t h e   p e r f e c t

p r e y

(a jessie hunt psychological suspense—book 37)

b l a k e   p i e r c e

Blake Pierce

Blake Pierce is the USA Today bestselling author of the RILEY PAGE mystery series, which includes twenty-three books. Blake Pierce is also the author of the MACKENZIE WHITE mystery series, comprising fourteen books; of the AVERY BLACK mystery series, comprising six books; of the KERI LOCKE mystery series, comprising five books; of the MAKING OF RILEY PAIGE mystery series, comprising six books; of the KATE WISE mystery series, comprising thirteen books; of the CHLOE FINE psychological suspense mystery, comprising six books; of the JESSIE HUNT psychological suspense thriller series, comprising forty-three books (and counting); of the AU PAIR psychological suspense thriller series, comprising three books; of the ZOE PRIME mystery series, comprising six books; of the ADELE SHARP mystery series, comprising sixteen books, of the EUROPEAN VOYAGE cozy mystery series, comprising six books; of the LAURA FROST FBI suspense thriller, comprising eleven books; of the ELLA DARK FBI suspense thriller, comprising thirty-one books (and counting); of the A YEAR IN EUROPE cozy mystery series, comprising nine books, of the AVA GOLD mystery series, comprising six books; of the RACHEL GIFT mystery series, comprising twenty-three books; of the VALERIE LAW mystery series, comprising nine books; of the PAIGE KING mystery series, comprising eight books; of the MAY MOORE mystery series, comprising eleven books; of the CORA SHIELDS mystery series, comprising eight books; of the NICKY LYONS mystery series, comprising eight books, of the CAMI LARK mystery series, comprising ten books; of the AMBER YOUNG mystery series, comprising eight books; of the DAISY FORTUNE mystery series, comprising five books; of the FIONA RED mystery series, comprising thirteen books; of the FAITH BOLD mystery series, comprising twenty books (and counting); of the JULIETTE HART mystery series, comprising five books; of the MORGAN CROSS mystery series, comprising eighteen books; of the FINN WRIGHT mystery series, comprising eleven books (and counting); of the SHEILA STONE suspense thriller series, comprising fourteen books; of the RACHEL BLACKWOOD suspense thriller series, comprising eight books; of the THE GOVERNESS psychological suspense thriller series, comprising nine books (and counting); and of the new JENNA GRAVES mystery series, comprising ten books (and counting).

ONCE GONE (a Riley Paige Mystery--Book #1), BEFORE HE KILLS (A Mackenzie White Mystery—Book 1), CAUSE TO KILL (An Avery Black Mystery—Book 1), A TRACE OF DEATH (A Keri Locke Mystery—Book 1), WATCHING (The Making of Riley Paige—Book 1), NEXT DOOR (A Chloe Fine Psychological Suspense Mystery—Book 1), THE PERFECT WIFE (A Jessie Hunt Psychological Suspense Thriller—Book One), IF SHE KNEW (A Kate Wise Mystery—Book 1), MURDER (AND BAKLAVA) (A European Voyage Cozy Mystery—Book 1), LEFT TO DIE (An Adele Sharp Mystery—Book One), A MURDER IN PARIS (A Year in Europe—Book 1), CITY OF PREY (An Ava Gold Mystery—Book One), and HER LAST WISH (A Rachel Gift FBI Suspense Thriller—Book One) are each available as a free download on Kobo!

An avid reader and lifelong fan of the mystery and thriller genres, Blake loves to hear from you, so please feel free to visit www.blakepierceauthor.com to learn more and stay in touch.

Copyright © 2025 by Blake Pierce. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Jacket image Copyright Volodymyr TVERDOKHLIB used under license from Shutterstock.com.

BOOKS BY BLAKE PIERCE

JENNA GRAVES SUSPENSE THRILLER

IN HER SIGHTS (Book #1)

IN HER MIND (Book #2)

IN HER GRASP (Book #3)

IN HER SHADOW (Book #4)

IN HER PRAYERS (Book #5)

IN HER BED (Book #6)

IN HER DREAMS (Book #7)

IN HER FEARS (Book #8)

IN HER WAKE (Book #9)

IN HER BLOOD (Book #10)

THE GOVERNESS PSYCHOLOGICAL SUSPENSE

ONE LAST LIE (Book #1)

ONE LAST SMILE (Book #2)

ONE LAST BREATH (Book #3)

ONE LAST GOODBYE (Book #4)

ONE LAST SECRET (Book #5)

ONE LAST WHISPER (Book #6)

ONE LAST REGRET (Book #7)

ONE LAST NIGHT (Book #8)

ONE LAST STEP (Book #9)

RACHEL BLACKWOOD SUSPENSE THRILLER

NOT THIS WAY (Book #1)

NOT THIS TIME (Book #2)

NOT THIS CLOSE (Book #3)

NOT THIS ROAD (Book #4)

NOT THIS LATE (Book #5)

NOT THIS NIGHT (Book #6)

NOT THIS PLACE (Book #7)

NOT THIS SOON (Book #8)

SHEILA STONE SUSPENSE THRILLER

SILENT GIRL (Book #1)

SILENT TRAIL (Book #2)

SILENT NIGHT (Book #3)

SILENT HOUSE (Book #4)

SILENT SCREAM (Book #5)

SILENT PREY (Book #6)

SILENT RITUAL (Book #7)

SILENT PRAYER (Book #8)

SILENT NEIGHBOR (Book #9)

SILENT SMILE (Book #10)

SILENT ROAD (Book #11)

SILENT GRAVE (Book #12)

SILENT HOME (Book #13)

SILENT PAST (Book #14)

FINN WRIGHT MYSTERY SERIES

WHEN YOU’RE MINE (Book #1)

WHEN YOU’RE SAFE (Book #2)

WHEN YOU’RE CLOSE (Book #3)

WHEN YOU’RE SLEEPING (Book #4)

WHEN YOU’RE SANE (Book #5)

WHEN YOU’RE SILENT (Book #6)

WHEN YOU’RE GONE (Book #7)

WHEN YOU’RE ALONE (Book #8)

WHEN YOU’RE LOST (Book #9)

WHEN YOU’RE FORGOTTEN (Book #10)

WHEN YOU’RE BROKEN (Book #11)

MORGAN CROSS MYSTERY SERIES

FOR YOU (Book #1)

FOR RAGE (Book #2)

FOR LUST (Book #3)

FOR WRATH (Book #4)

FOREVER (Book #5)

FOR US (Book #6)

FOR NOW (Book #7)

FOR ONCE (Book #8)

FOR ETERNITY (Book #9)

FORLORN (Book #10)

FOR SILENCE (Book #11)

FORBIDDEN (Book #12)

FOR FEAR (Book #13)

FORSAKEN (Book #14)

FOR BLOOD (Book #15)

JULIETTE HART MYSTERY SERIES

NOTHING TO FEAR (Book #1)

NOTHING THERE (Book #2)

NOTHING WATCHING (Book #3)

NOTHING HIDING (Book #4)

NOTHING LEFT (Book #5)

FAITH BOLD MYSTERY SERIES

SO LONG (Book #1)

SO COLD (Book #2)

SO SCARED (Book #3)

SO NORMAL (Book #4)

SO FAR GONE (Book #5)

SO LOST (Book #6)

SO ALONE (Book #7)

SO FORGOTTEN (Book #8)

SO INSANE (Book #9)

SO SMITTEN (Book #10)

SO SIMPLE (Book #11)

SO BROKEN (Book #12)

SO CRUEL (Book #13)

SO HAUNTED (Book #14)

SO SILENT (Book #15)

SO BLEAK (Book #16)

SO HOLLOW (Book #17)

SO DARK (Book #18)

SO TWISTED (Book #19)

SO WICKED (Book #20)

FIONA RED MYSTERY SERIES

LET HER GO (Book #1)

LET HER BE (Book #2)

LET HER HOPE (Book #3)

LET HER WISH (Book #4)

LET HER LIVE (Book #5)

LET HER RUN (Book #6)

LET HER HIDE (Book #7)

LET HER BELIEVE (Book #8)

LET HER FORGET (Book #9)

LET HER TRY (Book #10)

LET HER PLAY (Book #11)

LET HER VANISH (Book #12)

LET HER FADE (Book #13)

DAISY FORTUNE MYSTERY SERIES

NEED YOU (Book #1)

CLAIM YOU (Book #2)

CRAVE YOU (Book #3)

CHOOSE YOU (Book #4)

CHASE YOU (Book #5)

AMBER YOUNG MYSTERY SERIES

ABSENT PITY (Book #1)

ABSENT REMORSE (Book #2)

ABSENT FEELING (Book #3)

ABSENT MERCY (Book #4)

ABSENT REASON (Book #5)

ABSENT SANITY (Book #6)

ABSENT LIFE (Book #7)

ABSENT HUMANITY (Book #8)

CAMI LARK MYSTERY SERIES

JUST ME (Book #1)

JUST OUTSIDE (Book #2)

JUST RIGHT (Book #3)

JUST FORGET (Book #4)

JUST ONCE (Book #5)

JUST HIDE (Book #6)

JUST NOW (Book #7)

JUST HOPE (Book #8)

JUST LEAVE (Book #9)

JUST TONIGHT (Book #10)

NICKY LYONS MYSTERY SERIES

ALL MINE (Book #1)

ALL HIS (Book #2)

ALL HE SEES (Book #3)

ALL ALONE (Book #4)

ALL FOR ONE (Book #5)

ALL HE TAKES (Book #6)

ALL FOR ME (Book #7)

ALL IN (Book #8)

CORA SHIELDS MYSTERY SERIES

UNDONE (Book #1)

UNWANTED (Book #2)

UNHINGED (Book #3)

UNSAID (Book #4)

UNGLUED (Book #5)

UNSTABLE (Book #6)

UNKNOWN (Book #7)

UNAWARE (Book #8)

MAY MOORE SUSPENSE THRILLER

NEVER RUN (Book #1)

NEVER TELL (Book #2)

NEVER LIVE (Book #3)

NEVER HIDE (Book #4)

NEVER FORGIVE (Book #5)

NEVER AGAIN (Book #6)

NEVER LOOK BACK (Book #7)

NEVER FORGET (Book #8)

NEVER LET GO (Book #9)

NEVER PRETEND (Book #10)

NEVER HESITATE (Book #11)

PAIGE KING MYSTERY SERIES

THE GIRL HE PINED (Book #1)

THE GIRL HE CHOSE (Book #2)

THE GIRL HE TOOK (Book #3)

THE GIRL HE WISHED (Book #4)

THE GIRL HE CROWNED (Book #5)

THE GIRL HE WATCHED (Book #6)

THE GIRL HE WANTED (Book #7)

THE GIRL HE CLAIMED (Book #8)

VALERIE LAW MYSTERY SERIES

NO MERCY (Book #1)

NO PITY (Book #2)

NO FEAR (Book #3)

NO SLEEP (Book #4)

NO QUARTER (Book #5)

NO CHANCE (Book #6)

NO REFUGE (Book #7)

NO GRACE (Book #8)

NO ESCAPE (Book #9)

RACHEL GIFT MYSTERY SERIES

HER LAST WISH (Book #1)

HER LAST CHANCE (Book #2)

HER LAST HOPE (Book #3)

HER LAST FEAR (Book #4)

HER LAST CHOICE (Book #5)

HER LAST BREATH (Book #6)

HER LAST MISTAKE (Book #7)

HER LAST DESIRE (Book #8)

HER LAST REGRET (Book #9)

HER LAST HOUR (Book #10)

HER LAST SHOT (Book #11)

HER LAST PRAYER (Book #12)

HER LAST LIE (Book #13)

HER LAST WHISPER (Book #14)

HER LAST SECRET (Book #15)

HER LAST MERCY (Book #16)

HER LAST CONFESSION (Book #17)

HER LAST FAREWELL (Book #18)

HER LAST PROMISE (Book #19)

HER LAST ESCAPE (Book #20)

HER LAST WARNING (Book #21)

HER LAST MOMENT (Book #22)

HER LAST STAND (Book #23)

AVA GOLD MYSTERY SERIES

CITY OF PREY (Book #1)

CITY OF FEAR (Book #2)

CITY OF BONES (Book #3)

CITY OF GHOSTS (Book #4)

CITY OF DEATH (Book #5)

CITY OF VICE (Book #6)

A YEAR IN EUROPE

A MURDER IN PARIS (Book #1)

DEATH IN FLORENCE (Book #2)

VENGEANCE IN VIENNA (Book #3)

A FATALITY IN SPAIN (Book #4)

