a few nights before. “Do you remember this photo?”
“Of course I remember it. I took it. I was right there when it happened.”
“What do you see?”
“I see two hot chicks rolling around a VIP room.”
“Look closer,” Frey said.
Jesse stared at the image, struggling to find some kind of wardrobe malfunction or up-skirt sneak peek that he’d overlooked when posting.
“I don’t really notice anything else but a bracelet.”
“Yes! That’s right.”
Jesse was a bit confused. Frey was well-dressed but he didn’t seem to be much of a fashion hound, judging from his fairly traditional button-down and khaki outfit. Not the sort of person to pay much mind to a bracelet.
“So? It’s nice,” Jesse said. “I got flooded with e-mails and texts from girls wanting to know where she got it. Even more so than usual.”
“I know where she got it,” the doctor said.
Frey opened the folder on top of his desk and pushed it toward Jesse. It contained three photographs, each of a similar bracelet, with different charms dangling from them. One was identical to the bracelet that Lucy was wearing at the club.
“What is it, some kind of devil sign?” Jesse said, pointing to the charm.
“No, quite the opposite. It is a milagro. The kind of emblem you often find hanging from rosary beads, pinned inside of garments, or affixed to chaplets like these.”
“What’s so special about them?”
“I’m not sure but they were special enough to him that he stole them from the old chapel beneath the Church of the Precious Blood.”
A relic thief. Jesse wasn’t very impressed. The church had been a construction site for a while. Maybe he wanted a souvenir or something to pawn. It sounded more like a prank to Jesse than some mysterious plot.
“I’m not sure where you are going with this. Lucy’s not religious, Doctor. The only appeal of that bracelet to her would be as an accessory. She could have found it on the street for all I know.”
“When he arrived here, we took them from him. Three of them. When he left, they were gone.”
“You think he gave them to Lucy. Intentionally?”
The idea of gifting a stranger with prayer beads was something Jesse had only seen on street corners and music festivals upstate, but then again this guy was crazy.
“Coincidentally, two other girls were admitted to the emergency room on that night. Both are missing.”
Jesse stared at the photo of the chaplet intently.
“Two and three?” he said, solemnly.
“Precisely,” the doctor said. “The second girl was reported missing yesterday by her mother. Agnes Fremont is her name. A suicide attempt. I evaluated her myself.”
“And the third?”
“A musician who plays clubs around Brooklyn and the Bowery . . . Cecilia Trent.”
“Sounds familiar,” Jesse said, searching his mental file until her name clicked. “She’s hot. Critic’s darling. Dresses over-the-top. She’s got a small following I think. Superfan types. I almost wrote something about her once.”
“Her concerts were inexplicably canceled the past few nights. Odd because she’s never missed a show before. No matter what the weather, as I found out. She only lives across the street from the dive where she was supposed to do these shows acoustically. The club stayed open for the locals, blackout and all.”
“Yeah, she’s the kind that would play to an empty room if they’d have her,” Jesse acknowledged. “But then this really is some end-of-the-world shit going on outside. Who could blame her for not showing?”
Jesse was starting to feel uneasy, as if a narrative was being planted in his brain.
Frey pushed the folder with CeCe’s picture in it closer to Jesse.
“Does this look like a girl who is afraid of a little rain?”
Jesse balked at the massive understatement. “A little rain?”
Frey just grinned.
The doctor was persuasive, Jesse had to admit. But then, Frey was the man who got Sicarius off, wasn’t he? Jesse stood abruptly and backed away from the desk, a chill running down his spine.
“Why tell me all this, Doctor? This is really a matter for the police.”
“The police are on it but the storm slowed everything down, including the investigation. All their resources are assigned to emergency services. Until it blows over, and then the cleanup begins.”
“And the death?”
“Has been reported as accidental for the time being and buried in the papers by the storm coverage,” Frey said. “Interested?”
Jesse couldn’t help himself. His ego kicked in.
“Interested.”
“This is a dangerous guy and he needs to be found as quickly as possible. Before he can do any further harm to these girls.”
“Yes.”
“Of course, if you attribute any of