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the police didn’t have much to go on at this point in the investigation.
    The detectives were methodically eliminating suspects, and they had a lot fewer than when they’d started. Yet each begged the same question: what kind of woman would agree to meet a man who called himself luvstick? The police were betting the same kind of woman who would agree to meet someone who called himself hardluvnman or hounddog.

Chapter 3
    Curious: Seeks Persistent Poet…
    The next morning, Quinn watched his hands in the mirror above his dresser as he slid up the knot of his red-and-blue-striped tie. He lifted his freshly shaved chin and moved the knot back and forth until it fit perfectly within the closed collar of his blue dress shirt. He buttoned the points, then reached for his badge sitting on the dresser. He hooked it on his belt and shoved his pistol in the holster on his right hip. He clipped his extra ammo and cell phone on his left side and tucked a pair of handcuffs into his pants at the small of his back. A navy blue jacket lay on the foot of his bed, and he threaded his arms into the sleeves as he headed down the hallway to the kitchen. He fed Millie, made sure the dog door was unlocked, and drank the last of his coffee. On his way out the door, he grabbed his laptop and files. He jumped into his unmarked Crown Victoria and headed toward the office. As he drove across town, he checked his voice mail and jotted down notes on a pad of paper on the seat next to him. He phoned the district attorney’s office regarding a pending court case, and by the time he’d pulled into his parking space, he’d crossed off a number of things on his shit-to-do list.
    He made his way to the briefing room set up specifically for the Breathless case and noticed that Lucy Rothschild had been moved up to number one on the marker board, right above Maureen Dempsey. He was the first to arrive, and he set his laptop and files next to the three murder books on the table in front of him.
    “We’ve eliminated Karla Thompson completely,” Sergeant Vernon Mitchell said as he walked into the room. “We just confirmed that she was out of town when the second murder took place.” A pair of reading glasses was perched on the end of the sergeant’s nose, and his white crew cut was cropped so close to his head that he looked almost bald.
    Quinn sat and opened one of the murder books. “There’s a relief,” he muttered. Karla Thompson aka sweetpea, the woman who’d smelled like a Marlborough cigarette and sounded like the Marlborough man, had grabbed his ass as they’d stood in line for coffee.
    Kurt Weber sat next to Quinn and started to laugh. “I thought I was going to have to bust in and rescue you on that one,” he said, referring to Quinn’s coffee date with Karla a few nights ago.
    “Yeah, it was funny as hell,” Quinn grumbled. There were women a guy didn’t mind grabbing his ass. Then there was Karla.
    “That’s what you get for being a pretty boy.”
    “That’s what I get for letting you write those stupid mushy e-mails. You made her think I wanted to get naked right then and there.” Under normal circumstances, Quinn wouldn’t have minded maneuvering a woman out of her clothes. In fact, getting women naked ranked high on his list, but not with some of the women he’d met lately. The thought of seeing Lucy naked held some appeal, but not when every word would be recorded. And yeah, not when she might be psychotic.
    “Quinn, you’re going to concentrate most of your attention on Lucy Rothschild and Maureen Dempsey until we can either clear or charge them.” Sergeant Mitchell pointed to the two photos in front of Quinn.
    Quinn looked at the blown-up copies of the driver’s license photos and frowned. Maureen Dempsey, possibly the stupidest woman he’d ever known, and Lucy Rothschild, the woman who wrote about serial killers. He understood why Lucy made the list. She was smart, and if anyone would know how to kill someone and