ELLA DARK FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER

GIRL, ALONE (Book #1)

GIRL, TAKEN (Book #2)

GIRL, HUNTED (Book #3)

GIRL, SILENCED (Book #4)

GIRL, VANISHED (Book 5)

GIRL ERASED (Book #6)

GIRL, FORSAKEN (Book #7)

GIRL, TRAPPED (Book #8)

GIRL, EXPENDABLE (Book #9)

GIRL, ESCAPED (Book #10)

GIRL, HIS (Book #11)

GIRL, LURED (Book #12)

GIRL, MISSING (Book #13)

GIRL, UNKNOWN (Book #14)

GIRL, DECEIVED (Book #15)

GIRL, FORLORN (Book #16)

GIRL, REMADE (Book #17)

GIRL, BETRAYED (Book #18)

GIRL, BOUND (Book #19)

GIRL, REFORMED (Book #20)

GIRL, REBORN (Book #21)

GIRL, HAUNTED (Book #22)

GIRL, UNSEEN (Book #23)

GIRL, SOUGHT (Book #24)

GIRL, ACCUSED (Book #25)

GIRL, FRACTURED (Book #26)

GIRL, EMPTY (Book #27)

GIRL, UNMASKED (Book #28)

GIRL, UNDONE (Book #29)

GIRL, ENSNARED (Book #30)

GIRL, RESURRECTED (Book #31)

LAURA FROST FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER

ALREADY GONE (Book #1)

ALREADY SEEN (Book #2)

ALREADY TRAPPED (Book #3)

ALREADY MISSING (Book #4)

ALREADY DEAD (Book #5)

ALREADY TAKEN (Book #6)

ALREADY CHOSEN (Book #7)

ALREADY LOST (Book #8)

ALREADY HIS (Book #9)

ALREADY LURED (Book #10)

ALREADY COLD (Book #11)

EUROPEAN VOYAGE COZY MYSTERY SERIES

MURDER (AND BAKLAVA) (Book #1)

DEATH (AND APPLE STRUDEL) (Book #2)

CRIME (AND LAGER) (Book #3)

MISFORTUNE (AND GOUDA) (Book #4)

CALAMITY (AND A DANISH) (Book #5)

MAYHEM (AND HERRING) (Book #6)

ADELE SHARP MYSTERY SERIES

LEFT TO DIE (Book #1)

LEFT TO RUN (Book #2)

LEFT TO HIDE (Book #3)

LEFT TO KILL (Book #4)

LEFT TO MURDER (Book #5)

LEFT TO ENVY (Book #6)

LEFT TO LAPSE (Book #7)

LEFT TO VANISH (Book #8)

LEFT TO HUNT (Book #9)

LEFT TO FEAR (Book #10)

LEFT TO PREY (Book #11)

LEFT TO LURE (Book #12)

LEFT TO CRAVE (Book #13)

LEFT TO LOATHE (Book #14)

LEFT TO HARM (Book #15)

LEFT TO RUIN (Book #16)

THE AU PAIR SERIES

ALMOST GONE (Book#1)

ALMOST LOST (Book #2)

ALMOST DEAD (Book #3)

ZOE PRIME MYSTERY SERIES

FACE OF DEATH (Book#1)

FACE OF MURDER (Book #2)

FACE OF FEAR (Book #3)

FACE OF MADNESS (Book #4)

FACE OF FURY (Book #5)

FACE OF DARKNESS (Book #6)

A JESSIE HUNT PSYCHOLOGICAL SUSPENSE SERIES

THE PERFECT WIFE (Book #1)

THE PERFECT BLOCK (Book #2)

THE PERFECT HOUSE (Book #3)

THE PERFECT SMILE (Book #4)

THE PERFECT LIE (Book #5)

THE PERFECT LOOK (Book #6)

THE PERFECT AFFAIR (Book #7)

THE PERFECT ALIBI (Book #8)

THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR (Book #9)

THE PERFECT DISGUISE (Book #10)

THE PERFECT SECRET (Book #11)

THE PERFECT FAÇADE (Book #12)

THE PERFECT IMPRESSION (Book #13)

THE PERFECT DECEIT (Book #14)

THE PERFECT MISTRESS (Book #15)

THE PERFECT IMAGE (Book #16)

THE PERFECT VEIL (Book #17)

THE PERFECT INDISCRETION (Book #18)

THE PERFECT RUMOR (Book #19)

THE PERFECT COUPLE (Book #20)

THE PERFECT MURDER (Book #21)

THE PERFECT HUSBAND (Book #22)

THE PERFECT SCANDAL (Book #23)

THE PERFECT MASK (Book #24)

THE PERFECT RUSE (Book #25)

THE PERFECT VENEER (Book #26)

THE PERFECT PEOPLE (Book #27)

THE PERFECT WITNESS (Book #28)

THE PERFECT APPEARANCE (Book #29)

THE PERFECT TRAP (Book #30)

THE PERFECT EXPRESSION (Book #31)

THE PERFECT ACCOMPLICE (Book #32)

THE PERFECT SHOW (Book #33)

THE PERFECT POISE (Book #34)

THE PERFECT CROWD (Book #35)

THE PERFECT CRIME (Book #36)

THE PERFECT PREY (Book #37)

THE PERFECT BETRAYAL (Book #38)

THE PERFECT ILLUSION (Book #39)

THE PERFECT DECEPTION (Book #40)

THE PERFECT REVENGE (Book #41)

THE PERFECT OBSESSION (Book #42)

THE PERFECT STRANGER (Book #43)

CHLOE FINE PSYCHOLOGICAL SUSPENSE SERIES

NEXT DOOR (Book #1)

A NEIGHBOR’S LIE (Book #2)

CUL DE SAC (Book #3)

SILENT NEIGHBOR (Book #4)

HOMECOMING (Book #5)

TINTED WINDOWS (Book #6)

KATE WISE MYSTERY SERIES

IF SHE KNEW (Book #1)

IF SHE SAW (Book #2)

IF SHE RAN (Book #3)

IF SHE HID (Book #4)

IF SHE FLED (Book #5)

IF SHE FEARED (Book #6)

IF SHE HEARD (Book #7)

IF SHE LIED (Book #8)

IF SHE LISTENED (Book #9)

IF SHE STAYED (Book #10)

IF SHE REMEMBERED (Book #11)

IF SHE DARED (Book #12)

IF SHE BELIEVED (Book #13)

THE MAKING OF RILEY PAIGE SERIES

WATCHING (Book #1)

WAITING (Book #2)

LURING (Book #3)

TAKING (Book #4)

STALKING (Book #5)

KILLING (Book #6)

RILEY PAIGE MYSTERY SERIES

ONCE GONE (Book #1)

ONCE TAKEN (Book #2)

ONCE CRAVED (Book #3)

ONCE LURED (Book #4)

ONCE HUNTED (Book #5)

ONCE PINED (Book #6)

ONCE FORSAKEN (Book #7)

ONCE COLD (Book #8)

ONCE STALKED (Book #9)

ONCE LOST (Book #10)

ONCE BURIED (Book #11)

ONCE BOUND (Book #12)

ONCE TRAPPED (Book #13)

ONCE DORMANT (Book #14)

ONCE SHUNNED (Book #15)

ONCE MISSED (Book #16)

ONCE CHOSEN (Book #17)

ONCE SILENCED (Book #18)

ONCE MARKED (Book #19)

ONCE BROKEN (Book #20)

ONCE FEARED (Book #21)

ONCE FORGOTTEN (Book #22)

ONCE VANISHED (Book #23)

MACKENZIE WHITE MYSTERY SERIES

BEFORE HE KILLS (Book #1)

BEFORE HE SEES (Book #2)

BEFORE HE COVETS (Book #3)

BEFORE HE TAKES (Book #4)

BEFORE HE NEEDS (Book #5)

BEFORE HE FEELS (Book #6)

BEFORE HE SINS (Book #7)

BEFORE HE HUNTS (Book #8)

BEFORE HE PREYS (Book #9)

BEFORE HE LONGS (Book #10)

BEFORE HE LAPSES (Book #11)

BEFORE HE ENVIES (Book #12)

BEFORE HE STALKS (Book #13)

BEFORE HE HARMS (Book #14)

AVERY BLACK MYSTERY SERIES

CAUSE TO KILL (Book #1)

CAUSE TO RUN (Book #2)

CAUSE TO HIDE (Book #3)

CAUSE TO FEAR (Book #4)

CAUSE TO SAVE (Book #5)

CAUSE TO DREAD (Book #6)

KERI LOCKE MYSTERY SERIES

A TRACE OF DEATH (Book #1)

A TRACE OF MURDER (Book #2)

A TRACE OF VICE (Book #3)

A TRACE OF CRIME (Book #4)

A TRACE OF HOPE (Book #5)

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

Cynthia Hartley settled in under the covers, watching her husband with a sly smile.

As Richard walked into the closet to put away the two ornate masquerade ball masks in their special hiding place, she readjusted herself in her negligee. The party had been everything she’d hoped for, but she intended to keep the festivities going a little longer.

She was exhausted and knew Richard was too, but thought there might be just enough time for a little fun before they both sank into a deep slumber. He returned moments later and turned off the light. She glanced at the clock on her bedside table. It was 11:42 p.m. She calculated that if she used her time effectively, she could give him a late-night surprise and still be asleep before midnight.

***

Cynthia woke with a start. She groggily looked over at the clock. It read 1:14 a.m. She was confused. Had she heard something that woke her up, or was the sound only in her dream? Too tired to care, she settled her head back into her pillow. She was just drifting off when she thought she saw movement in the corner of the room behind the chaise lounge chair.

She blinked several times, trying to determine if what she saw was real or just a trick of the shadows. But then the shadow moved, and she knew this was not just her imagination. She reached out for Richard as the beginning of a scream started to escape her mouth. But before she could make a sound, the shadow was on her.

CHAPTER ONE

Jessie Hunt tried to hide her concern.

It had been just over two weeks since her husband and investigative partner, Detective Ryan Hernandez, was poisoned by a disturbed killer. She’d managed to catch the man and get Ryan help in time to save him, but he still hadn’t returned to full strength.

He had hoped to return to work tomorrow—Monday—but it was clear that he’d need at least a little longer. As she sat beside him on their living room couch, she stroked the back of his neck. He was drifting in and out of sleep, which was fine. It was a lazy Sunday morning, and he could use all the rest he could get.

In the sixteen days since he'd nearly died, his psychological state seemed stable despite everything he'd been through, both physically and emotionally. It was possible that under his "raring to go" mentality, there might be a flicker of depression at how long the journey back was. But if it was there, she had yet to see it.

And he still had the warm brown eyes and sweet smile, highlighted by impressive dimples. Having said that, he’d lost over ten pounds and lots of strength and stamina. He would need a little time to get back to his normal, well-muscled, two-hundred-pound, six-foot-tall body.

Jessie had taken personal time of her own to care for him. She would be starting back at work tomorrow, where she was an LAPD profiler. When Ryan eventually got the all-clear to return, he’d be on desk duty for a while, no matter how much he hated the idea.

In the kitchen, Jessie’s younger sister, Hannah Dorsey, was making them all breakfast. Hannah was in her freshman year at UC Irvine, about an hour away from them, but she’d come back to the house on each of the last two weekends to help care for Ryan until he felt strong enough to be on his own. It helped that she was a great cook.

Jessie glanced over her shoulder to see how everything was going. Hannah was diligently focused on the task at hand, moving among different pans and slicing and dicing a variety of items on the butcher block. Jessie knew that a frittata was on the menu, though she wasn't sure of the ingredients. It didn't matter. If Hannah was making it, the dish would be good.

It was fun to watch her sister in her element. The nineteen-year-old was the picture of organized freneticism, with her ponytailed blonde hair bobbing furiously as she moved about. Her green eyes, the same shade as Jessie’s, flashed with excitement as she darted from one station to another.

Jessie felt a little guilty that she couldn’t help, but she worried that getting up might wake Ryan, and that wasn’t a risk she was willing to take. So she sat next to him, quietly running her fingers along his neck, and allowed her mind to drift.

There had been a lot of time for that lately. Everything had been on hold for the last two weeks, so she'd been trapped with her own thoughts more than she would have liked. Despite their downtime together, she and Ryan had pointedly avoided discussing the potential of adopting a child, an idea they’d been circling for a few months now.

Jessie preferred that route to parenthood, as opposed to putting her already battered body through a pregnancy. In fact, during her confrontation with the killer who’d poisoned Ryan, she suffered several new injuries, including to her lower back, her ribs, her neck and trachea and her face, which had met the backside of a shovel. She was feeling better now, but for a week there, she’d really been dragging.

