Last Known Victim by Erica Spindler

you…thought any more about what happened last night?”
    â€œShould I have?”
    Stacy shrugged and added cream to her coffee. “Thought you might like to talk. Sometimes it makes it better.”
    â€œI pushed his buttons. He snapped. I won’t do it again.”
    She sipped the coffee, working to maintain a “girlfriends” kind of tone, chatty and intimate. “What do you know about his other life?”
    Yvette narrowed her eyes. “Other life?”
    â€œAway from the Hustle. You know.”
    â€œActually, I snooped a bit.” She leaned across the table, expression mischievous. “Borrowed a car and followed him.”
    Stacy’s heart beat a little faster. She hoped the transmitter was working. “Really? What did you find out?”
    â€œHis wife is one of those uptight country-club types. The kind who think they’re too good for the rest of the world. Especially types like me.”
    Stacy heard a note of little girl hurt in Yvette’s voice, one she would vehemently deny. Obviously Yvette had been on the receiving end of that kind of thinking more than once.
    â€œIf she was so great, why would he need you?”
    â€œExactly!” Yvette beamed at her. “That’s part of what set Marcus off last night. I threatened to tell her about us and to go to the—”
    She bit the last back, though Stacy had a good idea she had been about to say “police.”
    She tried a gentle nudge. “Go to who?”
    â€œThe press if I had to.”
    â€œMaybe his wife holds the purse strings and that’s why he stays with her.”
    Yvette shook her head. “I don’t think so. He reps commercial property. Does real well. Besides, I don’t really care if he stays with her or not. I just want to be paid what I’m owed.”
    Before Stacy could counter with another question, Yvette pointed to the paper. “I was reading about that body they found in City Park. They think that guy got her. The one who chops off his victims’ hands.”
    â€œI heard about that. So creepy.”
    â€œI’ve got a theory on that.”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œKnow how they’ve never found any of his other victims? And how there’s been no high-profile thing about girls going missing?” Yvette leaned forward.
    â€œThey’re working girls.”
    â€œYou mean prostitutes.”
    â€œAnd girls like me.”
    â€œCould be he traveled around and that’s why no other victims have turned up or been reported missing.”
    â€œUh-uh.” The waitress arrived with their French toast. Yvette dug in immediately, eating as if starved. Stacy followed more slowly, preparing how to steer the conversation back to Gabrielle.
    â€œI’ve thought a lot about this,” Yvette continued. “Nobody cares much about working girls. A lot of ’em either don’t have families or their families don’t know where they are.”
    It certainly wouldn’t be the first time a serial killer had targeted prostitutes. But she couldn’t tell her that.
    Instead she nodded. “True.”
    â€œCan I tell you a secret?”
    â€œSure.”
    â€œI might know who that girl is. Or was.” She lowered her voice even more. “My old roommate.”
    When she’d arranged this brunch, Stacy hadn’t expected to get information about the Handyman. She imagined the expressions of the guys in the van. “How do you figure?”
    â€œThey think this girl was killed right before Katrina struck. That’s when Kitten disappeared.”
    â€œSo did about a million other New Orleanians.” That number wasn’t an exaggeration, and it represented eighty percent of the metro area’s 1.3 million residents.
    â€œBut she never came back. Left all her stuff.”
    â€œI don’t know, Yvette. Lots of folks did that.”
    Yvette looked irritated. “I’ve got a strong feeling