City of Fear

City of Fear
Alafair Burke

An electrifying thriller that will keep you guessing until the very end, City of Fear is for anyone who loves Tess Gerritsen and Michael Connelly.In a city full of victims, it's murder to choose just one…Fresh-faced student Chelsea Hart spends her final night in New York in an elite nightclub with girlfriends and a fake ID. The next morning she is found murdered, in East River Park her celebrated blonde hair hacked off.NYPD Detective Ellie Hatcher is first on the case and quickly homes in on the city slickers last seen with Chelsea. When a tight case is brought against one of them, the department is elated. But Ellie isn't so sure.Chelsea's murder is eerily similar to three other deaths that occurred a decade ago: the victims were young, female, and in each case, the killer had taken hair as a souvenir. Is Ellie right to have her suspicions, or is she delving too deep into a simple case?Ellie's search for the truth pits her against her fellow cops and places her under the watchful eye of a psychopath, eager to add her to his list…

ALAFAIR BURKE

City of Fear

Copyright (#uea692545-f844-5ba8-a6b5-d19f1cab5ecf)

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are

the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to

actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is

entirely coincidental.

AVON

A division of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in the U.S.A. by HarperCollinsPublishers, New York, NY, 2008

Copyright © Alafair Burke 2008

Alafair Burke asserts the moral right to

be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is

available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9781847561114

Ebook Edition © MARCH 2009 ISBN: 9780007320035

Version: 2018-05-30

For James Parker, Emma Marie,

Jack Owen and James Lee.

From your favorite aunt.

Contents

Cover Page (#u114e0a8a-f30f-5508-a312-53aacfff921c)Title Page (#u63d52936-de65-5e69-842c-8f0b0c6b8e4f)Copyright (#u9a3aa4bd-7b34-52d4-b635-05ad8c0b72dc)Dedication (#uf7125e75-0471-50aa-88df-9d1d10e946f1)Part I: The Best Night Ever (#u19479655-02e1-5131-bf18-885b33e4dc96)Chapter One (#u644849ec-d07c-5421-9ba5-efff727a2a2d)Chapter Two (#u5a559098-a369-5226-9569-52b60075d963)Chapter Three (#uf9becfe1-3173-5771-87ad-00398a65eab9)Chapter Four (#u26375ea0-836a-51da-9ae1-2a142e96ef5c)Chapter Five (#u904b787b-13ae-52a0-ac4f-8c21717e406b)Chapter Six (#u41cc6381-eae0-5ce6-93dc-ef6b0987f3d7)Chapter Seven (#u5ad1c66d-6f94-5abd-8c32-f0775d7cb11f)Chapter Eight (#uaa05e875-4435-5fec-b851-95fd2b6bcab8)Chapter Nine (#u990cbdb3-444e-5965-843c-2f777d79982b)Chapter Ten (#udfdcb722-c680-529e-af8e-df9a40ad7443)Part II: Dream Witness (#u39bf6e3d-ead6-5f12-afd9-2590b8567d2e)Chapter Eleven (#u668ea864-55a8-5375-a080-943715ed8f1f)Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)Part III: No Surprises (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twenty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty-One (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)Part IV: The Final Victim (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Forty (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Forty-One (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Forty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Forty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Forty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Forty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Forty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Forty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Forty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Forty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Author’s Note (#litres_trial_promo)Review (#litres_trial_promo)About The Author (#litres_trial_promo)About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Part I (#uea692545-f844-5ba8-a6b5-d19f1cab5ecf)

The Best Night Ever (#uea692545-f844-5ba8-a6b5-d19f1cab5ecf)

Chapter One (#uea692545-f844-5ba8-a6b5-d19f1cab5ecf)

The man leaned forward on his stool to make room for a big-boned redhead who was reaching for the two glasses of Pinot Grigio she’d ordered. He asked for another Heineken while the bartender was down his way, figuring he could enjoy a second beer before anyone in the restaurant bothered to take note of him.