In the past, Ryan had expressed a desire to have children of their own, though he’d told her he was willing to go the adoption route instead. Regardless of where they each stood, it was just too fraught a topic to address under the current circumstances.

Jessie allowed herself a silent, bitter little chuckle at her own use of the euphemism “circumstances.” That was a polite term for the other major issue she was dealing with. In addition to both her and Ryan’s physical recoveries and their potential future as parents, there was the little matter of her mental health.

In recent months, she’d been dealing with a return to a psychological place she thought she’d moved beyond. She was 31 years old now, but back when she was younger, as a teen and in college, she’d often felt an intense desire to mete out punishment to those she considered worthy of it. The problem was that she didn’t just want to make them pay by arresting them or getting them convicted. She wanted to make them suffer physically too. Sometimes the desire was so strong that she could picture herself committing the violent act that would put the perpetrator in their place, preferably forever.

It had taken years of therapy with the then-and-still-now psychiatrist, Dr. Janice Lemmon, to understand the roots of this bloodlust. Part of the explanation was straightforward. Her birth father, whom she'd only known until she was six years old, was named Xander Thurman. But he was better known by his nickname, the Ozarks Executioner. That was because her father had been a prolific serial killer.

It was clear to Jessie that some part of his sickness had infected her, though she’d never felt the urge to kill anyone for the thrill of it, at least not yet. With Dr. Lemmon’s help, she’d learned to channel those feelings into a pursuit of justice. She managed to satisfy her jones for making bad guys pay by understanding them, catching them, and putting them behind bars.

It was why she’d studied Forensic Psychology and eventually became a criminal profiler. She wasn’t a cop. She was a consultant who helped the cops catch killers. For a decade now, she managed to keep a lid on the darker side of those urges, even after Hannah came into her life.

Jessie had only discovered that she had a half-sister two years ago, when they both learned that the man who had killed Hannah's adoptive parents was the serial killer father they shared. Jessie took in the sister she'd never known existed, becoming her guardian. It was only then that she found out that Hannah shared her bloodthirsty need to deliver retribution to those she considered wrongdoers.

In Hannah’s case, that desire had gone a step further, when she’d actually killed a man. Yes, he was a serial killer as well, one who’d been threatening Jessie, Hannah, and Ryan. But when she shot him, he was in handcuffs, no longer a threat.

That act hadn't chastened Hannah. In fact it had exacerbated the compulsion to be an avenging angel. Ultimately, Hannah had asked for help from Jessie and Dr. Lemmon. She got it in the form of self-admission to a psychiatric rehabilitation center, where she spent months learning how to control and redirect her urges.

It seemed to have worked, as Hannah was doing incredibly well now. She was getting great grades in college and had even become a bit of an amateur sleuth herself, helping out other students at school with problems they didn’t want to take to the campus police.

So if Hannah had bounced back from the dark place she was in, why was Jessie having so much trouble? It was an issue that she and Dr. Lemmon had addressed in their last session together.

“Why can’t I get past this?” she’d asked as their session drew to a close. “It can’t just be genetics that’s causing this.”

“Have you ever considered,” Dr. Lemmon suggested that day in her office, “that as bad as what Hannah has been through, it’s nothing compared to the trauma you’ve experienced?”

“What do you mean?” Jessie asked.

The tiny but accomplished woman with thick glasses and tight, little gray ringlets of hair, now 70, studied her impassively for a moment before replying.

“Hannah’s birth mother was killed when she was a baby,” she said. “She doesn’t even remember her. And after her adoptive parents were murdered by Thurman, you took her in and gave her not just a safe place to live, but a new connection to family. And even then, she struggled.”

“I know all this,” Jessie had told her impatiently. “I was there, remember?”

“Yes, you were there for her, but who was there for you?” Lemmon asked. “When you were six, you watched your father murder your mother in an isolated cabin in the Ozark Mountains. Then he left you there—tied up next to her dead body—to freeze to death. If not for some hunters who happened upon you, you wouldn’t be here. Admittedly, you were adopted by a wonderful couple. But years later, Thurman found and killed them too, to spite you. You lived with that undeserved guilt ever since. Hell, Jessie, your own sociopathic ex-husband tried to murder you. And when he got out of prison on a technicality, he murdered your profiling mentor and my friend, Garland Moses, to get back at you, and then he nearly killed your new husband after that.”

“What’s your point?”

“My point,” Dr. Lemmon said, undeterred, “is that you’ve been through a lot in the last few years. I haven’t even gotten to the obsessed woman who kidnapped you and tried to make you her love slave in an Arizona cave. Or to Mark Haddonfield, the college student currently on trial because he resented that you didn’t make him your profiling protégé and killed multiple people you’d saved before coming after you too.”

“I’m familiar with his body of work,” Jessie retorted snarkily.

“And then there was the emergency brain surgery,” Lemmon added, undeterred. “That was just last fall. Between the loss of so many loved ones and the constant stress you’ve faced in the last couple of years, it’s no wonder that your brain is starting to short-circuit a little.”

“So what do we do about that?” Jessie asked. “Because two weeks ago, I came within a half-second of slamming the pointy end of a rolling pin through an incapacitated guy’s mouth into his spine. Only Ryan begging me to stop brought me to my senses. I’m worried that even that won’t do the trick next time.”

“You could always take your sister’s route to recovery,” Lemmon said, “and check yourself into a facility to work through your issues.”

“Hannah could do that because she was in high school at the time,” Jessie objected. “She was still able to take classes while she did all that intense therapy. And thanks to you, she was largely anonymous at the place. That’s not an option for me.”

“Why not?”

“First of all, I can’t take the time off. I don’t have two months to spare to go out to Malibu to work through my psychic pain in group therapy or even one-on-one. Plus there’s the fact that, because of all the high profile cases I’ve handled lately, I’m a minor celebrity. There’s a very real chance that someone might recognize me, and then that would get blasted all over the media. That definitely wouldn’t help my mental health. Lastly, I worry that I could lose my job. If the LAPD discovers that I’m taking time off to try to address an unquenchable bloodlust that has nearly resulted in the deaths of multiple suspects, they might have some concerns.”

“Listen,” Lemmon said calmly, “those are all fair points. But ultimately, they’re not convincing to me. First of all, you don’t have to give the department a specific reason to take some leave. Generalized trauma based on the list of terribles we've been discussing is more than enough. No one in the department would dispute that you've earned the time. And you can always go to a facility out of the area. It doesn't have to be in California or even the U.S. You're not that famous, Jessie Hunt.”

“That’s hurtful,” Jessie replied, managing to find a scrap of her sense of humor despite the situation.

“But the larger issue,” Lemmon said, pressing ahead, “is that there are lots of reasons this anger has built up. Frankly, I’m surprised it hasn’t reared its head earlier. But no amount of justification for these urges will help you if you kill someone who isn’t a direct threat to you. If you stab a cuffed suspect or jam a rolling pin through the spine of a near-unconscious killer, that’s murder, and you’ll be the one put on trial. Once that happens, you better believe that all these close calls will be brought up again in a courtroom. You’ve already got a history here. Any decent prosecutor will convict you without breaking a sweat.”

“So what do you propose then?” Jessie asked.

Lemmon sighed.

“Short of checking yourself in somewhere like Hannah did,” she said with a scowl, “we’re going to have to find foolproof tools to help you effectively cope with these feelings, before it’s too late.”

“That sounds good,” Jessie said, “so why are you frowning?”

“Because, my dearest Jessie, nothing’s foolproof.”

Those words were still rattling around in Jessie’s head as she sat on the couch beside her napping husband when her cell phone rang. She looked over and saw that the call was from Gaylene Parker, the captain at downtown L.A.’s Central Station, where Jessie’s unit was headquartered. Parker rarely called on an off day, especially when Jessie was still on leave. It had to be important.

“What’s up, Captain?” she asked quietly so as not to wake Ryan.

“Morning, Hunt,” Parker said in her standard, no-frills tone, “I know you don’t officially start back up at work until tomorrow, but I was hoping you might be able to come in a day early.”

“There’s no one else from HSS that can help you out?” Jessie asked.

HSS was Homicide Special Section, a unit that specialized in cases with high profiles or intense media scrutiny—typically involving multiple victims or serial killers. While Parker was nominally in charge of HSS, it was really Ryan’s baby. He led the unit, which was comprised of five detectives, including himself, a two-person research team, and Jessie, who was the unit’s dedicated profiler.

“We’re a little shorthanded,” Parker conceded. “Detectives Bray and Goodwin are working a different case, and I just sent Nettles home after he finally finished the paperwork on his. He’s been up for almost 48 straight hours, and I don’t think he’d be much good to anyone right now. That leaves Valentine, but even though she’s willing, I don’t want her to have to work this one alone.”

“Why not?” Jessie asked.

“I always prefer my people to pair up,” Parker said, “and this case in particular could use an extra set of eyes, preferably from a profiler.”

“What makes it so special?” Jessie asked.

“I don’t know much yet. You can get the details from the officer in charge at the scene. But the short version is that a couple was found dead in their bed. They were posed in some kind of unusual position, and they were wearing masquerade ball masks.”

“Jeez,” Jessie muttered under her breath.

“Are you in?”

Jessie glanced over at Ryan, who was snoring softly, then at Hannah, who had walked over. Her sister gave her a knowing nod that silently said, “go ahead, I’ll watch him.” Jessie mouthed the words “thank you” to her.

“I guess so,” she told the captain.

“Good,” Parker said, “I’m relieved to hear it.”

“Relieved?” Jessie said.

“That’s right,” Parker said. “I didn’t want to be presumptuous, but I already sent Valentine to pick you up. She’ll be at your house in ten minutes.”

CHAPTER TWO

Jessie was surprised that she had butterflies.

She had been to so many crime scenes that simply arriving at a new one no longer made her nervous. But as Detective Susannah Valentine pulled up at the Hancock Park mansion of Richard and Cynthia Hartley just before 8 a.m., she felt her stomach tighten slightly.

Maybe it was that she hadn't handled a case in a couple of weeks, not since she'd almost stuffed a rolling pin down the esophagus of the man who poisoned Ryan. Or maybe it was because she hadn't been all that physically active as she recovered from the injuries she sustained in that confrontation. She hadn't been able to do her standard five-mile morning runs, and she definitely felt a little less spry than usual.

It could also be that while she and Susannah had worked many cases together, they hadn't done so in a few months. Jessie was usually paired up with Ryan, and they had a near-telepathic connection when interacting with witnesses and suspects. She and Susannah, after dealing with some early interpersonal bumpiness, were friends, but they hadn't reached that point yet.

And there was the obvious reason for her bout of nerves: the constant fear that at any moment, her desire to exact violent retribution against perceived wrongdoers might destroy both their lives and her own. She tried not to think about that.

As Jessie got out of the car and took in the giant house that was now a crime scene, she readjusted her clothing. Even though it was mid-April, there was still a chill in the morning air, and she’d decided to wear a light coat over her thin gray sweater. She also had on comfortable slacks and shoes that looked dressy but were actually sneakers, perfect if they had to chase after anyone.

She gave herself a once-over in the car window to make sure she was presentable. Like her sister this morning, she’d put her brown hair in a ponytail. Her green eyes, after a good night’s sleep, were clear and bright. She stood up tall to her full five foot ten height and assessed herself as credibly professional-looking.

The two women approached the house together, walking toward the path that ran through the expansive front yard to the front door. The property was already taped off and there were multiple vehicles in front, including several squad cars, a crime scene unit truck, and the medical examiner’s van.

A young officer with tightly curled brown hair and an anxious manner stood guard near the sidewalk to make sure no lookie-loos got too curious. Jessie suspected that he hadn’t been on this kind of duty too often before.

“Go easy on the kid,” she whispered to Susannah as they got closer. “He looks a little jumpy.”

“What are you talking about?” Susannah said with a sly smile, “don’t I always take it easy on folks?”

“Just don’t scare him any more than necessary,” Jessie pleaded with a knowing smirk. Detective Susannah Valentine was a lot of things, but easygoing wasn’t one of them and scary sometimes was.

Part of that might have been due to sheer physical presence. Susannah was, by all accounts, a bombshell. Almost impossibly gorgeous, she had hazel eyes, deeply tanned skin and long, black hair to go along with a curvy figure that suggested swimsuit model more than cop. This morning, she was wearing a form-fitting magenta top and what looked to Jessie to be painfully tight pants. She didn’t mention them.

