Who was she to Niederman?
Who was Niederman to the sender?
And who had given the sender details of these Broadway killings that he now hung them over Larkin’s head in a game of “you can’t catch me”?
Larkintap,tap,tapped the wheel some more.
“Larkin?”
He stopped abruptly and turned to stare at Doyle in the passenger seat. “What.”
“What’re you thinking about?”
“What I’ve missed.” More thoughtfully, Larkin explained, “The two people most important to uncovering the identity of the sender are Mia Ramos and Harry Regmore.”
Doyle furrowed his brows. “What about Niederman? You said he knew the sender in real life.”
“Knewbeing the operative word,” Larkin said. He took off his seat belt so he could turn his body toward Doyle. “Niederman is dead, and there’s only so much to glean from a dead man. But I’ve been thinking about the sender pointing out, quite blatantly, that I’ve missed something about Mia Ramos. There wasn’t much we could ascertain about Niederman from the use of victimology, because in his case, he didn’t kill for himself.”
Doyle nodded. “Right.”
“But what if he did. Just once. The killing that gave him a taste for the process, that gave him the subject matter he shared with his network of fellow pedophiles—to prove he could deliver on their own darkest fantasies.”
“Mia,” Doyle said quietly.
“Mia. There are so many typologies for serial killer classification, but at its most simplistic, Niederman was organized and methodical. Considering where he killed and posed his victims—somewhere as public as the subway system—means that he hunted, planned. I think his later victims were chosen based on vulnerability, but Mia was different. He chose her based on a desirable trait. So where and when did they first cross paths that would have led to Niederman researching her habits, her schedules, her routine, before he had enough information to make a successful first kill and not get caught.”
“You make a compelling argument,” Doyle said. “But how do we learn more about Mia? Not only is there a discrepancy in her timeline, from when she ran away to when she wound up dead, but she’sdead. And we still don’t have her body.”
Larkin frowned and only shook his head.
“And so what about Regmore?” Doyle prompted. “It’s because the first letter included knowledge of his employment at the Parks Department, right?”
“Yes,” Larkin said. “I had that letter in hand before anything had been disseminated to the media. Regmore himself would be ignorant of the sender’s identity, but that connection between them is, nonetheless, critical.”
“What’re you going to do now?”
Larkin considered the question for a moment. “I’m going to speak with Charlie Stolle.”
“Yeah? Well, just remember, you get more flies with honey.”
“You also get an infestation.”
“Gross.” Doyle popped the passenger door open. “The reconstruction is probably going to take the rest of the afternoon.”
“That’s fine.” Larkin leaned over the center console and kissed Doyle.
He’d meant for the touch to be affectionate—proof that Doyle was his first thought when they were together and last when they were apart.
But the kiss provoked an unexpected blaze inside him, heat leaping as if gasoline had been poured on lit kindling, flames growing, grasping at oxygen, burning away every barrier as if they were no more than sheafs of paper, gray ashes of the night, the depression, the nothings and nobodies, scattered to the farthest reaches as a phoenix was birthed from the wreckage of Larkin’s life. His body was awake, a masterpiece of color—sunflowers bursting from the decay of dandelions, light catching the cut of raw pyrite, brighter and warmer than any campfire, blood pumping in veins thought atrophied, thicker than the innocence of first love could ever hope to be—all of this, just like Wednesday, April 1, at 4:56 p.m., when Doyle had kissed Larkin and made him feelaliveagain.
Larkin grabbed Doyle’s tie and yanked him close, held the back of his head with his other hand, carded fingers through thick brown hair, bit Doyle’s lower lip, pressed their tongues together until his partner let out a shaky moan.
Larkin broke first. He opened his eyes, took in Doyle’s dilated pupils, the glisten of spit on his mouth, his quick, shallow pants against Larkin’s own face.
“Holy shit,” Doyle breathed.
“I’m sor—”
