didn’t get a chance to slide back into the booth and find out what was going on; she felt a tap on her shoulder and turned.
Her brother Kevin was next to her. He was a striking man—in anyone’s opinion, she thought. He was tall and fit, with fine features, dark red hair and deep blue eyes. They were twins, and it showed.
“I have to talk to you,” he said urgently.
“Sure,” she said.
“Not here. In the office,” he told her. To her surprise, he glanced uneasily at Craig, whom he liked and with whom he was pretty good friends.
Kevin whirled her and headed her down the entry aisle toward the bar, and then to the left and down the hallway to the business office. He peered in, as if afraid their older brother might be there, since it was, basically, Declan’s office.
He closed the door behind them.
“She’s dead, Kieran! She’s dead!” Kevin said, looking at her and shaking his head with dismay and anxiety.
She stared at him for a moment. He couldn’t be talking about Jeannette Gilbert—no one knew that she’d been found at the church yet, not according to John Shaw.
Her heart quaked with fear. She was afraid he was talking about an old friend, or a longtime customer of the pub.
Someone he cared about deeply.
“Kevin, who?” she asked.
“Jeannette.”
She frowned. “Jeannette Gilbert?”
He nodded.
“Okay,” she said slowly. “I know that, because John Shaw just told me. But he only found her body a few hours ago. The police asked him not to say anything.”
Kevin took a deep breath. “Well, John Shaw might not have said anything, but one of the workers down there—a grunt, a student, I don’t know—came out and told people on the street, and the story was picked up, and there are already media crews there.”
She studied her brother. “Kevin, it’s terrible. A beautiful young woman has—I’m assuming—been murdered. But, Kevin, I’m afraid that terrible things do happen. But...we didn’t know Jeannette Gilbert. Not personally.”
“Yes,” he said. “We did.”
“We did?”
“I did,” he corrected. “Kieran, I was the so-called ‘mystery man’ she was dating! I might have been the last one to see her alive.”
* * *
The NYPD had been called in first; that was proper protocol, since New York City was where the body had been found.
She’d last been seen by her doorman entering her apartment; she was a longtime Manhattan resident. She had, in fact, grown up in Harlem, a little girl who’d lost both parents and gone on to live in a household filled with children and an aunt who hadn’t wanted another mouth to feed.
By the age of seventeen, however, she’d had an affair with a rock star.
While the rock star denied any kind of intimate relationship with her at the time, he’d gone on to put her in one of his music videos soon after.
An agent had picked her up and it had been a classic tale—little girl lost had become a megastar. By twenty-five, she was gracing runways all over the world and, because of her modeling, doing cameo spots on television shows and even appearing in small roles in several movies. She was considered a true supernova.
Jeannette’s physical appearance had been called perfect by every critic out there.
She could walk a runway.
She had beautiful skin, luscious hair, long legs and a body that didn’t quit.
Craig Frasier had learned all this about Jeannette in the last few hours. Before that, she’d only been a face he might have recognized on a magazine cover.
But he’d made it his business to read up on her quickly.
Because her death had suddenly become the focus of his life.
He’d been in his office, reading statements from witnesses about the murder of a known pimp, when he’d been summoned, along with his partner, Mike Dalton, to Assistant Director Richard Egan’s office.
Craig and Mike had been partners for years. Craig had been assigned a young, new agent when Mike was laid up on medical leave—a shot to the buttocks—about a year ago. He’d learned then how much he appreciated his partner; they knew each other’s minds. They naturally fell into a division of labor when it came to pounding the pavement and getting the inevitable paperwork done.
And there was no one Craig trusted more to have his back, especially in a shoot-out.
Egan, a good man himself, was hard-core Bureau. His personal life had suffered for it, but he never brought his personal life into the office. He was the best kind of authority figure, as well—dignified, fair, compassionate. And efficient. He never wasted time. There were two chairs in front of his desk, but he hadn’t waited for Craig and Mike to sit down. He’d started talking right away.
“I had a back-burner situation going on here,” he’d told them. “We’d been given information, but the local police down in Fredericksburg, Virginia, were handling the case. A girl—a perfect-looking girl, an artist’s model—disappeared about six months ago. A few weeks later, her body was found in a historic cemetery outside Fredericksburg, in a mausoleum. She’d been stabbed in the heart, then cleaned up, dressed up and laid out in a family mausoleum. She was discovered when the family’s matriarch died, since she’d been put in the matriarch’s space. As I said, it seemed to be a local matter, and the Fredericksburg PD and Virginia State Police had the murder. We were informed because of the unusual aspects.”
Egan had paused, running his hands through his hair. Then he’d resumed speaking. “We’re all aware of the high-profile disappearance of Jeannette Gilbert.”
Mike had nodded. “Yeah, we were briefed with the cops about her disappearance when she went missing. We weren’t really in on it, as you know. But we were on the lookout.”
“Ms. Gilbert’s been found. An archaeological dig at old Saint Augustine’s.”
“You mean—” Mike began.
But Egan had cut him off. Yeah, he meant the new nightclub. Egan wasn’t a fan. He’d gone on and ranted for a full minute about the destruction of old historic places. In his opinion, that suggested New York City had no real respect for the past.
Craig knew Mike hadn’t been asking his question because of the club; he’d been trying to ascertain if she’d been found dead.
Mike had glanced over at Craig, who shrugged.
They’d both just let Egan rant, figuring it was obvious. The poor girl was dead.
Egan had ended by saying, “Yes, she’s dead. And it is bizarre—as bizarre as that Fredericksburg
