Stefanie began to sense what was coming around one oclock, when she noticed both the time and Chelseas glassy-eyed wobble. She pointed to her watch, but the gesture proved too subtle. Forty-five minutes later, she went so far as to follow Chelsea onto the catwalk to tell her it was time to go home. The only reward for her efforts was two songs worth of swaying her hips with her hands undulating stupidly above her head.
Finally, at two-thirty, even Jordan was done. She joined Stefanie in the backward time calculations. Seven a.m. flight. At the airport by six. In a cab by five thirty. Wake-up call at five five fifteen at the very latest if they packed tonight and skipped showers. Theyd get little better than a two-hour nap if they left right now. It was definitely time to call it a night.
Stefanie found Chelsea dancing on a banquette, her floppy-haired companion replaced by a tall, skinny guy with an angular face. He was passing Chelsea another highball glass. Chelsea grabbed Stefanies hand and tried to coax her onto the banquette, but Stefanie matched the gentle force of the tug until Chelsea simply pulled her hand away.
Come on, Chels, Stefanie yelled over the music. We still need to pack. Lets go.
Chelsea looked at her watch, then grimaced and shrugged. No point in sleeping now. Looks like we better make it an all-nighter.
Two against one. Stefanie used her index finger to pull back the curtain closing off the private room so Chelsea could see Jordan slumped over her black patent leather clutch purse on an ottoman. Youre the weak link. Time to go, babe.
She pulled again at Chelseas hand, and once again, Chelsea jerked away. Stefanie heard a male voice ask, Why do you have to be such a drag?
She turned to take a closer look at Chelseas most recent dance partner. He was about six feet tall, probably in his mid-twenties. His brown hair was gelled into a fauxhawk. He wore straight black pants, pointy black shoes, and a white shirt with a thin black tie. Stefanie shot him her best death stare, then returned her attention to Chelsea.
Seriously? Youre costing us precious minutes of REM sleep for Duran Duran here?
You mean Jake? He looks like Jake Gyllenhaal, dont you think?
Stefanie didnt waste another second on the guy. Weve had a good run, Chels. But really, were leaving.
Go ahead, Chelsea yelled. Ill be fine.
Stefanie stole another look at Jordan, who was on the verge of sleep despite the thumping bass notes vibrating through the glossy white wood floors.
Dont be ridiculous. Were not leaving without you.
Im fine. Ill be back in time for the flight. I promise. Chelsea downed the last of her drink, gave her a Girl Scouts pledge sign, then brought her hand down for a mock booty slap.
Stefanie couldnt help but smile at Chelseas goofy moves. Please tell me youre not leaving with New Wave Boy.
Chelsea laughed. Of course not. Ill take a taxi. I just want to dance a little longer. This is like, the best night ever.
Stefanie looked around the club and realized she had no hope of persuading Chelsea to leave with them.
Youve got cash?
Chelsea jumped off the banquette and gave Stefanie a quick hug. Yes, Mom. And credit cards.
We cant miss our flight, Stefanie warned.
Obviously not. Ill come straight back, closing time at the very latest, right?
Following Jordan out the double doors of Pulse, Stefanie tried to settle the uneasy feeling she still carried. Last call was in an hour. What was the worst that could happen?
She did not notice the blue Ford Taurus parked half a block down. Nor could she know how happy the cars driver was to see the two brunettes leave in a cab together, without their friend.
Chapter Three
They say New York is the city that never sleeps, but Ellie Hatcher knew it got pretty drowsy around five in the morning. So did she.
Wake up.
Ellie felt her sticky eyelids flutter open, then immediately fall shut, shielding her from the sliver of brightness peeking into her bedroom through the unwelcome crack in the door. The crack widened into a flood of white light, and she pulled her comforter over her head.
Unngh, she groaned under the safety of the navy-blue down.
She felt something hit her right hip, then heard her brothers voice. Get up, El.
Jess sounded annoyingly chipper, so Ellie did what any sane person would do in the face of such early-morning cheer. She ignored him.
Another quick thump, this time dangerously close to her head.
