Slaughter Read Free Page B

Control.
    â€œI’ll drop by and sign the work-for-hire contract, and pick up some NYPD shields,” Quinn said. “Then we’ll go look over the victim’s apartment.”
    â€œCrime scene techs have already been there. No sign of the killer having visited. Nothing unusual. Place neat enough, if you don’t count a D-cup bra draped over a chair in the bedroom.”
    â€œI’m gonna give you Helen for this one,” Renz said. Helen Iman was an NYPD profiler, a six-foot-plus amazon in her forties who looked like a women’s basketball coach. She was the only profiler Quinn had much faith in. She talked some of the familiar and obvious profiler-standard yammer, but there was no arguing with her results.
    â€œDoes Helen know that?” Quinn asked.
    â€œShe does,” Renz said. “She’ll be by for you to brief her later this morning. Remember, she reports to you and works for me.” Renz smiled. “She has a tightrope to walk. Not so unlike yourself.”
    â€œWho discovered the body?” Quinn asked.
    â€œEarly morning jogger. Health nut like the victim. Name of Rose Darling.” Renz glanced again at his gold watch. “I’ll fax you what we got when it comes in. Keep the info tight, though. The sooner the media find out, and the more they know, the harder it will be to find this psycho and put him down.”
    â€œThere’s only so much we can do with media,” Quinn said. “We can’t keep this a secret, unless we pay off Rose Darling and send her away on vacation someplace nobody ever heard of.”
    â€œIt’s the mob that does that kind of thing,” Renz said.
    Pearl concealed a thin smile. Control.
    â€œLet Rose Darling talk,” Renz said. “I run an open shop and play square with the citizens. We just won’t mention anything in detail about the manner of death, especially about the dismemberment. And we’ve got a couple of days before we have to officially ID the body.”
    â€œA few facts and an inconclusive story will drive the media wolves crazy. They’ll have their fangs out and will be pressing for answers.”
    â€œNot to worry,” Renz said. “I’ve got a guy who can handle them.”
    â€œWho would that be?” Quinn asked.
    â€œYou.”

5
    J ordan Kray sat in his apartment watching the news on his small flat-screen TV. Although he could easily afford a bigger set, he liked to watch the news small, so he could wrap his mind around it. Understand it. Learn how things work.
    He sat in his stocking feet with his knees drawn up sideways. His living room was spacious, with a view of the tree-lined street where he’d moved a year ago, when a well-thought-out financial strategy had brought him a windfall. Moving the money from his victims’ accounts to his own had been painful for them but a pleasure for him. He relived their agonies each time he turned the key in his front door.
    There were two kinds of people in the world. He was a winner, and the other kind didn’t matter. Once they were dead and disinterested, what was theirs became his. Cash, jewelry, valuable antiques . . . it all became negotiable and found its way into his portfolio of ETFs and mutual funds. The devil’s own treasure chest for one of his disciples.
    He’d stopped off at the kitchenware department of a store on Broadway and bought two identical automatic pop-up toasters—one to use in his kitchen, and one to disassemble so he thoroughly understood how the toasters worked. Did they raise the toasted slices of bread when they had become sufficiently toasted, or was the whole thing all about times? Like it took a certain amount of time to toast bread and that was that. Simple. No thermostat, nothing that Jordan couldn’t understand.
    But what about the timer? If there was one.
    He glanced at the TV screen. People in Arab clothing were throwing rocks at each other, while those not