He was good at blending into the background in even the most generic settings, but he certainly wasn’t going to stand out here, given the commotion at the other end of the bar. Four men in suits and loosened ties were throwing back limoncello shots, their second round with the group of girls that had brought the man to the restaurant in the first place. Actually, his interest was not in all three – just the tall blond one.

He was used to taking more time with his selections, but he needed to find a girl tonight. This would be his first time on a schedule, let alone a tight one. NoLIta had seemed as good a starting point as any. Lots of bars. Lots of booze. Lots of beautiful young people trying so hard to have fun that they paid little attention to someone like him.

He had been wandering the neighborhood for about half an hour when he’d spotted the trio crossing Prince Street, the blonde the obvious leader. The other two were nothing special: one average-looking brunette in average-looking clothes; the other, petite one slightly more interesting with her close-cropped black hair and bright yellow dress.

But it was the tall blonde who was a head-turner, and she knew it. She wore tight black pants and a low-cut red satin tank over a gravity-defying push-up bra. Topping off the ensemble was a well-placed V-shaped choker necklace – the equivalent of a vertical arrow sign hanging from her clavicle, instructing, ‘Direct Gaze Here.’ And her hair was perfect – long, shiny, white-blond waves.

He’d ducked into Lord Willy’s on Mott and perused the dress shirts while they’d passed, then continued his pace about forty feet behind them until they’d parked themselves next to the bar at Luna. Fortunately, the girls had been kept waiting for their eight o’clock table, so he’d had plenty of time to study the blonde up close before making a final decision.

He liked what he saw. He even had a chance to speak to her briefly when she split off from her friends to go to the restroom. That had been risky on his part. But her two gal pals were so smitten with the limoncello boys that they hadn’t noticed the exchange.

He felt a twinge of disappointment as the hostess notified the girls their table was ready. Then he heard a male voice. ‘Stay for one more shot.’ Apparently the men in suits believed that plying the girls with drinks was going to get them somewhere.

Instead, the short girl in the yellow dress handed one of the men her cell phone and asked him to take a picture of the three friends. Mission accomplished, the brunettes followed the hostess to their table with barely a thank-you to their liquor-pouring benefactors. At least the blonde gave them each a hug before she trailed along.

The decibel level in the bar area fell noticeably in the wake of the girls’ departure. The other patrons seemed relieved, but he took it as a signal to leave.

On Mott, he walked north toward Houston, forcing himself to adopt a leisurely pace. His car was parked only ten blocks away, and the girls would need at least an hour for dinner.

He had plenty of time.

Chapter Two (#uea692545-f844-5ba8-a6b5-d19f1cab5ecf)

Somehow Stefanie Hyder always knew that her friendship with Chelsea Hart would lead to a night like this.

Since the day Stefanie had been introduced to her second-grade class at Fort Wayne Elementary as the new girl from Miami, the two had been inseparable. By the end of Stefanie’s third week, she had earned her first-ever detention after the girls were caught reading Judy Blume’s Wifey on the playground. As planned, the girls insisted they’d mistaken the book for the sequel to Blubber, but Chelsea had already earned her reputation with the teacher.

Over the course of the intervening years, Stefanie had survived her fair share of Chelsea-induced drama. Chelsea tapping at her window, well after curfew, cajoling her to sneak out for a forbidden cigarette. The R-rated games of truth or dare that Chelsea invariably initiated at middle-school parties. Rocking a sobbing Chelsea to sleep after Duncan Gere snubbed her in the ninth grade, despite the previous weekend’s activities in the backseat of his father’s SUV. Hitchhiking home from a frat party in Ann Arbor their junior year.

Chelsea was trouble, no question. Stefanie’s mom lovingly called her the Notorious B.I.C., short for Bad Influence Chelsea. But she had a spark that made her recklessness endearing and infectious, and she was unfailingly loyal, and so over the course of the past ten years, she and Stefanie had remained fast friends.

They even chose the same college, where they were now suite mates. Stefanie’s parents had warned her not to be surprised if she and Chelsea went their separate ways at Indiana University, but here they were in New York City, spring break of their freshman year, as tight as ever.