Until recently, Susannah hadn’t suffered fools who commented on her appearance, especially leering men types. She was known to crush crass admirers with a withering takedown. She’d mellowed slightly in recent months, since she started dating an older, impossibly chill surfer and police sergeant from Manhattan Beach.

But when it came to work, she still brought the same intensity as always. Her brash, sometimes abrasive personality, along with her “bull in a china shop” investigative passion hadn’t been sanded down by her happier personal life lately. She was still a Doberman of a detective, which Jessie was generally glad for.

It wasn’t always that way. It had taken Jessie a while to warm to the woman. But after they resolved their issues, Jessie found that she actually liked Susannah, in spite of—or maybe even because of—her devil-may-care attitude. Jessie knew that by comparison, she was pretty buttoned-down, and she suspected that she secretly enjoyed living vicariously through Susannah, who seemed unfamiliar with the word “restraint.”

“May I see your credentials please?” the curly-haired officer asked when they got to the beginning of the path.

Jessie shot Susannah a grin. The kid was polite, and he didn’t assume that just because of how Susannah was dressed, she was simply a curious onlooker rather than a cop. She couldn’t crush him for that, nor could she nail him for staring at her lasciviously. His eyes had remained respectfully above her shoulders.

“We’re with Homicide Special Section,” Susannah said, flashing her badge and ID. “They’re expecting us.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the officer said, lifting the tape to make it easier for them to duck under it.

As they started down the path, Susannah looked over at Jessie expectantly.

“See,” she said, “I can take it easy on people. You judge me too harshly!”

“I think that kid had been warned not to break eye contact with you,” Jessie teased, “probably by another officer whose head got bitten off by you in the past and has yet to be re-attached.”

“Now you’re just being mean,” Susannah said, pretending to pout.

Jessie wanted to come back at her again, but as they got closer to the mansion where she knew two dead people were waiting inside, she felt a twinge of guilt. Instead, she focused on the home.

Even for the standards of the tony Hancock Park neighborhood, this place was impressive. It took up almost a third of the block it was on. With its Tudor styling and elaborate hedge designs, it looked like it would be a better fit in the English countryside than the heart of L.A.

Strangely, despite how over-the-top it was, the home had surprisingly little in the way of obvious security. Unlike a lot of homes in the area, it wasn’t gated. One could walk straight up to the front door as they were doing now. Jessie noticed that the side fences were unusually low too. An average-sized person in decent shape could likely scale them without much trouble. She looked around for security cameras. There was a Ring camera near the front door, but nothing else that was immediately visible.

A second officer stood at the door. He was also young, but he didn’t have the same nervous demeanor as his compatriot by the street. Nor did he have the other guy’s tact, as he seemed unable to tear his eyes away from Susannah’s chest as she approached. Jessie wasn’t in the mood for a confrontation, so she short-circuited any.

“Morning, officer,” she said, holding up her ID, “we’re here from HSS. I’m Jessie Hunt. This is Detective Valentine. Who’s the officer in charge?”

The young cop managed to turn his focus to Jessie’s ID, which likely saved him from a tongue-lashing.

“That would be Sergeant Alonzo,” he said. “Go down the main hallway for a while until you get to the last bedroom on the right. That’s where everyone is.”

Jessie nodded and took the lead. Susannah followed, clearly using all of her willpower not to turn around and bust the officer, who was almost definitely sneaking a peek at her backside.

“I thought you showed impressive control there,” Jessie muttered to her as they started down the hallway. “You’ve come a long way, baby!”

“Don’t call me baby,” Susannah said, trying not to smile.

The trip along the hallway, which seemed to go on forever, took longer than expected. They passed ten open doors, five on each side. Jessie counted a living room, a dining room, a bar, a library, and a bathroom on the left, and five bedrooms on the right before they reached the one they’d been directed to.

Jessie stepped inside to find the primary bedroom crowded. The room itself was massive, easily the size of three normal bedrooms. There were two enormous dressers, a reading nook with a small library’s worth of books, and a chaise lounge chair in the corner. She specifically avoided looking at the bed, where she could see two bodies out of the corner of her eye. She wanted to get a sense of the space before focusing on the victims.

She counted four crime scene technicians, the medical examiner and an assistant, as well as four uniformed officers. One of them, a short woman with strawberry blonde hair tied back in a bun, saw them and walked over. Jessie had never met her before.

“You must be the folks from HSS,” she said, extending her hand. “I’m Sergeant Justine Alonzo. Thanks for coming.”

“Detective Valentine,” Susannah said, shaking her hand, “This is Jessie Hunt. Thanks for reaching out. Was it you that thought this should be an HSS case?”

“I’d like to take credit,” Alonzo said, “but the first officers on the scene knew this was a weird one and immediately suggested contacting you guys. You’ll see why when you look at the bodies.”

“Before we do that,” Jessie said, “what can you tell us about the couple? Who are they? How were they found?”

“It looks like Richard Hartley was a big-time real estate investor," Sergeant Alonzo said. "Apparently, he was mostly retired now, even though he was only 44. His wife, Cynthia, was some kind of socialite. She was 43. No kids. Two dogs. We know most of the details we have so far from the dog walker, who was a family friend. Her name is Olivia Townsend. That’s who found them.”

“Is she here now?” Jessie asked.

“No,” Alonzo answered. “One of our officers helped her take the dogs to doggy daycare so that they’d be out of the way. But we got a statement from her before they left, along with her contact information. I’m sure you’ll want to talk to her in more detail later. She could probably use a little time to regroup. She was pretty broken up.”

“We’ll definitely want to speak with her,” Susannah said. “So how did she find them?”

“She said that she came by to do the morning walk with the dogs,” Alonzo said. “Apparently the Hartleys normally do that walk themselves but told her they’d be out late last night and wanted to sleep in. So she let herself in with the key they gave her.”

“If they were supposedly sleeping in, how did Townsend even know anything was wrong?” Jessie asked.

“Because the dogs hadn’t been let out yet,” Alonzo said. “The Hartleys keep the dogs in the mud room at night because they’re noisy sleepers—growling and whining in their dreams. They typically let them outside for a bathroom break first thing in the morning, which holds them off until they’re fed and walked a little later. But when Townsend arrived, the mud room door was closed. She opened it to find that both dogs had had accidents. That had her concerned because she said the Hartleys would never forget to let the dogs out.”

“Never?” Susannah pressed.

“Not according to her,” Alonzo assured her. “She said they viewed their pets as their children. Even if they were planning to sleep late, they’d set alarms to let them go out. So she called out to them from down the hall. When they didn’t answer, she went down there. The bedroom door was open, and she found them as they are now.”

Susannah turned to Jessie.

“You want to take a look at the bodies now?” she asked, well aware of her partner’s preference to save that for last. Jessie nodded. Sergeant Alonzo led them over. The crime scene technicians collectively stepped out of the way all at once, like the parting of the Red Sea.

What Jessie saw when they moved was even more disturbing than usual. Both people were lying on their backs on the enormous bed. They had been stripped naked. There were no obvious signs of trauma on either of them. Cynthia’s head rested on a pillow. Her arms were spread out at her sides, perpendicular to her body. Her legs had been spread into a “V”.

Richard’s head was at the foot of the bed. He was posed the same way. The bottoms of his feet were pressed against his wife’s so that their legs formed a diamond shape. All of that was odd enough, but the strangeness was enhanced exponentially by the fact that, as Captain Parker had mentioned to Jessie on the phone earlier, they were both wearing elaborate masquerade ball masks.

Cynthia's was variations of pink and purple with glitter and streamers hanging off it. It took Jessie a moment to realize that the glitter was actually comprised of dozens of tiny diamonds. She leaned in closer and noted that the streamers appeared to be satin. She guessed that the mask was worth thousands of dollars. Cynthia's blonde hair was spread out on the pillow under her, and her eyes, hazel and glassy, were visible through the holes in the mask.

 Richard's mask was equally elaborate, though less jewelry-festooned. There was one ruby at the tip of the mask's nose. It appeared that the facial features had been carved out of ivory. His closely-cropped dark hair was hidden behind the mask, and his eyes—deep brown—were also open. Jessie wondered if the killer had forcibly opened both victims’ eyes after killing them.

“Do we think the masks were on when they died or put there afterward?” she asked, looking over at the medical examiner, who she knew well.

Kelvin Soto, a smallish Latino man in his forties with brown hair parted neatly to the side, stepped forward. His work manner was as meticulous as his personal grooming, which she appreciated. She was also thankful that he’d held back until then, allowing them to get a sense of the scene on their own.

“Obviously everything I say at this point is preliminary,” he warned, “but I’m assuming that they were placed there after death.”

“Why do you say that?” Susannah asked.

"Primarily because, based on our visual examination so far, we can't find the cause of death. There's no obvious damage to either body, and there's no blood, which makes me think the answer will be under those masks that we have yet to remove. And if whatever killed them was done above the neck, it was probably done without the masks on. Also, you might notice that for both victims, the masks are slightly off-kilter. The most logical explanation for that is that something underneath is causing it. My money would be on hematomas pressing against the side of the masks, possibly caused by blows to the forehead. Once CSU has had a chance to review the masks fully, we'll remove them and find out for sure."

“Okay,” Jessie said, turning to Sergeant Alonzo,” I assume photos of the scene have already been taken?”

“They have.”

“I’d like to get those to our research people ASAP,” she replied. “I’m wondering if the way that they’re posed is significant in some way.”

“Significant how?” Alonzo asked.

“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “It could be nothing, but if this is designed to recreate a famous photo or work of art, our people will figure it out.”

She knew that HSS’s head of research, Jamil Winslow, and his sole staffer, Beth Ryerson, were probably waiting anxiously in their office, itching to dig into the case. This project would make them happy.

"In the meantime," Susannah said, "we'll need access to their phones and any other available tech—desktops, laptops, tablets, smartwatches, etc. We're going to have to check on all their friends and co-workers, or I guess since he was retired, former co-workers. It's time to dive into who would want to kill the Hartleys and why they’d do it like this.”

"We'll gather everything and have it brought directly to Central Station," Sergeant Alonzo promised.

“Thanks,” Jessie said. “And please have your officer bring Olivia Townsend to the station as soon as they drop off the dogs.”

She’d been impressed with how Alonzo handled the scene in most regards, but there was one exception. She would have preferred that an officer would have removed the dogs on their own and that Olivia Townsend have been kept here.

Now, they would have no choice but to talk to Townsend at the station. Had it been Jessie's decision, she would have opted to interview her here, when the situation and the woman's emotions were more raw. By the time she got to the station, Townsend would have had time to regroup, which was good for her well-being, but bad for a profiler who was trying to ascertain the witness’s credibility.

Still, there was no point in crying over spilled milk at this point. If Jessie was any good at her job, she should still be able to dig into Olivia Townsend’s psyche.

That was Jessie's thing, except, of course, when it came to herself.

CHAPTER THREE

Jessie regretted her earlier patience.

It was taking longer than expected to get Olivia Townsend to Central Station. Apparently, she'd had a meltdown at the doggy daycare center, and the EMTs were called. The officer with her took her to the hospital as a precaution. Jessie was mildly suspicious about the meltdown, and considered meeting Townsend there, but ultimately chose not to.

She was told the woman would be on her way here soon and requested that she be taken to an interrogation room upon her arrival. Then, she turned her attention to the task in front of them. They had a lot to go over in the interim.

In the two hours that they waited for the dog walker’s arrival, they focused on what they could accomplish. Rather than work in the crowded bullpen area of the station, where detectives for every other unit had desks, they convened in HSS’s small, dedicated research department, where Jamil and Beth were headquartered.

While the researchers sat at their desk, both of which were littered with monitors, Jessie and Susannah sat on the ratty loveseat pressed against the far wall, flipping through printouts on all of the Hartley’s regular contacts, which Jamil had prepared for them before they arrived at the station. That was nothing unusual for him.

Jamil Winslow was a short, skinny twenty-five-year-old with thick glasses and no sense of fashion style. He was also a genius, capable of filtering through massive databases, sorting surveillance video into manageable buckets, or making complex financial records understandable, all seemingly in the blink of an eye. His social skills didn’t always match his intellectual ones, which is where his sole employee came in.

Beth hadn’t prepared packets for them, but she did have hot coffees waiting. In that way, she was Jamil’s opposite. He was all about the stats, less about the people. Beth was more intuitive, able to piece together how personalities fit into those stats. It’s how she sensed that Jessie and Susannah could use caffeine hits when they arrived.

But the young woman wasn’t just touchy-feely. While not a human supercomputer like him, she had an incredibly sharp mind, which people tended to underestimate because she was an attractive, six-foot-plus former college volleyball star.