Ellie threw the comforter aside, tossing the source of the two thumps a pair of Saucony running shoes to the parquet floor. Go away, she muttered, burrowing back into the covers.
This is your own fault, Jess said, tugging at the socked foot shed managed to leave unprotected. I believe you threatened to charge me rent if I didnt wake you up today. This was your pact: skip no more than twice a week, and never two days in a row. Sound familiar? You slept in yesterday.
The worst part of having your own words thrown back at you, Ellie decided, was that you couldnt argue with them.
They ran in silence for the first two and a half miles.
They had struck this deal three weeks earlier. For Ellie, the 5:00 a.m. runs were the start of an early morning; for Jess, the end of a late night at work. And for both, the exercise was a means of counteracting the cigarettes and alcohol for which they seemed to reach so frequently these days. And because Ellie was best at sticking to rituals that were clearly defined, there were rules: they could skip up to twice a week, but never twice in a row.
Jess had come to learn another, less explicit rule: these runs were not a time to discuss her recent trip back to their hometown of Wichita, which they both knew but never acknowledged was the true reason Ellie needed this solitary routine to mark each new day.
This particular morning, however, they were not the only ones in East River Park.
So what do you thinks going on over there? Jess asked.
Ellie followed her brothers gaze to a group of three men gathered at the fencing that surrounded a small construction site next to the FDR Drive. The men wore T-shirts and running shorts and had the long, lean frames typical of serious runners. One of the guys also wore a fanny pack and was speaking into a cell phone. Ellie couldnt make out the mans words from this distance, but she could see that his two companions peering through the honeycomb mesh were shouting information to him.
She also detected the high-pitched jingling of an electronic gadget. Something about the melody was familiar.
Dont know, dont care. Ellie just wanted to get home, catch her breath, and give her legs a rest. The construction site had been there on the west side of the park since they had begun their routine. For Ellie, the only significance of the location was its proximity to the Williamsburg Bridge, the official turnaround point on their established route. Her sole focus remained on the path in front of her the tennis courts were a few yards ahead, followed by the bridge, then it was time to head back.
Come on, wheres your sense of adventure? Jess began to jog toward the fence.
Come on, wheres your sense of adventure? Jess began to jog toward the fence.
Ellie still couldnt figure out how her brother with his lifestyle managed these runs, at this pace, with such apparent ease. She stayed in good shape with kick-boxing and weight training, but serious running like this had always winded her. Anyone looking to resolve the nature-versus-nurture debate need only look to Ellie and Jess. Their lung capacities were just two of the many differences between them.
If I stop, you may very well have to carry me home, she panted.
You weigh too much for that, Jess called out, sticking out his tongue as he ran backward. Come on. What could be good enough to get the attention of a group of New Yorkers?
As they approached the three runners, she could see that the mens expressions were anxious. The one with the fanny pack flipped his phone shut.
Theyre on the way, he announced.
A wave of relief washed over the runners faces. Ellie had seen the phenomenon countless times when shed arrived in uniform to a crime scene, NYPD badge in hand.
Jess had wondered what could distract New Yorkers from their routine, and she had a bad feeling about the answer. She tried to tell herself it might only be vandalism, maybe a bum seeking a temporary camping zone.
Something worth seeing here? she asked.
You might not want to look, one of the men said.
Ellie readied herself for the worst, but she could not have anticipated the scene she encountered as the runners stepped aside. A section of wire had fallen slack between two metal braces that had been knocked to the ground, leaving a substantial gap in the perimeter around the construction site.
The woman she was just a girl, really was propped like a rag doll against a pile of white PVC pipes, arms at her sides, legs splayed in front of her. Her sleeveless red top had been unbuttoned, exposing a black satin push-up bra and matching panties. Her legs were bare. High-heeled gold sandals dangled from her feet, but whatever other clothes had covered the lower half of her body were gone.
It was the rage behind the violence that struck Ellie immediately. She had seen her fair share of murder scenes, but had never come across this kind of brutality. The girls wavy hair had been hacked off in handfuls, leaving large portions of her scalp exposed. Her body and face had been crosshatched with short, deep stab wounds resembling the outlines of a tic-tac-toe game. Ellie winced as she imagined the terror that must have come at the first sight of the blade.
