Page 50 of The Perfect People

He looked like he wanted to argue but after a moment the nostrils stopped flaring and he seemed to calm down.

“What’s your point?” he asked.

“You lost nine years of your life to save a guy you didn’t know but you’ve been running away from that ever since,” she told him. “You made millions. You act the tough guy. You don’t let anyone get close. You lived behind bars for nearly a decade but even now, when you’re supposed to be free, you still have bars on your home and your life. I’m giving you a chance to change that. You know who I am. You know why we’re down here.”

“The choking murders?”

“That’s right,” Jessie said. “We’re asking for your help with them. You know they’re connected, don’t you?”

He paused, sensing that if he answered this question, he was opening the door to all the others that would follow. Then he sighed and quite literally opened the door, motioning for them to come inside.

“I’m surprised everyone doesn’t get that they’re connected,” he said.

“They will soon,” Jessie said. “We think there’s going to be another attack tonight.”

“Jeez,” Duff muttered under his breath, closing the door behind them.

“That’s why we’re here,” Susannah said. “We don’t have any suspects and there are so many parties on the Strand that the killer might show up at. We need to find the right one—a huge one with the easiest access and the least security where he’ll feel confident that he can get in and out safely.”

Duff shook his head forcefully and his mess of gray hair flopped violently atop his head.

“That’s the wrong criteria,” he said.

“What?” Susannah retorted, clearly trying not to sound put off and failing miserably.

“No offense,” he said, holding up his hands in a show of peace, “but that’s not how it works around here. Look, there are a bunch of parties each night, increasing in number as we get closer to the holiday. There may be as many as two dozen of decent size along the two-mile stretch of the Strand from El Porto Beach south to the Gateway Parkette tonight. But less than a third of those will really be jumping.”

“That fits with what Jamil told us earlier,” Jessie said.

“Sure,” Duff said, “Winslow, right? The research guy who left MBPD for HSS. Smart kid. Knows his stuff. You’re lucky to have him. He’s consulted for me on several occasions.”

“Wait. What?” Jessie said, stunned.

“Who can get by on a city salary these days?” Duff said. “I hired him to provide detailed neighborhood crime stats for some client work I did. Don’t worry. It was totally aboveboard. Let’s stick to the point here, which is that, of those few parties that are really rocking, only a fewmatter.”

“What does that mean?” Susannah asked.

“Ah, that’s the important question,” he said, showing real enthusiasm for the first time since their arrival, “and that’s what really jumped out at me about these murders. They were both at the ‘It’ party.”

“The ‘It’ party?” Jessie repeated.

“Yeah,” he said, “you know—the one people are talking about, at least the locals. It’s like the cool kids’ table in the cafeteria at school. There’s usually only one of those parties a night, maybe two at most. Thursday night, Shasta Mallory had the ‘It’ party because people were hoping for a star sighting. It also happened to be the biggest of the night, but that was just a coincidence. It doesn’t always work out that way.”

“And Nicole Boyce was last night’s ‘It’ party?” Susannah asked.

“Right,” Duff confirmed. “It wasn’t the biggest one by a long way, but it was the place to be because everyone wanted to be around Nicole.”

“This changes things,” Jessie said. “We knew these women were hosting parties, which made their homes more easily accessible and themselves vulnerable. But I don’t think that we understood that they were ‘hostesses’ of the parties in such a formal sense. That makes me wonder if the hostess element isn’t just a convenient way for the killer to access potential victims—but the reason they’re being targeted in the first place.”

“You think he’s specifically going after the hostesses of these ‘It’ parties?” Susannah pressed.

“I don’t know,” Jessie said, “but it’s worth considering. We’ve been asking Jamil and Beth to find connections between these two women. Until now, I didn’t even realize this was a thing that constituted a legitimate connection.”

“I’d say it is,” Curly told them. “Hosting a major summer holiday Strand ‘It’ party is a big deal. The list of folks who do it is pretty exclusive.”

“So you’re saying we need to be at tonight’s ‘It’ party?” Jessie asked. “I assume you know what it is and who’s hosting?”

Curly Duff looked first at Jessie, then over at Susannah.

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