Right now they were both staring hard at their screens, evaluating the data they already had. Jamil had used a computer program that he’d developed to quickly cull through all of the Hartley’s contacts and come up with the ones that they interacted with the most. That was the list Jamil had printed out.

While Jessie and Susannah reviewed it, he was poring over every name, even ones the couple had only had tangential contact with, to search for folks with criminal records. He’d also set a separate system to create a digital map of the couple’s recent movements, using the GPS data from their phones and vehicles. It would be complete in a few hours.

In the meantime, Beth had reviewed the Ring camera footage from last night and several days prior, looking for any suspicious activity. There was nothing, though, that wasn't a shock. The killer could have easily avoided detection by walking along the edge of the large yard, staying out of visual range of the camera as they reached the side fence.

“The house did have a conventional security system,” she told them, “but according to the company, some of the cameras were damaged in that huge storm last month. Apparently that screwed up their whole system, which was old anyway, so the company came out and removed it. They were scheduled to install the upgraded version this upcoming Thursday—four days from now.”

“That’s quite a coincidence,” Susannah noted skeptically. “I don’t think it would hurt to check the employee list from the company. Let’s find out if anyone on their staff has a record.”

"Already on it," Beth said. "So far, nothing, but it's a big company. They have 42 field technicians, so I'll keep looking."

“Excellent,” Jessie said before addressing a consistent theme she’d noticed in the hours that they’d been reaching out to contacts of the Hartleys. “You know, I’ve made nine calls to friends and former colleagues so far. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t had anyone say a bad word about them yet, and that’s without knowing the couple is dead.”

“Same thing,” Susannah agreed. “And it doesn’t sound like these folks are spouting the official line. They all sound genuine when they talk about their affection for the Hartleys. I get that they may have been nice people, but no one’s that nice. Everyone has secrets.”

“Are you sure you’re not just projecting?” Jessie wondered.

The detective looked about to offer a comeback when a young female uniformed officer with brown hair and alert eyes knocked on the open door. They all looked up.

“Sorry to interrupt,” she said cautiously, “but I’m Kaley Doyle. I was assigned to take Olivia Townsend to doggy daycare and then to the hospital. I just put her in one of the interrogation rooms. Thought you should know.”

“How’s she doing?” Susannah asked.

“Better now,” Officer Doyle said.

“Do you think her meltdown was legitimate?” Jessie asked, not pulling punches.

“I’m no expert,” the young woman conceded, “but she was convincing to me. She kept saying how the dogs had to be taken to a safe space, that they sensed something was wrong, but that once they were around other dogs, they’d forget about their anxiety. Once she dropped them off, she kind of lost it.”

"Maybe she had the opposite reaction as the dogs," Jessie ventured, trying to give Townsend the benefit of the doubt. "It could be that she focused so intently on getting the dogs to a place of comfort, and once that task was complete, her brain couldn't avoid the memory of what she'd seen on that bed. If it all came tumbling back into her head at once, that could be overwhelming."

“That’s how it felt to me,” Officer Doyle agreed, “but you guys should be the judge. She’s waiting for you now.”

Jessie and Susannah left Jamil and Beth in the research room as they followed the officer down the hall to interrogation room one. They all stopped outside the door.

“Anything else we should know before we go in?” Susannah asked.

“Just that she’s scared,” Doyle said. “Just being in a police station has her freaked out and putting her in an interrogation room rather than a meeting room has her even more agitated.”

“That’s what we wanted,” Jessie said, satisfied. “Good work.”

Officer Doyle nodded and led them inside, where they found a petite woman in her thirties sitting in a metal chair bolted to the floor. Her hands were resting on a metal table, also firmly attached to the floor.

She had frizzy red hair, pale skin, and more freckles than Jessie could count. She wore a gray long-sleeved shirt, pants, and a sunhat, which dangled behind her, connected by a string at her neck.

“Ms. Townsend,” Officer Doyle said, “this is Detective Valentine and Ms. Hunt. They’re handling the case from here on in and they have some questions for you.”

“Are you staying?” the woman asked in a quavery voice.

Doyle looked at them hesitantly. Jessie shook her head as Susannah answered.

“I’m afraid Officer Doyle has other responsibilities,” she said. “We’ll take it from here.”

She sat down in one of the chairs across the table from Townsend, and Jessie took the other. Once they were settled, she continued.

“Ms. Townsend,” Susannah said firmly, “we’ve had a chance to read the statement you gave the officers at the scene but there are several questions we want to follow up on.”

“Okay,” Townsend said nervously.

“How do you know the Hartleys?” Jessie asked.

“I’m their dog walker,” she explained apprehensively, “which I guess you know. Also, I live in the neighborhood, and we were already acquaintances.”

Jessie and Susannah exchanged a look, and Jessie knew they were thinking the same thing. She nodded that the detective should take the lead with their shared question.

“No offense,” Susannah began, “but you live in the same part of Hancock Park as the Hartleys and you work as a dog walker?”

"No offense taken," Townsend said, looking comfortable for the first time. She must have fielded this question often. "I'm recently widowed. My husband died about eighteen months ago, and he left me a sizable nest egg, which was nice. But I was also incredibly lonely, so I took up walking local dogs. It kept me busy during a tough time, and now I really love it."

“But you knew the Hartleys before you became their dog walker?” Jessie confirmed.

“A little, yes,’ Townsend said. “We traveled in some of the same circles. But after Carl died, they reached out to me. They’d heard what I was doing and offered to let me walk Laurel and Hardy—those are their dogs. It was more of a gesture of kindness than anything. They like to walk them but sacrificed a little of their own pup time to help me out. I’d often do the late afternoon walk. And after I brought the dogs back, they’d sometimes invite me in to hang out, maybe have a drink.”

“So they were home most of the time?” Jessie asked.

"Yes," Townsend said. "Obviously, they'd attend events and the like, usually in the evenings. Cynthia was very active with several charities. But other than obligatory stuff and some travel, they were mostly homebodies."

“Is that where they were last night?” Susannah wondered, “when they told you they were staying up late and planned to sleep in today?”

“They weren’t specific about what they were doing, just that it would be a late night,” she said, “which is why they asked me to do the morning walk.”

“And you went to check on them because of the dogs’ accidents?” Jessie pressed.

Townsend nodded, cringing at the memory.

“Yes,” she said earnestly. “You have to understand that they were super-devoted to Laurel and Hardy. They didn’t have children and viewed the dogs as their babies. So when I found that the pups had made messes in the mud room, I knew something was wrong. Cindy and Richard would never just leave them cooped up like that to fend for themselves for so long.”

“And that’s when you checked on them?” Jessie wanted to know.

"I called out to them multiple times from down the hall, but they didn't answer," she said. "I know it seems presumptuous, but after shouting out four or five times, I decided to go back and see if they were okay. It felt irresponsible not to."

“And you found them posed like that?” Susannah asked.

“It was horrifying,” Townsend said with a shiver.

“Did you recognize the masks they were wearing?” Jessie asked.

"No, but truthfully, I didn't look that carefully at them. Once I got close enough to see that they were dead, I turned and ran out of there so fast that I almost tripped. I called 911, then collected the dogs and waited out in the front yard until the police arrived."

Susannah was quiet. Jessie knew her next question was a long shot, but she had to ask anyway.

“Do you know if either of the Hartleys had any enemies?”

Townsend shook her head, making her frizzy red hair bounce.

“We didn’t have the kind of friendship where they’d tell me stuff like that, but it’s hard to imagine that they did,” she said. “I don’t know much about Richard’s business before he retired, just that it was real estate-related. What I do know is that they were incredibly sweet, and so devoted to each other. They were always buying little gifts for one another, not necessarily expensive stuff. More like cute tchotchkes. And they would go on short weekend jaunts to nearby romantic getaways like Lake Tahoe, San Francisco, or just off the coast to Catalina Island. They were clearly deeply in love and being around them gave me hope that I might find that again too someday.”

“Is there anything else we should know?” Jessie asked.

The woman paused for several seconds before answering.

"I don't know if this appropriate to ask now," Townsend said, her voice getting quiet as her cheeks flushed, "but do you know what will happen to Laurel and Hardy? Because if there's no long-term plan for their care, I'd be willing—honored—to take them. I feel like it's the least I could do."

“We can look into that,” Susannah said briskly. “In the meantime, we have one more question for you.”

Jessie, who was mildly touched by Townsend’s gesture, could already tell from the detective’s tone what her question would be, and was impressed with her partner’s unwillingness to let herself be affected by sentiment.

“Yes?” Townsend said.

“Where were you last night?”

“I already told the officers where,” she said.

That was true, but Jessie knew that just like her, Detective Susannah Valentine wanted to look at Townsend’s face when they heard her alibi.

“Humor us,” Susannah said.

“I was at the Whisky a Go Go nightclub on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood to see this old 1980s band I like called L.A. Guns," she said. "I went with two girlfriends. We spent the night at the London West Hollywood Hotel across the street so we wouldn't have to drive back so late. I got up at 6:30 this morning to be able to get to Richard and Cynthia's for the 7 a.m. walk."

Jessie knew well that Jamil already had verifying her GPS location on his to-do list. They would also question her friends. And Jessie was a little curious about how Townsend’s husband had died as well. But if all that checked out, then Olivia Townsend would be off their suspect list.

Of course, that was small comfort. If they eliminated her, that meant one suspect down, and potentially hundreds still to investigate. It was going to be a challenging day.

CHAPTER FOUR

Ryan felt guilty.

Normally, he wouldn't confide in a 19-year-old, especially not one who happened to be his wife's little sister. But this was an unusual situation.

Maybe it was the fact that he was still a little drained from having been poisoned. Maybe it was the medication he was on which made him groggy and a little loopy. Maybe it was that Hannah wasn't a typical 19-year-old, and, with her personal experience, she might actually be able to help. Or maybe it was just that his concern had finally overwhelmed his natural inclination to keep things close to the vest.

Whatever the reason, when she brought the homemade chicken soup she’d just prepared for him for lunch over to the couch, he asked her to sit down.

“What’s up?” she asked, taking a seat. Her expression suggested she was already wary of what topic he might be about to broach.

“I need your advice,” he said.

“You need my advice?” she repeated, disbelieving.

“I do,” he admitted. “You may actually be the one person in the world who can help me out. But I also need your discretion.”

“What does that mean?” she asked guardedly.

"For now, what I want to discuss needs to stay between you and me," he said. "We might be able to share it later, but for now, I want to keep the circle tight. Can you promise me that?"

“I don’t usually make promises without knowing what I’m getting myself into.”

“Fair enough,” he said. He would have reacted the same way. “I guess I’ll just have to trust your judgment. I’m worried about Jessie.”

Hannah didn’t respond. Instead, she readjusted herself on the sofa, waiting to hear what came next. Ryan didn’t love being in this position. He liked being in charge in most conversations and right now—weak and emotionally vulnerable—he felt nowhere close to being “in charge.”

"Let me back up a minute," he said. "I hate to bring up a difficult time, but I'm sure you recall the challenges you faced last year when you felt a constant urge to…inflict punishment on people you considered wrongdoers."

“You mean the bloodlust, my desire to kill folks that I deemed unworthy?” she said flatly. “The one that made me spend a few months in an in-patient facility and undergo intensive therapy? Yeah, I remember it pretty well. Why?”

He debated how best to raise the issue at hand, then decided to just spit it out. With his head fuzzier than usual, he didn’t have the energy or patience to be diplomatic.

“I think your sister may be in a similar situation,” he said.

To his surprise, Hannah shrugged.

“We already knew that,” she replied. “She admitted to me a long time ago that one of the reasons that she studied forensic psychology and became a profiler in the first place was because she wanted to redirect those feelings into something productive. So rather than pour her energy into personally making these people pay, she’d catch them and turn them over to the justice system. That’s how she channels those urges into something worthwhile.”

“Right,” Ryan said, not sure how make his point clear.

"And," she continued, "that's part of why I help other students out at school. By finding solutions to their problems so they don't have to go to campus police, I feel like I'm doing an amateur version of the same thing. I'm helping people, but it really helps me too."

“And both Jessie and I are so glad that you’ve found that outlet,” he told her, “even if we do worry a little about who you choose to help.”

“I’ll admit that I made one bad call,” Hannah said. “But now I do more background research on the folks who approach me so they’re less likely to try to—you know—assault me in a secluded corner of the college library.”

Hannah was referring to the student who made up having a stalker so he could get her alone to "discuss the case," when his real motives were much darker in nature. In the end, it hadn't gone too well for him, as Hannah's self-defense training left him writhing in pain on the floor. But in Ryan's view, the incident had one small positive: it was a reminder to Hannah that not everyone who approached had the purest of motives.

