“I’m the one who found Chelsea Hart. She was on my regular running path. The alarm on her cell phone was set to go off right around the time I usually pass that spot. Rachel Peck was left where my brother works. Take a look at the incisions on Rachel Peck’s forehead.” She dropped a printout of the photograph she’d snapped at the ME’s office on the conference room table. “Am I crazy?”

“Are those your initials?” Donovan asked.

“That’s what I’m wondering.”

Rogan exhaled loudly.

“And look at Rachel’s hair. There’s a picture of me from when I was ten years old where my hair looks just like that. It was on Dateline. It was in People magazine. I’m more than a little embarrassed by the number of people who’ve seen me with precisely this hairstyle.”

Rogan cut in. “We’ve got about half an hour before we’re supposed to meet Celina Symanski in Queens. Did you forget that we have evidence proving that Jake Myers bribed a man to give us a false confession? We have Jake Myers’s DNA on the victim. We know for a fact who killed Chelsea Hart.”

“Or else Jake Myers is innocent but wasn’t so confident he’d get acquitted,” Ellie said.

“You two are making my head hurt,” Knight said. “I’m trying to process the implications of what you’re saying, Hatcher. If we’ve got a serial on our hands, it’s someone with a beef against you?”

“As unsettling as that is, yes, that’s what I’m beginning to think.”

“Any ideas as to who that person could be?”

She shook her head.

“No, of course not. Plus, it’s someone who would have to know how to find the girl with the camera phone.”

“Jordan McLaughlin. Yes, I suppose that’s right.” She was realizing that she sounded even crazier than she’d been prepared for. “He’d have to know where Jordan was staying in the city, and then Darrell Washington could have followed them to the museum from there.”

Rogan shook his head.

“The two of you better go if you’re going to make it to Astoria,” Knight said.

“So that’s it? You’re just ignoring everything I said?”

“No, Detective, because that’s not how we work here. We’re going to look at it all. That’s what we have to do once something’s been brought to our attention, which is why it wasn’t raised with us earlier, I suspect. But first we need to nail down what Jake Myers did with his hundred thousand dollars. We can force the Mohegan Sun to pull video of Myers leaving with the chips if we have to, but my guess is, you can break the daughter without it. We’ll use her for leverage against Susan Parker. We then flip Parker to get another crack at Myers, and then maybe we’ll be in a better position to know whether he’s our man or not. Unless, of course, you think we have more attractive alternatives.”

“No, sir.”

“Very well. I’m sending Donovan with you. This woman needs to know that her boyfriend’s immunity deal on his drug case is in jeopardy because of this bullshit. If a six-year mandatory minimum scared them into a stunt like this, a heart-to-heart about the potential maximums might actually get us the truth. In the meantime, I have obstruction charges to file against Symanski. Until we know what the hell’s going on, I don’t want either of these men out of our sight.”

DONOVAN MUST HAVE SENSED from the silence in the elevator that Ellie and Rogan needed a word in private. As they were leaving the courthouse, he found his excuse.

“I need to hit the men’s room. Pull the car around, and I’ll meet you out front?”

Ellie spoke up as they made their way to the Crown Vic.

“You think I torpedoed you.”

“Nope. If anything, I sandbagged you. We agreed I’d tell them where you went and what you were working on, and I didn’t.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“Honestly? I think you’ve got a wild imagination. Even if those cold cases had something to do with each other, I don’t think they’ve got anything to do with Chelsea Hart, or that girl you saw this morning. And I know for damn sure they don’t have anything to do with some personal beef against you.”

Rogan’s cell phone jingled. “Damn it,” he said, eyeing the screen. “It’s Eckels.”

“Yeah, Lou… Hold on, I’m pulling into traffic.” He held the phone against his palm. “I knew he’d bird-dog us,” he whispered to Ellie. “He already wants an update.”

And then Ellie listened with as much gratitude as she could muster as her partner, despite his personal feelings, tried his best not to make her sound crazy.

THEY WERE WAITING for Max Donovan at the curb in front of the courthouse when Ellie recognized the man crossing Centre Street. She watched as he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and flipped it open. A second later, her own phone vibrated.

“Un-fucking-believable.” She was out of the car before Rogan could ask for an explanation. She flipped open her phone. “I’m twenty feet behind you,” she said.

Peter Morse was smiling when he turned to greet her, but his expression changed once he saw her face.

“How many times do you plan on calling me? I told you last night I needed some space, and this is how you respond?”

“Wow. I had no idea you were this angry at me.”

“So now I’m the problem. You get to write a book about me. You get to mislead me about your plans. You apparently even get to surf the Net for other women. But when I say I need a break-and that’s all I asked for, was just some time and space-then I’m angry, bitchy Ellie. That’s really fair, Peter.”

“I just want to talk to you. This book is my chance to get somewhere as a writer. If you would just try to look at this from my perspective-”

“I can’t do that right now, okay? And I explained that to you last night.”

“I hate the way we left things. Can we please just sit down and have a conversation about this?”

“No, we can’t. We can talk when we’re both ready. And your calling me over and over again does not help get me to a place where I want to talk things through with you.”

He raked his fingers through his hair, clearly frustrated.

“Damn it. I can’t believe I have to ask you what I’m about to ask you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“My boss is a fucking asshole. Kittrie wanted me to call you this morning. I was trying to get around it, and he figured out we’re having some problems. So now he’s taking some perverse pleasure in my discomfort.”

“Jesus. You’re about to ask me about the case, aren’t you?”

He pressed his lips together.

“Go ahead and spit it out.”

“There was a body found last night at some strip club on the West Side Highway.” It dawned on Ellie that Peter hadn’t spent enough time with her brother even to know where he worked. “The girl’s friend said she wandered off from Tenjune. I’m covering it, but Kittrie wants to write a separate piece. It’s those cold cases you mentioned the other night. The ones Flann McIlroy was digging around in.”

Ellie felt a vein in her head starting to throb. She knew she shouldn’t have mentioned those cases to Peter. She shouldn’t have called George Kittrie. He wouldn’t have connected the dots on his own.

“He’s going to speculate about a connection?”

Peter nodded. “He’s working on it now. The three old cases. Chelsea Hart. Rachel Peck from this morning. I really hate this, Ellie, but he’s my boss, and you know what an ass he is.”

“Tell him you were a good boy who did precisely what he asked of you, and I said ‘No goddamn comment.’”