light Sunday-morning traffic to reach MCH once Sean was on the Brooklyn Bridge. The emergency room was near full, so Sean went to the main entrance. “Whom did you speak to?” he asked Trey.

  “A nurse. Jeanne McMahon.”

  Sean asked for the nurse, and several minutes later an older nurse dressed in colorful red scrubs with a neon-green stethoscope around her neck stepped off the elevator. She looked suspiciously like Mrs. Santa Claus.

  “Did you call about the poor blond girl?”

  “Yes. I’m Trey Danielson.”

  “Sean Rogan,” Sean said and handed her his card along with Evelyn’s power of attorney and Kirsten’s photo. “Is this her?”

  Jeanne nodded. “Looks like her. She hasn’t regained consciousness since she was admitted.” Jeanne led them to one set of elevators. “We have her in ICU. She’s one sick little girl.”

  “I need to confirm that it’s Kirsten, then contact her mother and the police.”

  “The police? She didn’t do anything, did she?”

  “She may be a witness to a crime. We think she’s been in hiding.”

  “If she was hiding, someone had to be helping her.”

  “Why do you think so?”

  “She wouldn’t have been able to walk. Her feet are severely cut up and infected. We’ve done everything we can to bring down her fever. She seems to have stabilized, but hasn’t responded to antibiotics. The doctor is going to assess her shortly and probably change her medication. She needs surgery, but her system is too weak to tolerate it.”

  “Do you know how she ended up at the church?”

  “I have no idea, and Father Frisco is so upset about it. He’s been here several times a day since he brought her in. He’s in and out of the church in the evenings. He thinks she may have been left while he had a late supper about eight, but he didn’t find her until midnight when he checked the pews.”

  Jeanne led them out of the elevator and down several corridors. “In fact, Father Frisco came to visit shortly after Trey called, and I told him someone inquired about the girl, and he found someone to cover his masses so he could talk to you.”

  They turned into the waiting area for ICU. “I need to ask that you both put on masks before entering ICU, and after you confirm that she’s your missing girl, only one of you can stay with her.”

  Trey glanced at Sean, eyes wide. Sean nodded. Trey could stay. He needed to call Evelyn and then look at Kirsten’s records and personal effects to see if there was any clue as to where she’d been since last Saturday night.

  The blonde in the bed was sickly thin, her skin almost translucent. Her hair was limp, but clean. She had an IV in her arm and monitors registering her heart rate and her body temperature.

  “Kirsten,” Trey said, his voice hitching.

  “It’s her,” Sean confirmed to the nurse.

  The priest, Father Frisco, sat in the corner praying with a rosary. He was younger than Sean expected-closer to Duke’s age, around forty. He supposed he had a stereotypical view of Catholic priests being old, gray, and from Ireland or Mexico. Father Frisco was a tall, dark-haired Italian.

  “What happened to her?” Trey demanded. “Why is she so skinny?”

  “Shh,” the nurse admonished.

  Sean said, “Stay with her. I’ll find answers.”

  Father Frisco rose and shook Trey’s hand, holding it while he spoke. “Talk to her. She’s not responding, but maybe a familiar voice will draw her back
.”

  Tears in his eyes, Trey sat down and tentatively reached for Kirsten’s hand.

  Sean walked back out to Jeanne at the nurses’ station, with Father Frisco right behind him.

  “Father, Jeanne explained how you found Kirsten. Why do you think she didn’t walk in on her own?”

  “Her feet were bandaged, and they were clean. If she walked even a short distance, they would have been dirty.”

  “And,” Jeanne added, “when we inspected her injuries, we determined that she wouldn’t have been able to walk. The tendon in her right foot is severed, but began to heal improperly. Walking on it would have been impossible. We can do surgery to correct the worst damage, but first we need to stabilize her and beat the infection.”

  “We sent a notice around to all hospitals on Wednesday,” Sean said. “Did you see it?”

  “We post current notices, and keep older missing persons in a book. But there are so many from all over the country. When we get a Jane Doe we go through the book again, but it’s been a busy weekend. We would have identified her eventually. And the administration filed a police report on Friday when we admitted her. But these things take time to work through the system.”

  “Do you know what caused the damage to her feet?”

  Jeanne nodded. “Someone had cleaned her feet, but not well enough. There were small pieces of gravel deep in cuts that had started to heal, but because of the infection they weren’t healing properly. We also found a piece of colored glass, probably from a beer bottle, under her skin.”

  “Someone cleaned and bandaged her feet?”

  “Probably daily. The bandages on her feet were clean with little discharge, except pus from the infection and a small amount of blood. We ran blood tests and had some odd results, so sent them and hair samples to an outside lab for testing.”

  “Hair samples?”

  “Primarily for illegal drugs and certain poisons that may be out of her blood system, but show up in hair for months afterward.”

  “When do you think she sustained the injuries?”

  Jeanne pulled her file. “The doctor said they were five to seven days old when she was admitted on Friday.”

  That put her injuries most likely the night that Jessica was killed.

  Sean turned to Father Frisco. “Are there any security cameras at your church?”

  He shook his head.

  “Why do you think she was brought to your church and not any other?” Sean asked.

  “Are you suggesting this might be one of my parishioners?” From the weary tone it was obvious that the priest, too, had considered the possibility. “Why not take her to a hospital?”

  “Security,” Sean said. “Whoever left her in the church didn’t want to be seen with her.” Someone who has a lot to lose. The person also cared about her enough to leave her indoors where she would get help. And because she was left in a Catholic church, either someone lives in the area around the church or is Catholic. He changed the subject. “How was she dressed? May I see her personal effects?”

  Father Frisco said, “She was dressed warmly in new clothes and had a blanket on her.”