"We appreciate that," he said, realizing that despite his best intentions, he was still stalling. "But setting that aside, Jessie's struggling. Lately, she hasn't just been catching people and turning them over for prosecution. She has been inflicting some retribution of her own."

Hannah took in his words. When she replied, it was slowly.

"Well, some of the people you guys catch fight back, right? They don't always give up and offer their wrists to be cuffed. Occasionally, a physical response is required."

"That's absolutely true," he acknowledged. "The people we pursue are incredibly dangerous. We never know what they're capable of when we corner them, and sometimes, taking them down is an ugly business. But I'm talking about after they've been subdued, when they're no longer threats."

“What do you mean?” Hannah asked.

“I mean that in at least three instances recently, Jessie was in such a state of rage that I feared she might kill the suspect after they’d been taken down. And the last two times, I worry that if I hadn’t said something to snap her out of it, she’d have gone through with it. With the guy who poisoned me, she was about a half-second from sending a rolling pin handle through the guy’s mouth and out the back of his spine. Frankly, I’m a little concerned about what might happen on the case she’s working today.”

“But she didn’t actually kill the guy,” Hannah said, sounding defensive on her sister’s behalf.

“No, but she came close,” Ryan insisted. “And Internal Affairs was worried enough to do their own investigation. She was cleared, but that might have been more because of her reputation and the intensely challenging circumstances of the situation than anything else. She knows she went too far.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because she’s acknowledged it and because she’s addressing it with Dr. Lemmon in therapy,” he said. “I probably shouldn’t be revealing that either, but I want you to know the severity of things.”

“Okay,” Hannah said, leaning against the back of the couch, “so how’s it going?”

“I don’t know,” Ryan admitted. “Remember that she was on medical leave until today for the injuries she sustained when she took down the poisoner. This will be her first time in the field since then. There’s no telling if the work she’s been doing with Lemmon will get the job done. But I’m worried that it won’t.”

“Why not?”

“It didn’t for you,” he pointed out. “As you said, you ended up going to a secluded facility for months to work through what was happening to you.”

“Well, kind of,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Going to that place helped,” she said, “although if you’ll recall, there were issues there that complicated my recovery. But I still had to eventually come back to the real world and put what I’d learned into practice. I had to face challenging situations and navigate them to see if the work I’d done there was useful.”

“And was it?”

“I think so,” Hannah said, “but not in a vacuum. It was an accumulation of things. I used the techniques I’d learned there. But I also became more cognizant of what was valuable to me, which was the people in my life. I didn’t want to lose the friends and family I’d created over the last few years. Keeping that front and center in my mind and in my gut made a big difference. And working these cases at school has been good too. Like I said, it allows me to redirect those feelings somewhere useful, which is what Jessie is already doing.”

“I’m not sure it’s enough,” Ryan said before taking a slurp of soup.

"Well, it's not like Jessie can just take time off to go to a facility," Hannah told him. "I was gone for months, and I assume she'd have to give some kind of explanation for her absence. 'I'm trying to reduce the urge to murder bad people' probably wouldn't go over too well with Captain Parker. Besides, she's so well-known that his presence would probably get out publicly anyway. That would be disastrous. She has to find a way to deal with this that doesn't put her at the mercy of other people."

“Any suggestions?” Ryan asked.

“Not off the top of my head,” she said.

“Maybe you could talk to her.”

Hannah looked appalled.

“Let me get this straight,” she said. “You want me to talk to her on the same day that she’s starting back at work, which also happens to be the day that she’s secretly stressing over the trial of the man who tried to murder her last fall?”

“How do you know that?” he asked.

“Ryan,” Hannah said gently, “you’ve been heavily medicated for the last few weeks, so I’ll give you a pass. But I notice her tense up every time she watches the news about Mark Haddonfield on TV. In case you missed it, the lawyers wrapped up final arguments on Friday. The jury resumes deliberations tomorrow.”

“I guess I did miss it,” he conceded.

He obviously knew about the ongoing trial of the obsessed college student who had tried to kill Jessie when she wouldn’t make him her profiling protégé. But he hadn’t realized it was so far along.

“I guess so,” she agreed. “And that’s not her only stressor. You do still remember her best friend, Kat Gentry, right?”

“You don’t have to be sarcastic,” he chided.

Kat was not just Jessie’s best friend, she was also a private detective dealing with some issues of her own. Among them was mourning her fiancé, Mitch, who’d been murdered just months earlier. Add to that the falling out she and Jessie had over some information that Jessie had held back from her, and they’d been on the outs for several weeks, until reconciling only recently.

“Just making sure,” Hannah said. “Well, the ladies may have patched up their personal differences after both of you nearly died when taking on the poisoner, but Kat is still obsessed with Ash Pierce, and Jessie doesn’t know how to help her.”

Ryan must have been more druggy these last few weeks than he realized, because he hadn't picked up on that either. Ash Pierce was a hitwoman who had tortured and nearly killed Kat last summer. She was currently being held in the same jail complex as Haddonfield while she awaited a trial of her own.

“I thought Kat had moved on from that,” he said.

“That’s what she wanted you to think, because she didn’t want to worry a guy who was recovering from nearly having his insides liquified,” she explained. “But for those of us not on paid meds—like me and Jessie—it’s pretty clear that Kat hasn’t let it go. She’s still fixated on Pierce and making sure that if the justice system doesn’t take the woman down, she finishes the job. All of this is to say, maybe now—with so many stressors in my sister’s life—isn’t the perfect time to confront her about her violent urges.”

Ryan shook his head adamantly, making his bowl of soup quake and nearly sending some of the broth over the side.

“I would argue the opposite,” he said. “With all that weighing down on her, she’s at even greater risk of exploding than I realized. Maybe talking to you could let some of the air out of her hate ballon, rather than risking it popping.”

“I don’t know what I could say that would help,” Hannah objected, ignoring his clumsy metaphor. “Besides, she’s already working with the best psychiatrist going when it comes to this stuff. I’d just be in the way.”

“Do you really think so?” Ryan challenged.

“Sure,” Hannah said. “Dr. Lemmon is a world class psychiatrist who used to be a profiler, understands killers, and has been working with Jessie for over a decade. I’m just the half-sister she only discovered she had two years ago.”

"You're a hell of a lot more than that," Ryan assured her emphatically. "First of all, forget the 'half' part. You're her sister, and she loves you. Secondly, you've experienced the same thing she's going through and come out the other end. You share the same serial killer father, which can't be a coincidence when it comes to these urges. You're connected in ways that no one else is. Is there anyone else in the world more equipped to understand what she's going through?"

Hannah sat with that for a minute. While she thought, Ryan took several more slurps of the soup.

“This is amazing, by the way,” he said

“Thanks,” she replied absent-mindedly.

He took another spoonful.

“I’m scared that she’d be mad if I tried to talk to her about this,” she finally said.

"She might be mad," he admitted, "but it won't be at you. I'm the one who violated her trust by telling you. You're just trying to help your big sister out. I'll be in the doghouse, but you're in the clear."

Hannah rubbed her temples. Both Ryan and Jessie had noted that the habit was a sign that she was deep in thought. He said nothing, not wanting to interrupt the 19-year-old who might be the key to saving his wife.

“I guess I’d start by asking why she was doing so well for so long, only to backslide recently. Can you think of anything?”

“So much has happened lately that I’m not sure I could pin down one particular source of trouble.”

Hannah scrunched up her face in concentration.

“I’m sure Dr. Lemmon has been over all this with her,” she said, “but I can’t help but wonder—did something happen to her recently? Or did something maybe happen inside her

CHAPTER FIVE

Jessie wanted to tell the guy to pick up the pace but forced down the urge.

As she and Susannah sat in the Central Station research department along with Jamil and Beth, they all listened on speakerphone as Kelvin Soto, the medical examiner, told them what he knew so far. He was taking his sweet time getting to the point. She knew it was the combination of impatience and hunger that was gnawing at her. It was almost 2 P.M. and she hadn’t had a break in hours—or lunch.

“As always, I have to caveat all this by saying that these are preliminary results,” Soto said carefully, “but in this instance, I feel fairly comfortable with the conclusions.”

“What are those conclusions?” Jessie heard herself blurt out, despite her promise to herself that she wouldn’t. There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. When Soto replied, there was a hint of wounded feelings in his tone.

“We believe the approximate time of death was between 9 P.M. and 2 A.M.,” he said, regaining his confidence as he went on. “My initial suspicion was also corroborated. When we removed the masks, we found that both victims had suffered serious blows to the front of the head. That’s what was making the masks sit off-kilter on their faces. But that’s not what killed them?”

“Why do you say that?” Susannah asked.

“We’re confident that in both cases, the blows knocked them into unconsciousness,” Soto explained, “but we believe that they both lived several minutes longer. That’s because of the pillow.”

“The pillow?” Jessie repeated, doing her best to rein in the frustration that had gotten the better of her earlier.

“Yes,” Soto said quickly, “we suspect that the victims were both suffocated using one of their pillows. We found saliva residue in the middle of one of them, where the head would normally rest. It was still slightly damp. We’re checking to see if it has both of their DNA. If so, that would strongly suggest that this was the ultimate murder weapon for both of them. All things considered, it’s a pretty humane way to go.”

Jessie felt her simmering frustration bubble up into something closer to outright anger.

“Humane?” she challenged, “How humane do you think it was for them when they found an intruder in their bedroom who bashed in both their heads?”

Jessie knew that Soto hadn’t intended to imply that the experience had been pleasant for the Hartleys, but she simply couldn’t contain the irritation she felt. She suspected that she was at least partly frustrated by things beyond this case, but Soto was getting the brunt of it, justified or not. She was debating whether to apologize when Susannah spoke up.

“Do you have anything else for us at this time?” she asked the doctor.

“No,” he said curtly.

"Okay, well, please update us when you get those DNA results," she told him. "Thanks for your help."

Then she hung up and turned to Jessie.

“You know,” she said carefully, “I’m usually the one that puts people on blast and leaves them scurrying for the exits. I can’t help but feel like you’re trying to steal my specialty. Everything okay?”

Jessie glanced over at the two researchers who were both slack-jawed, not used to hearing her blow up like that.

“I’m good,” she said guardedly, before adding. “I think I just need to stretch my legs. Care to join me?”

Susannah got the hint and nodded.

“We’ll be back in a few,” she told Jamil and Beth. “Let us know if you discover anything new.”

Jessie and Susannah left research and walked silently down the long station hallway to the door leading to an interior courtyard. Once outside, they walked over to lone unoccupied bench, which rested in the center of the courtyard under a large tree. They hadn’t even sat down before Susannah asked the question she’d clearly been itching to pose this whole time.

“What is going on with you?”

Jessie sighed, partly out of the accumulation of frustration, but also to give herself time. She obviously couldn’t tell Susannah the main reason that she was riddled with anxiety. One couldn’t simply share with an LAPD detective, even a friend, that she had an intermittent compulsion to violently assault some of the people they hunted down, and that she’s already acted on it. So she focused on other answers that might prove compelling.

“I think that with everything going on, my fuse is super short, and I’ve lost the ability to snuff it out.”

“Are you talking about Ryan’s poisoning?” Susanah asked. “I know his recovery has been slow.”

“That’s part of it, for sure,” Jessie acknowledged, “but it’s not everything. I’m sure you’re keeping up with the Mark Haddonfield trial.”

“Who isn’t?”

“Well, Ryan hasn’t been because he’s been sedated a lot of the time to control the pain as he recovers,” she explained, “so I’ve been tracking it on my own. And let me tell you—waiting to find out if the guy who killed multiple people that I previously saved and then tried to kill me is going to prison for life has been, to put it mildly, anxiety-inducing.”

“But you know that he’s going to be convicted, right?” Susannah said reassuringly. “My understanding is that they didn’t even need you or Ryan to testify.”

“That’s true,” Jessie conceded. “They determined that the testimony of Dr. Janice Lemmon, who was in the hospital room when Haddonfield attacked me, was enough, especially with all the other physical evidence. But you never know until the verdict comes in.”

“I get it,” Susannah said.

“And on top of that, you know my friend, Kat, right?”

“Of course.”

“Well, I’m worried about her. She’s going through a similar situation with the Ash Pierce case, only she’s doing it while dealing with her fiancé’s murder. It’s a lot. Between all of those things, I guess I’ve just lost some of my ability to self-regulate.”

Susannah nodded and squeezed her hand while doing something that Jessie rarely saw from her. She stayed quiet.

