40

Holly walked out of the post office, minus the package, Matt noted. Wonder what she’d mailed? She popped in her earbuds again, pulled off her cap, and messed around with her hair. She yanked the cap back on. Then readjusted her earbuds.

Geez. Get on with it.

He waited for her to get back in her car so he could follow her. His plan seemed eminently reasonable. He’d see if she went anywhere interesting or useful. Lassiter HQ, for instance. If so, play it by ear from there.

If she simply went home, also useful. Because in that case, he’d leave. He knew where she lived, right? He could go back to his hotel, catch a nap, shower, and come back in the morning. See where she went. It wasn’t like she was gonna leave Boston overnight.

Shit. Instead of turning right to get to her car, still parked in that spot by the fence, she was coming his way. He ducked, as if he were looking for something on the floor. He reached for the glove compartment, flipped it open, fingered out a map, unfolded it in front of his face. Sitting up, he sneaked a look around it.

Holly stood by the water, one ankle raised on the waist-high railing between her and the canal below. He saw her head bend to her knee, bob a couple times. Then she switched legs. Head to knee again. Stretching? Duh. She was going running.

Matt peered over the map, watching Holly put her slim body through a series of stretches and curls. Almost as if she were dancing for him, showing off in her skintight running suit, moving to the music he imagined must be on her iPod. She raised each leg, one after the other, slowly, excruciatingly slowly, lowering her head to her knee. She leaned back against the metal-railed fence, arms straight, arching her body toward him; then she turned and arched the other way. She turned her back to him.… Is she teasing? Does she know I’m here? She can’t— Then she touched her toes, palms flat to the ground. She put her hand on one heel, then stretched her leg out, in full splits, standing right there, not twenty feet from him, no idea he was watching this performance.

Matt could almost hear her music. Almost forgot to hold up the map. Holly’s head lolled back as she stretched her neck, eyes closed; then she rolled her head from side to side. She was drinking it in, enjoying it. She must be. The sun on the water, the seagulls, her body.

She thinks she’s alone.

Holly unzipped the hooded jacket she was wearing and shrugged it from her shoulders, revealing a sleeveless black top. Made of that same stretchy stuff as her pants. She adjusted her earbud string and tied the jacket around her waist. He could see her chest, the swell of her curves more maddening than he remembered.

With a shake that was almost a shiver, Holly jogged along the sidewalk away from him and turned right across the bridge.

Matt could hardly breathe. She was—dangerous.

Another plan began to form. A new plan. A better plan.

He’d be ready for Holly when she returned.

*   *   *

“So we made it through Saturday night at least, ya know?” DeLuca’s silhouette appeared at Jake’s office door, a Dunkin’s extra large cup in one hand. His partner raised it, toasting. “No new bodies. Maybe the Bridge Killer’s decided to fold his tents.”

Pam’s voice buzzed through the intercom. “Jake, DeLuca’s here.” D never waited to be announced.

“You’re a sick person, D. And there’s no Bridge Killer.” Jake typed the name Kenna Wilkes into his BlackBerry. Just in case. Looked up at DeLuca as he sent it to himself.

“Can’t believe you’re here plugging away.” DeLuca lounged in the doorway. “You can’t work all the time.”

“You can if there’s a serial killer on the loose,” Jake said.

“Well, that’s the thing. Maybe there isn’t … a serial killer.”

Jake looked up, watched DeLuca take a long pull of coffee. “You have two seconds before I—”

“Kylie Howarth. Is the Longfellow vic’s name. But she’s a suicide.”

Jake stood slowly, closing his laptop. He sat down again, his metal chair creaking a complaint. He stared at DeLuca, calculating what that would mean. Longfellow had been the first body. The first domino of the so-called bridge killings. The beginning of the hysteria. Suicide?

I knew it. There was no Bridge Killer.

DeLuca came into the room, flipped around Jake’s swivel guest chair, sat with one leg on each side. Draped his leather-jacketed arms across the back of the seat. Plunked his coffee on Jake’s desk.

“We think,” DeLuca said.

Jake slammed his palm on his desk, sloshing a mini-puddle of coffee onto the wooden surface. “You kidding me? What’re you talking about, D? You on drugs? There’s no room for maybe in this business.”

DeLuca made the time-out sign. “Is there room for ‘probably’? Hear me out. Her parents called. Kylie Howarth, K-y-l-i-e, is their daughter. They’re from—Louisville. St. Louis. Someplace like that, it’s in my notebook. Wife’s, like, a city councilor. Husband’s rich. Anyway, they’d been out of town in, ah, you know, Europe. Switzerland, someplace like that. Skiing. So they didn’t get the letter. Till they got back.”

“The—?” Jake wrote down the name Kylie.

“Letter. She’s sorry, she let them down, she can’t face it all anymore. Apparently she had some problems. She’d run off to Boston, poor-little-rich-girl type of thing, they hardly heard from her. So it didn’t concern them when, you know. They were out of touch. So she sends them this letter. Saying she was gonna ‘fly.’ Didn’t know they were gone. Apparently.”

“But how did they, I mean why—?”

DeLuca blotted the spilled coffee with a handkerchief, stuffed it back in his jeans pocket. “The letter was postmarked Boston. They called the cops. Kurtz took it. She told me about it. I told her I’d fill you in.”

Jake’s intercom buzzed again. “Jake? Cadet Kurtz is—”

“Send her in, please,” Jake said. “So how do we know it’s her? Kylie How—?”

“Howarth. We don’t,” DeLuca said. “Description matches, though. Everything matches. Description, timing, ‘flying’—you know, off a bridge. The parents are getting a plane A-sap, bringing the letter. Could be here today, they’ll let us know. Then they’ll have to see Dr. A in the ME’s office. ID the body.”

“Bad news for them,” Jake said. “Hate that. But guess it’s good for us.”

“Yup.” DeLuca nodded, swiveling the chair slightly back and forth. “Thing is.”

“Thing is what?” Jake said.

“Detectives?” Cadet Kurtz, also carrying a Dunkin’s cup, peered around Jake’s door. She held out a sheaf of papers, but looked at DeLuca. “So you told him? I was going to call you, sir, but Paul—uh, Detective DeLuca—said that—”

“All set,” Jake said. He motioned her to hand over the documents. “Good work.”

DeLuca raised his cup at her. “Kurtz, I was about to tell Detective Brogan what you said the Howarths told you about their daughter’s employment history. Where she’d applied for a job.”

Jake began to read. He held the pages, midair.

“No way,” he said. He looked at DeLuca, then at Kurtz, then back again, trying to read their faces. “You two are frickin’ kidding me.”