Patricia Rosemoor - Skin

The attack scenario on the mat had barely begun, however, when a young policeman in uniform wandered into the room, and every head turned. The instructor hurried over to him, and they spoke in low tones. Then the instructor waved Lilith over. Her heart skipped a beat as she rose and rounded the mat.

“Can we talk away from here, Miss Mitchell?”

“Yeah, sure.” Following him into the hallway, Lilith had a bad feeling. Was it Mama? Had Marlon finally broken her or worse? She forced her voice to remain steady. “What can I do for you, Officer?”

“Do you know a woman who calls herself Anna Youngheart?”

Lilith’s pulse sped up. “My sister’s professional name. She’s not in trouble, is she?” When the officer didn’t respond, she demanded, “Hannah is all right?”

The cop’s look of pity nearly stilled her blood.

LILITH MITCHELL SAT still as death in the glass-walled inner office. Pucinski exchanged a look with DeSalvo. His partner backed off and went to investigate the coffeepot. Pucinski figured it was understandable that the Mitchell woman should be stunned and looking as if she were unable to comprehend that her sister might now be beyond her reach forever.

“An old street lady saw it happen,” Pucinski told her. “Some guy was waiting for your sister when she came home last night. They went inside for a few minutes, then the door burst open, and he dragged her out, hands tied behind her back, something covering her mouth. She tried fighting. Unfortunately, the woman was too far away to give us a description.”

“Okay, so some guy dragged her off. That doesn’t make him a killer.”

The poor woman appeared a little green around the gills, like she was fighting heaving her cookies. Thank God she didn’t — his desk was messy enough. She sat frozen next to it as if she herself were dead. Pucinski knew he might look hard as leather on the outside, but inside his gut twisted tight.

“Neighbors told us she worked at Club Paradise, and we started putting it together. Part of The Hunter Case. Anna Youngheart fits the description, a lot like the other two women associated with the club who were taken. We found this in her locker.” He showed her a scrap of paper with her own address and that of Hamilton, Smith and Willis. “Someone at your workplace knew you would be at the gym tonight,” he explained. “We figured you might be able to tell us something about her. Didn’t guess you were related.”

Voice catching, Lilith whispered, “Hannah left me a message at work sometime last night. She was going to call me today.” She blinked and tears rolled down her cheeks. “She ran away when she was thirteen.” She turned to him, her expression stricken, her eyes dark pools of pain. “After all these years, I just found her, and now it’s too late for anything.”

Pucinski said, “Thousands of kids disappear without a trace every year, Miss Mitchell. Most of their families never know what happens to them.”

“Maybe that would have been better,” she said, though she didn’t look like she meant it. “I-I feel as if I was given a second chance, and somehow I b-blew it. I couldn’t get her out of that damn club. I failed her again .”

Pucinski stood there like some sap, wanting to comfort her while needing to get as much info as he could. He did neither, rather waited her out.

She sniffed and took a deep breath. “So what now?” She bit her lips, perhaps to stop herself from crying. Her eyes were rheumy-looking. “Tell me, Detective Pucinski, what are the chances you’ll find her alive?”

Making nice with the family members wasn’t his favorite part of the job. “We’re going to do everything we can, but truthfully, we don’t have much to go on.”

“Was Hannah friends with the other women?”

“She hadn’t worked the joint long enough to know the first victim, a waitress. But the second — the prostitute — maybe.”

He paced as if the activity could work off his frustration with the case. Even having an officer working undercover hadn’t kept Hannah Mitchell from being taken. But she wasn’t dead yet, he reminded himself. She still had a shot.

“They weren’t all dancers, then,” Lilith was saying. “Could there be some connection between them other than the club?”

“All three women were tall, good looking and had long, dark hair.”

The description could fit a thousand women in the city. As if she knew it, too — that the description could fit her — Lilith shifted uncomfortably.

“How long do we have?” she asked.

“The first one he held for two weeks. The second only ten days.”

“So his patience is getting shorter.”

“Seems like. No guarantees of how long this time.”

“Then the clock is already ticking. What are you doing about it? Why aren’t you interviewing everyone at the club?”

“Who says we aren’t?” He probably shouldn’t tell her this. “And we have an officer working undercover.”

“Undercover…”

She wasn’t looking at him, Pucinski realized, but past him. He glanced over his shoulder to see what had her attention. Gabe O’Malley was at his desk, doing paperwork.

Pucinski turned back to Lilith, whose attention was on him, again. She seemed to be trying to digest it all. He only wished he was convinced that having someone working undercover was enough to catch a murderer. He remembered seeing the bodies of the women who had been hunted and shot and then skinned like animals. He hoped Lilith Mitchell never had to see her sister like that.

Pucinski felt like crap. He should have let DeSalvo handle this one. While green behind the ears, the kid had to learn to deal with the hard stuff sometime.

“I already called the Feds. They’re working up a profile on this creep.”

The next hour passed with Lilith seeming in a daze even while trying to be helpful. When the question and answer session was over, she asked for the keys to her sister’s loft. Since the evidence technicians were done with the place, Pucinski didn’t see the harm. She needed the connection, and maybe spending some time in the place would give her some helpful ideas. He also gave her his cell number and offered to take her home or to call someone who could stay with her, but she declined.

So Pucinski watched her walk off toward the bus stop, hoping she was as strong as she wanted him to believe.

She’d need a strong stomach if she had to ID her kid sister on a morgue slab.

LILITH CALLED Elena to give her the bad news. Of course her friend insisted on accompanying her to Hannah’s loft.

“You think she’d be safe in a place like this, huh?” Elena murmured as she wandered over to the wall of windows with its river view. “I mean even though this particular street is a little off the main beat, this isn’t exactly the inner city.”

“She had… has … money,” Lilith said, unready to put her sister in the past tense. “Not that it was any kind of protection.”

She was unwilling to believe that her sister would die. Surely the police would find her in time. She didn’t want to think of the things the killer could be doing to torture Hannah in the meantime.

Meandering through the downstairs space, Lilith spotted something familiar crushed into the corner of the sofa. Gently withdrawing the stuffed animal, a tattered tiger cat, she realized it was the same one she’d bought for Hannah’s tenth birthday. After all these years, Hannah still had the remembrance of her . Tears stung the back of her eyes, and she pressed the stuffed animal to her breast.

“Oh, Hannah.”

“Hey, you okay?” Elena asked softly.

Lilith took a deep breath and ran her fingers over the reminder of their childhood, of the days a lifetime ago when their father had still been in good health and they had all been happy.