Jessie felt bad. Everything she was saying was true, but it wasn’t the whole truth. The fact was that none of the concerns that she’d mentioned weighed on her like the bloodlust she felt. And she’d completely neglected to mention the ongoing uncertainty that she and Ryan were dealing with when it came to potential adoption.

“Listen,” Susannah finally said. “I’m the last person who would ever tell you to hold back. You know that’s not my thing. I know that I’ve mellowed out some since I started seeing Drake. And not even dating a grizzled surfer cop is enough to chill me out all the time. But I’m here to tell you that if you ever feel like it’s too much for you, just give me the high sign. I’ll cut into whoever we’re dealing so you don’t have to. Everyone expects it from me, so it won’t come as a surprise, and you can experience the vicarious thrill of going after someone without the dirty looks. Personally, I relish the dirty looks.”

“Thanks, Susannah,” Jessie said, deciding it was time to end the pity fest, “I really appreciate that, especially coming from a skanky malcontent like yourself.”

Susannah laughed.

“I’ll let you have that one,” she said, standing up. “What do you say we get back to it? By my count, we’ve got over a hundred close contacts of the Hartleys that we need to work our way through. Maybe one of them got hosed in a real estate deal with Richard Hartley, owns a collection of masquerade ball masks, and has a criminal record.”

“Wouldn’t that be nice?” Jessie said, following Susannah back inside. “Maybe they’ll own an ice cream shop too and we can question them over a cone of mint chocolate chip.”

“Sounds yummy,” Susannah said with a grin.

Though Jessie didn’t say it, she was skeptical. If someone had that many touch points with the Hartleys, Jamil would have found them already. The likelihood was that they’d be spending all afternoon poring over minutiae about everyone the Hartleys knew, hoping for some scrap that might lead to a credible suspect.

As daunting as that sounded, Jessie was almost looking forward to it. At the very least, it would allow her to focus her attention on something other than the parade of horribles that had made her so unpleasant to be around. And if it landed them a quality suspect along the way, all the better.

CHAPTER SIX

Kat Gentry sat in her tiny booth at the coffeehouse and for the third time in the last few minutes, glanced at her phone. It was 3:04, exactly two minutes later than the last time she’d checked.

She knew that she shouldn’t be here, that this wasn’t the most productive use of her time, and yet, she didn’t intend to stop. Later on, she planned to stop by the home of her best friend Jessie to check in on how Ryan was doing. She knew his recovery had been going slower than hoped.

Since she and Jessie had mended fences, she’d been by several times. She’d first visited them in the hospital the night they’d had the confrontation with the poisoner. Hannah had returned from school on the weekends to help out, but during the week, Jessie was mostly alone to watch Ryan, so Kat had been by the house almost every other day since then, bringing meals and helping keep an eye on Ryan so that Jessie could grab some quick catnaps. But her visit today would have to wait.

Right now, she had other plans. Specifically, she got up and left the coffeehouse, making the short trek to the Los Angeles County Courthouse, which she intended to walk the entire exterior of, and not for the first time. This was the building where two important things were happening.

First off, jury deliberations would resume here tomorrow in the trial of Mark Haddonfield, who had caused them all so much pain. In addition to killing multiple people and trying to do the same to Jessie, he was ultimately responsible for the murder of Kat’s fiancé, Mitch Connor. It was based on instructions in Haddonfield’s online manifesto that a crazed acolyte had tried to shoot Kat. Mitch had leapt in front of her, taking the bullet that ultimately killed him.

That was the main reason that she’d been so upset with Jessie. She’d learned that her best friend had met with Haddonfield in the months since Mitch’s death to discuss a case she was working on. That treachery had cut her to the quick.

Eventually, she learned that Jessie was only meeting with the killer as part of a deal in which he retracted his manifesto and ordered his followers to leave Jessie's loved ones alone. As long as she continued to discuss some of her cases with him, he would refrain from calling for violence against those in her life. Kat still felt ill when she thought about the two of them poring over a case file together, but she'd come to accept that it was the lesser of two evils.

And she would be happy to see Haddonfield convicted—which was a virtual certainty—and then sentenced to life in prison. But she wouldn’t be in the courtroom for that event because she had other business to attend to.

In another part of the vast complex, there was an evidentiary hearing planned in the trial of Ash Pierce, which was scheduled to begin next week. That was where Kat would be. As she wandered along the sidewalk surrounding the courthouse, sipping her coffee and looking for all the world like just another regular gal enjoying a lazy Sunday afternoon stroll, her mind was moving a mile a minute.

She kept her eyes on the exterior of the huge building, looking for any weak spots where she could get in or where Pierce could get out. Kat had every right to be in the courtroom, especially as one of Pierce's victims. But that wasn't her focal point right now. She was looking for an unmanned entry point, where she could access the place without supervision or having to surrender her weapon. She knew it was a longshot. These places were designed as fortresses. But that didn’t stop her from looking.

She knew that if she found a point of entry that she could take advantage of, then Ash Pierce would almost certainly know about it as an escape option too. Kat had learned the hard way just what Pierce was capable of, and she put nothing past her.

She first been fooled by the woman when Pierce pretended to be Violet Sheridan, an abused wife who came to Kat’s detective agency for help in creating a new identity so she could escape her violent husband. But that wasn’t Pierce’s goal. Instead, her plan all along was to get Kat—and Hannah—to a secluded location.

It turned out that she was actually a professional hitwoman, who’d been paid to torture and kill Kat (all on a livestream) by an incarcerated client that Jessie had caught. The imprisoned woman wanted to exact revenge by making those close to Jessie suffer. That seemed to be a big thing with people that Jessie caught.

And it had almost worked. Pierce tricked her, then kidnapped her and took her out to the desert, where she completed the torture part of her plan. She was about to do the “murder on a livestream” part when Hannah was able to first find them, and then surprise and subdue Pierce.

Technically, everything seemed to be okay after that. Pierce was imprisoned, and everyone moved on. That is, except for Kat, who suffered from constant nightmares reliving the brutal horrors that Pierce had put her through.

And it took a lot to mess with Kat’s head. After all, she’d been an Army Ranger in Afghanistan, where she was injured in an IED explosion that left her with damage both internal and external, including multiple facial burn marks and a long scar that ran vertically down her left cheek from just below her eye.

That experience still haunted her, but not in the same visceral way that this had. She’d volunteered for the military and knew the risks going in. That had helped her come to terms with what happened to her there. But being tortured within an inch of her life by a psychotic assassin, especially when she was a highly trained soldier? That was harder to accept.

She’d been told repeatedly that she shouldn’t be too hard on herself. Ash Pierce was no normal enemy. After she’d been caught, they learned the truth about her. The woman was formerly a Marines Special Operations element leader and later, a CIA asset who conducted covert assassinations before becoming a hitwoman for hire.

One would never know it to look at her, though. Pierce, in her mid-thirties, had a tiny frame, short black hair, and pale skin, all of which together suggested someone fragile. Ash Pierce was not fragile.

Of course, the very reason that Kat supposedly shouldn't have felt like a sucker for being outwitted by Pierce was why the authorities should have taken every precaution with her. And yet, somehow, they'd fallen short.

That lack of caution emerged when she was being transported from the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, California to the Twin Towers Correctional Facility just over a mile from where Kat now stood. Pierce had managed to escape the armored prison truck she was in, killing four guards in the process.

And did the assassin, who had multiple fake identities, make a run for it? No. Instead, she decided to hunt down Hannah, the one person who'd gotten the drop on her. It must have really stuck in the craw of the experienced killer that she’d been outmaneuvered by a then-high school girl.

Luckily, when Pierce found Hannah, Kat was with her, and together they brought the woman down in a fight that ultimately left Pierce in a coma. It looked like she might remain that way forever. But when she woke up a few months later, she conveniently claimed to have lost all memory of her time as a hired killer. That was what had Kat wandering the entirety of the courthouse complex now. She didn’t buy it.

Even though multiple experts claimed that the amnesia was likely legitimate (including Dr. Janice Lemmon, who shared her opinion with Kat but officially kept it off the record), Kat was sure the supposed memory loss was a ruse. She suspected that Pierce was faking it to either win the sympathy of potential jurors at trial or to get the security contingent guarding her to let down their guard so she could escape again.

Kat’s friends tried to reassure her that even if a jury bought the amnesia defense, it wouldn’t matter. Several of Pierce’s murders, including the cold-blooded slaughter of the four prison transport guards, were caught on video. That couldn’t be unseen.

But Kat wasn't so sure. Ash Pierce had tricked her into thinking she was a fragile, abused wife. If she could do that, imagine what she could do to less cynical, more emotionally susceptible jurors. That was what kept Kat up at night and it was why she scoured every inch of the courthouse, looking for vulnerabilities. What if Pierce was set free or decided to go free on her own?

If Kat was being honest with herself, there was something else that kept her up at night, too. Sometimes she wondered if her fixation on Pierce might some way to compensate for what she'd lost. Mitch was dead, but the man ultimately responsible for it was virtually assured of spending the rest of his life behind bars. That was out of her hands. But if she could ensure that Ash Pierce was properly punished, maybe that could somehow honor Mitch’s memory. Intellectually, she knew that Pierce facing justice wouldn’t heal the wound that pained her each day. But maybe it could be a Band-Aid.

So even though she’d promised both Jessie and Hannah that she wouldn’t obsess, here she was. She’d made the decision that if the legal system failed in its obligation to punish Ash Pierce, Kat would be there to pick up the slack.

They could call it obsession if they wanted, but Kat was at peace with that. After all, that was merely the negative perspective. From her point of view, she was simply on another mission, one she intended to complete, regardless of the consequences.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Ash Pierce sat alone at a table in the middle of the rec room in the women's unit of Twin Towers. The other inmates knew better than to bother her or even approach her.

Though she was staring at the TV on the wall as if she was fascinated by the Golden Girls rerun on the screen, Ash was deep in thought.

She was focused on tomorrow, when she would have another in the seemingly endless series of preliminary hearings prior to her trial for murder, attempted murder, torture, and a variety of other crimes. If everything proceeded as planned, the trial was scheduled to start in a week.

Her concern was that if tomorrow’s hearing went like so many others had, she wouldn’t be happy with the outcome. Very few of them had gone well for her.

She could tell that the judge, an old-school type in his sixties, didn’t like her. She couldn’t point to any specific actions or words as proof of that. It was more of a vibe.

While she couldn’t claim that he was overtly biased against her, it was clear that he had little patience for many of the arguments her legal team had made. He heard everything out, but other than on a few technical issues, he regularly ruled against her.

Her bigger concern was that the jurors, who were to be selected next week, wouldn’t like her either. She’d done everything she could to make herself more appealing to them. She was already small, with a waifish frame. But she’d restricted her diet in recent weeks so that she looked even more fragile in her oversized blue prison scrubs.

Her skin was naturally pale, but she’d been careful to avoid spending any time in sunlight when they were allowed into the prison yard for exercise. Lastly, she had requested that her already shortish black hair be cut even tighter so that she had what amounted to the least stylish pixie cut ever. Her goal was to look as frail and harmless as possible.

Ash got up from the table and wandered slowly around the rec room, hoping that the movement might give a fresh perspective on how to handle things. As she walked, a heavyset woman in her twenties who was looking the other way inadvertently stepped into her path. The woman’s friend tapped her and pointed to Ash.

The heavyset woman, a panicky look on her face, immediately stepped aside, like a butler making way for the owner of the house. Ash gave her a half-nod of acknowledgement and continued on her way. It was nice to know that her reputation could still do some heavy lifting for her. In the courtroom, she needed to be frail and docile. But behind these walls, she had to project an air of ruthless intimidation. It was the only way to ensure her survival.

She returned to thoughts about the trial. She knew that when the jury saw the camera footage from the prison transport, it would show her dispatching the four guards in charge of her with casual precision. But she hoped that the images on the grainy video would be so at odds with the broken woman sitting before them that it might create some doubt in their minds. That, coupled with her memory loss, might have some impact.

That was her hope but not her expectation. She’d begun to fear that she no longer had the “touch”—the ability to create a convincing persona that drew people in and made them want to protect her. That had been a valuable part of her tool kit as she got close to her victims.

She wondered if she came off as too cold. Admittedly, she was cold, but she could usually hide that part of herself. Maybe the coma had done something to her that cost her that ability, but she suspected it was something else. She blamed her re-established memory.

The truth was that, despite what some might believe, she genuinely had lost her memory for an extended stretch after waking up. She remembered some things, including part of her time as a Marines Special Operations element leader. But the stuff about being an assassin for the CIA and later a freelance hitwoman was wiped from her mental database.