  Jeanne said, “The shirt still had a tag on it; I thought she might have shoplifted the item, except that there was a return sticker on the back that some of the stores put on.”

  That might tell Sean when she bought it, or if someone else bought it for her. “I need her clothing, the blanket, everything she had with her.”

  “I’ll get them.” Jeanne strode down the hall.

  Father Frisco stated more than asked, “The people who left her, they didn’t want her to die.”

  “I think whoever it was wanted to help her, but her condition worsened and he panicked.”

  “Who?”

  Sean had an idea, but he needed to do some research before he called Suzanne Madeaux.

  First, he had an important call to make.

  “Excuse me, Father, but I need to tell Kirsten’s mother that we found her daughter.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Lucy prepared Suzanne and Detective Panetta for the interview. She first convinced Suzanne to interview Dennis Barnett at NYPD headquarters, because the bustling atmosphere with uniforms and guns screamed authority and Lucy believed Dennis Barnett would be unusually obedient to authority.

  She then cautioned the cops against leading or browbeating him in any way. “Any competent defense attorney will get a confession thrown out.”

  Panetta said, “His IQ isn’t low enough to qualify for medical deficiency, and even if it were, the D.A. would still prosecute. There’s enough precedent.”

  “It’s low enough that counsel could argue his natural obedience to authority led him to say whatever he thought you wanted to hear.”

  “How many interviews have you conducted, Ms. Kincaid?” Panetta asked.

  Lucy couldn’t respond. The detective was right; she wasn’t a cop. Her experience hadn’t prepared her for this; what was she even thinking agreeing to act as psychologist? She had a master’s degree, that was it. No experience other than what life had handed her.

  Suzanne said, “We’re not going to browbeat anyone. But I want to nail him, and I want it airtight. How do we get a confession?”

  Lucy said, “He wants to please, and you have to convince him that only the complete truth will make you happy.”

  “How do you know that?” she asked.

  “I read his statement to you, when you talked to him in his brother’s apartment. He wants to be good and do the right thing, but because of his relationship with his brothers, I think he’ll respond better to the detective.” She glanced at Panetta and encountered his disbelieving frown. She straightened her spine and continued.

  “His entire life he has looked up to CJ and Wade,” she said. “He parrots what they say, as you can tell if you read his statement closely. CJ’s disapproval over Wade’s lifestyle came through clearly, though Dennis doesn’t feel the same. He sees Wade as both his corrector and defender. Wade wants Dennis to be normal because he wants a brother, so he takes him to the parties and to shows and other places. But Dennis is slow and clumsy, and Wade gets frustrated. Dennis will do anything to please Wade, and Wade will say anything to protect Dennis. If Wade is innocent, and believes Dennis is guilty, he’ll confess.”

  “If he’s innocent?” Panetta shook his head. “Only in the movies. I get people confessing to everything under the sun mostly for attention, but I’ve never had anyone confess to protect someone unless they were threatened.”

  “He is threatened,” Lucy said. “If Dennis goes to jail for murder, the guilt will eat him up. He’ll blame himself for not seeing it, or not stopping it.”

  “Or Wade will be in prison, too, if they did it together,” Suzanne said, “Probably on death row.”

  “He’ll consider himself a failure because he couldn’t raise his brother.”

  “He’s only five years older.”

  “Their mother abdicated the responsibility for raising Dennis to CJ and Wade. CJ became the father, a financial genius who turned their settlement into a fortune, and Wade became the mother, the playmate.”

  Lucy was losing them. She wasn’t good at this; she’d always had Hans or her brother Dillon to bounce her ideas off of first.

  “I’ve read every interview and statement, and all articles I could find on the brothers. It’s clear that when their father was killed in the workplace accident, CJ became the male father figure-he was fourteen. He pressured Wade to grow up, which is why Wade is both responsible outwardly-historic preservation, philanthropy, civic responsibility-and extremely childish. He sleeps around with numerous women, he’s obsessed with baseball, and he’s jealous of Dennis.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Dennis gets to be a kid forever. Wade was forced by his father’s death and his older brother’s disapproval to grow up before he was ready.”

  “So is Dennis guilty?” Suzanne asked. “Or were they a team?”

  “If
Dennis is guilty, he’ll confess. He’ll tell the truth, whether Wade was involved or knew about it. He’s scared of getting in trouble. I can’t be certain without seeing Dennis with his mother, but his brief statement, and the fact that he didn’t ask for his mother or want her with him, makes me think he doesn’t have a strong bond with her, which also supports my theory that the brothers raised him. I can speculate why, but I honestly don’t know without interviewing her or seeing them together.”

  Hicks stuck his head into the interview room. “Barnett and his lawyer are here.”

  “Put him next door,” Panetta said.

  Hicks handed Panetta a file. “This came in from the lab last night. The FBI called Friday to find out where it was.” He shot Suzanne a look.

  “I didn’t call about a lab report,” Suzanne said.

  Lucy cleared her throat. “I did. It was the residue test from the first victim. The report wasn’t attached to the autopsy, and I didn’t know if it had gotten lost or they hadn’t gotten to it.”

  Hicks said, “They ran it yesterday, put it at the top of the pile.” He winked. “Must be your sexy voice.”

  “Get our suspect,” Panetta ordered and opened the report. He skimmed it. “The black powder is ninety-eight percent ultrafine charcoal and two percent gum.”

  “Gum?” Lucy questioned. “Could she have aspirated a piece of gum when she was being suffocated?”

  Panetta handed her the report. She read it, but didn’t understand it-except it wasn’t chewing gum.

  “As you pointed out,” Suzanne said, “the first murder was spontaneous. You were at the crime scene this morning; those abandoned buildings are neither clean nor sanitary. The killer could have grabbed whatever was handy.”