Page 94 of Alex Cross Must Die

As they glided past, Nicholas got distracted by the ripple of a turtle making its way toward the opposite shore. Just then, Macy got a whiff of something horrible.

She glanced back at the turkeys and got a sick tingle in her belly. At second look, they weren’t wild turkeys. They were turkeyvultures,with skeletal reddish heads emerging from cloaks of black feathers. She angled her paddle in the water to slow the kayak. Now she could see that the birds were crowding over a shape just below the surface. She splashed her paddle in the water. The birds moved off into the reeds.

Nicholas called back. “Why are we going so slow?”

Macy quickly angled the kayak away from the island. “Nicky! Don’t turn around! Don’t look!”

She glanced back just long enough to see the mottled body bobbing just below the surface. The figure was tall and vaguely female, with filthy blond hair waving like a cloud around the head. A denim-clad leg was angled partly out of the water, and a Western-style boot was hooked on a low branch. On the side of the boot was a large tooled pattern in red.

The unmistakable shape of Texas.

CHAPTER 109

THIRTY-SIX HOURS LATER.

“I still cannotbelieveyou didn’t tell me,” Helene Grey said.

It was the third time that evening she’d said it. Otherwise, she hadn’t spoken much at all. Marple could tell that the detective was still pretty angry. When Grey told her about the discovery of the young Texas model’s body in the river, Marple had finally come clean about the mystery cowboy on Hart Island, and the white pickup with the Lone Star decal.

“What was I supposed to tell you?” said Marple. “That I was on a secret mission to follow up on an obscure tip about a buried body that might possibly be Zozi Turner? We’d already been kicked off the case. Remember? When I saw the guy following me, I thought there might be a connection. But then we found Zozi alive and well, and I thought maybe I’d been imagining things.”

“A guy jumps off a ferry to get away from you, and you think that’s normal?”

“You’re right,” said Marple. “Consciousness of guilt. I should have said something. I need to work on my sharing.”

Marple prided herself on diligence, and it truly bothered herthat she might have let something so significant get away from her—especially on another case that turned out to involve an innocent girl. She was determined to see this through now, no matter where it led. No matter how dangerous.

She and Grey were currently sitting in Grey’s unmarked sedan, staking out a run-down SRO hotel in the South Jamaica section of Queens. From their angle across the street, Grey and Marple could see the entrance of the hotel clearly. The residents coming and going looked ragged and strung out, living in the margins.

“There used to be fleabag joints like this all over the city,” said Grey. “They were good for a few spicy calls every shift.” She sounded a bit wistful. “Now they’re all boutique hotels.”

“Gentrification,” said Marple. “The city’s gone to hell.”

She saw a slight smile from Grey. First one all day.

Grey had a printout of the deceased model on the console between them. The picture showed the girl posing playfully in a bright blue cotton sundress, her blond hair curled around her shoulders and her face radiant. The name printed on the border of the picture was “Lucy Lynn Ferry.” Stuck alongside it was a high-school graduation photo of a good-looking boy with dark eyes. The name under his picture was “Carson Lee Parker.”

After the body had been ID’d, Marple went with Grey to interview the head of the modeling agency, Betsy Bronte. She told them that she’d gotten a text from Lucy at least three weeks ago, saying that she’d gone back to Texas. Couldn’t handle New York, the message said. No question that the text had come from Lucy’s phone. Grey checked. It had pinged off a cell tower in Westchester.

Bronte said it wasn’t unusual for young models to flake out and run back home. The pressure was too intense for some of them. Especially the ones from small towns. But a few days ago, Lucy’s parents had called Bronte from Texas, looking for their daughter. They hadn’t heard from her. And they hadn’t seen her ex-boyfriend,Carson, around either. They thought they might have run away somewhere together. Maybe eloped.

“You think this guy killed her,” said Marple.

Grey tapped the steering wheel.

“He and Lucy were high school sweethearts,” she said. “Maybe he took it hard when she left. He’s got a minor-league rap sheet back home. Shoplifting. Auto theft. Small-time stuff.”

“Violence?” asked Marple.

“Nothing that shows up,” said Grey. “But I’ve seen it come out of nowhere. So have you.”

“What about the truck?” asked Marple.

“E-ZPass shows it coming back into Manhattan from Westchester the same day Bronte got Lucy’s good-bye text.”

“That’s right before I saw the cowboy on Hart Island.”

“Correct,” said Grey. “And why would he go to a graveyard unless he was looking for somebody he knows is dead? He was probably worried that the body had turned up.”

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