She heard one of the men say that they had been unable to find a pulse, but Ellie had already concluded there was no point in checking. She forced herself to focus on the clinical facts she would need for her report.
A chain of ligature marks blossomed around the girls neck like purple delphinium. Her eyes were bulging, and her swollen tongue extended between lips caked with dried saliva and bile. Rigor mortis had not yet set in, but the girls skin no doubt vibrant and pearly just a few hours earlier was now gray and entering a deeper stage of lividity, particularly in the bodys lower extremities. Lumps of red blood cells had formed boxcars in her retinas.
As gruesome as the mutilation had been, it had also been gratuitous. It was the strangling that most likely claimed her life.
The jingling that Ellie had noted earlier was louder now. It was coming from somewhere near the body.
She was startled by a retching sound behind her. She turned to see Jess doubled over next to a black tarp draped across a fence post, just as she became aware of sirens sounding in the distance.
May I? she asked the jogger, reaching for his cell phone. Punching in a number she had memorized surprisingly quickly, she led the joggers away from what would soon be marked as a crime scene.
By the time she hung up, the first car of uniform officers had arrived.
Chapter Four
The jingling turned out to be a Gwen Stefani ring tone on the dead girls cell phone. The alarm had been set to go off at 5:32 a.m. Thirty-two minutes after Ellie woke up. One hour and twenty-eight minutes before she was due at the Thirteenth Precinct.
What had been the significance of that specific moment to this unnamed girl? It could have been her preferred time to get up on a Monday morning. Or maybe it was a reminder to go home on Sunday night. Time to take her medications, or walk her dog. Whatever the alarms original purpose, by 5:32 a.m., the girl was dead, and the sounds only effect had been to draw the attention of three passing joggers to her corpse.
It would take Ellies partner at least twenty minutes to reach the scene from his apartment in Brooklyn Heights. For now, she had to make sure his trip would not be wasted.
The uniform officer riding in the passenger seat exited the sector car first. He looked like a lot of new cops. Fit. Baby-faced. Enthusiastic. Short haired. Maybe in a different decade, he would have enlisted in the army. These days, he probably had a mother who stopped him. Now he was law enforcement.
He directed a flashlight at the dead girl. Ellie could tell from his reaction that this was his first body.
Oh, Jesus. He reached for his stomach on reflex.
All upchuckers, over there. Ellie directed the officers attention to Jess, who, as instructed, was standing well east of the crime scene, looking out at the river, taking deep breaths. Detective Hatcher, Manhattan South homicide. I need your radio.
Ellie had wrapped up one week in the homicide bureau, and so far all shed done was help her new partner tie together loose ends on his old cases and play support for other teams while she supposedly learned the ropes. Now shed practically stumbled over this poor girls body inside the Manhattan South borough. She was the first cop on the scene, and she was a homicide detective. If she couldnt weasel her way onto this case, she didnt deserve her new assignment.
The uniform looked at her, blinking rapidly. First a disfigured body, now a sweaty woman in a Pretenders T-shirt and sweatpants, demanding his radio.
But
The young officers partner found the words hed apparently been searching for once shed stepped from the drivers side of the car. Ill confirm it, she said, reaching for the Vertex radio microphone clipped to the shoulder of her navy blue uniform. And no ones taking our radios. Sorry, maam.
Ellie nodded. The woman was a good cop. Depending on what precincts shed been working, this could easily be her first body as well, but she was cool. Cooler than her partner. Just a quick glance at the body, then a more careful monitoring of everyone at the scene. Three runners, pacing. The sweaty woman who wanted their radio. The tall guy, looking out of place by the water.
Make sure that guys not going anywhere, she said to her partner. She was definitely good. Of the people at the scene, Jess was the one who should have registered on a cops radar. And asking her partner to keep Jess company gave the obviously nervous young cop some distance from the body.
Youre right, Ellie said, holding up her palms. Call it in. But tell them homicides already here. Shield 27990. Hatcher. Theyll have me down as Elsa.
She listened as the officer radioed in the essentials. They were at East River Park, south of Houston, north of the tennis courts. They had a 10291.