When she was first told who she was and what her crimes were, she’d been appalled. It was hard to reconcile that killer with who she was as she lay in that hospital bed—a scared, confused woman with a bad memory, a weaker body, and no desire to kill anyone. The current incarnation of Ash was certain that it was that prior, more guileless version of her that had convinced people that she was worth rooting for, because that version of her was truly horrified at what she’d been accused of.

But then her memory returned, first in bits in pieces, and then in one consciousness-shattering wave. Even now, she could still remember that naïve, formless person, but she no longer existed. Only the original Ash remained. And mostly, she was glad for it.

Yes, there were advantages to being that sad gal. She suspected that the naif-ish energy she gave off previously couldn’t be faked. And she also suspected that even though multiple medical experts claimed her memory loss was legit (which it was when they examined her) that on some primal level, jurors could sense she wasn’t that person anymore.

As if to prove that to herself, Ash walked over to another table in the unit, where a heavily-tattooed woman about the same age as her but nearly twice her size sat, unwrapping a granola bar. Ash stepped into her line of vision.

“I want that,” she said, pointing at the bar.

She didn’t want it, but she wanted to test her resolve and how people might react to it.

“What?” asked the woman, who had been about to take a bite.

“I want that,” Ash repeated. “Give it to me.”

For the briefest of seconds, anger flashed in the other woman’s eyes, probably the same anger that had gotten away from her at some point and led to her current incarceration. But today, she quickly got hold of it, blinking away the fury as she exhaled slowly. Without a word, she handed over the bar.

Ash took it, wandered casually over to the nearest trash bin, and dropped the bar in it. Then she looked back at the tattooed woman, whose mouth was wide with surprise. But she quickly stifled that too and looked down at the table, refusing to make eye contact. Ash continued to pace the room, reminded once again that her prior sensitive, naïve personality was nowhere to be found. She was her old self.

But while in some ways, the loss of that persona was a setback, it was far outweighed by the return of the important stuff, like her skill set and strategic acumen. She was also grateful that her predecessor’s whole annoying “conscience” thing had disappeared too.

Its absence better suited her emerging needs. After all, if she hadn’t been able to win over the judge, and since she had serious doubts that she could ingratiate herself with the jury, she had to try something else, which was why she had tried the Haddonfield idea.

Two weeks ago, on the prison transport bus that took inmates back and forth between Twin Towers and the courthouse, she’d struck up a conversation with the college boy killer, suggesting that if they worked together, they might be able to escape.

It was an unusual move, but one that she thought could pay off, no matter how Haddonfield reacted. If he bit, then maybe they could actually find a way to break free. If he didn’t, that could work for her too.

She hoped that Haddonfield might report the conversation to prison officials, or even better, to Jessie Hunt, whom he was clearly obsessed with. If he told Hunt in the hope of winning her favor, the profiler might go to the judge with the claim. That’s when Ash could pounce.

She would deny the charge and have her lawyers claim that Hunt was trying to manipulate the court to secure a conviction. Her legal team could claim that she was being railroaded with false accusations from a killer who was trying to get in good with the object of his diseased affection.

Maybe that would finally change the dynamic with the judge and lead to more favorable rulings. It wasn’t a silver bullet, but it was a tactical move to improve her pretty dismal situation. Anything that might shake up the trial was worth trying at this point.

Unfortunately, after two weeks, it seemed that Haddonfield had gone with a third route, one Ash hadn’t anticipated but probably should have. He seemed to have done nothing. He hadn’t agreed to join her plot, but he also didn’t appear to have told anyone about their little chat.

Truthfully, that was probably the smartest move for him right now. He wasn’t putting his physical safety at risk by teaming up for a dangerous escape, but by not telling Hunt or the authorities, he also avoided alienating the tiny assassin he shared a bus with. Maybe he was just a coward. Or maybe she’d underestimated the kid. It was possible that he was holding his knowledge close to the vest for now, waiting for the moment when it could best serve his interests.

If that was the case, he was going to have to act fast. From what she’d heard, the jury in his case might come in with a verdict as early as tomorrow. If they came back guilty—and they would—it would be too late for him to secure any kind of deal.

The thought made Ash nervous, to the extent that she was capable of feeling such things. If Haddonfield intended to make a move, it would be soon. If he spilled the beans about their little chat, it might help Ash’s cause with the judge, but in the short term, it would mean tighter and more vigilant security around her.

And the way things were going with her case, she might actually have to try to escape soon. At least if she tried, she’d have some control over her destiny. After all, with her luck of late, it might not be advisable to leave her fate in the hands of a jury of sheep, at least ones who weren’t her sheep.

Ash exhaled slowly as she tried to gather her thoughts. She had some big decisions to make and not much time to make them.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Jessie rubbed her exhausted eyes.

She couldn’t believe how little progress they’d made in the six hours since interviewing Olivia Townsend. It wasn’t for a lack of effort. Joining forces with Jamil and Beth, she and Susannah had checked 71 people on Jamil’s “close contacts” list. They’d been able to reach 53 of them, none of whom were overtly suspicious on their first pass.

The 18 they hadn’t yet got in touch with could theoretically be hateful, violent murderers, but so far, they had no way of knowing. And that didn’t account for other 32 close contacts on Jamil’s list whom they had yet try to connect with. It was already 5:45. Jessie was dubious that they’d get to all of them tonight.

Usually by now, they had at least few promising hits, folks they could justify interviewing in person. But in a rarity, no one had met the criteria for that. And interestingly, virtually every person they'd spoken to had nothing but praise for the Hartleys as warm, decent people. The worst that Jessie had heard was from a real estate developer that Richard Hartley had done a deal with, who said, "I didn't really get to know him personally, but he seemed nice enough."

Jessie was about to call the next person on their list when Gaylene Parker, the captain of Central Station, walked in. It wasn’t just the first time that Jessie had seen her today, but in over a week, when Parker had stopped by the house to check on how they were both doing.

She was shocked at how tired the woman looked. Part of it may have been that Parker was still new to the job. Until five months ago, she had run the Vice unit. But after Ryan had resigned as Central Station’s captain to return to running HSS full-time, he’d recommended her for the position.

She was eminently qualified. Parker’s impressive resume was well-known. A forty-four-year-old mother of two, she had worked her way up from street officer to an undercover detective with the Vice unit, where she often posed as a prostitute. Eventually, she was promoted to head up the unit, which she led for four years before becoming captain at Central Station.

After taking over, she seemed to be comfortable in the job, though her micro-managerial style rubbed some of them, especially Ryan, the wrong way. The two had reached a rapprochement of sorts after his near death from poisoning, but still weren’t buddy-buddy by any stretch.

The increase in the sheer volume of work she faced after transitioning from Vice to running the whole station was enough to wear anyone out. Jessie had seen the job do the same thing to Ryan before he begged off. But she suspected that wasn’t the only reason that Parker looked worn down.

Right around the time of the poisoning, two weeks ago, the HSS team had learned that Parker’s middle-school aged son had suffered a panic attack at school. Apparently he’d been bullied for months and kept it to himself because he didn’t want to look “weak” to his cop mother.

But it all exploded one day when he locked himself in a bathroom stall and refused to come out. Parker had to go to the school to talk him down. Even though neither Jessie nor Ryan had been in the office since then, she’d been kept in the loop.

Apparently, the boy had taken a leave of absence from school and was having daily therapy sessions, some of which Parker attended. The woman was burning the candle at both ends in both her personal and professional lives. It was a wonder that she came in at all. But here she was, and she looked intent on getting answers.

“How’s Ryan doing today?” she asked, impressively checking in before diving right into case questions.

“Last time I spoke to Hannah, he was napping,” Jessie said. “But he’s definitely getting stronger. I think he’ll be ready to come back soon.”

She wasn’t entirely sure that was true, but she knew it was what Ryan would have wanted her to say, and she had no intention of suggesting otherwise, especially considering his still-delicate relationship with Parker. She considered asking how the captain’s son was doing but decided that the question might not be appreciated, so she let it lie.

"Glad to hear that," Parker said. "Sorry to switch subjects, but I've been in and out all day and am not up to speed. How's the case coming?"

Susannah filled her in on the status of their close contact hunt, and it was clear from her pronounced frown that their lack of progress had her disappointed.

“Is there any good news?” she asked.

"We're investigating possible symbolism related to the masquerade ball masks they were wearing," Jessie told her. "But it's a lot to take in. Frankly, it feels like we're doing a one-day audit of an entire art history course. We've established that they're beautiful and pretty elaborate. But so far, we haven't found any connection between the masks and anything they might represent, but we're not giving up hope."

“We have been trying to trace their origin,” Beth added. “With all the jewelry and fine detailing, it’s hard to imagine that there are too many places to find items like this. In fact, I was only able to find three places in the entire city. I have calls into all of them. If those don’t prove fruitful, we can expand the search zone.”

“Excellent,” Parker said, though her tone was less enthusiastic than what she said. “Anything else?”

“The GPS location data for the Hartleys doesn’t show anything immediately unusual,” Susannah said. “We’re still going through months of data, but there’s nothing that jumps out. No trips to underground jewelry merchants. No stops at the homes of known criminals.”

“I guess that’s not a shock, considering how squeaky clean these folks seem.” Parker said.

“What about last night?” Parker asked. “Did they go anywhere odd—someplace that might be connected to what happened?”

“Not as far as I can tell,” Jamil volunteered. “There movements are a little strange but not overtly suspicious. They were bouncing around the city last night, but not in their car. Their phones show them traveling together all over the place for about three hours, mostly in the Loz Feliz, Silverlake, Koreatown, and Echo Park areas. It’s possible that they took some kind of nighttime L.A. bus tour or something similar. I’m searching for ones that focus on those areas.”

“Good,” Parker said. “Keep on it.”

“Another thing,” Beth piped up. “We’re not finding that any of the other usual suspects are proving to be credible—well, suspects.”

“What do you mean?” Parker asked.

“We checked the criminal records of everyone who worked at the security company that installed and operates the Hartleys system. We didn’t find a single violent offense. One guy had a DWI a few years ago. Two others were delinquent in their child support payments. That’s about as bad as it got.”

“Same with Olivia Townsend,” Jessie added. “I checked her husband’s death to see if maybe there was foul play, figuring that if she killed one person for money, maybe she did again.”

“And?” Parker asked.

“He died of cancer over the course of fourteen months,” Jessie said, “and his will had her as the primary beneficiary for the entirety of their marriage, so there was no financial reason for her to hurt him.”

None of this is very promising,” Parker noted glumly.

“We did get some information that might help down the line,” Susannah said. “The medical examiner got back to us a little while ago. As he suspected, the same pillow was definitely used to suffocate both victims. Don’t know what conclusions to draw there, but it’s a data point.”

As she spoke, Jessie noticed Jamil squirming excitedly in his seat. She could tell he was itching to add his two cents.

“Go ahead, Jamil,” she said.

"We finally got access to some of the Hartley's financial data," he announced. "It took forever because it's a Sunday, and a lot of the banks they deal with were reluctant to help without a court order. Luckily, Detective Valentine was quite forceful in suggesting they offer us their assistance. We’re just starting to dive in, but I’ve already noticed one interesting tidbit.”

“What’s that?” Parker asked, perking up.

“The records show large, regular cash withdrawals from the Hartley’s joint account.”

“How much and how often?” Parker pressed..

“$22,000, around the same time every month,” he said. “But so far we haven’t been able to tie the money to any specific purchases. I’m hopeful that once regular business resumes tomorrow morning that we’ll get better answers.”

“Well, that sounds promising at least,” Parker said.

“Even without knowing what it was for, the withdrawals are telling,” Jessie noted.

“How so?” Parker asked.

“Regardless of what the money was for, it came from their shared account,” she said. “So whether it was legitimate or nefarious, they both knew about it. It wasn’t a secret. That reinforces the image we’ve been getting from everyone about them. The Hartleys appeared to have been a devoted couple who were usually on the same page. Whatever this money was for, they were both on board with using it.”

“Maybe it was for the masks,” Susannah suggested. “If they were collectors, it’s possible that they had to pay in cash.”

“We may be able to get an answer to that question sooner rather than later,” Beth said excitedly.

“What do you mean?” Parker asked.

“I just got a text back from the owner of one of the three shops in the city that makes them,” she said. “His name is Marcel DuBois. Apparently he was on an international flight and just arrived back at LAX, so he didn’t get his messages until just now. He says that he designed the masks. He offered to meet with you at his place in the morning.”

“Tell him that’s not good enough,” Susannah said sharply. “Where’s his shop?”

“Beverly Hills,” Beth told her.

"Tell him we'll meet him there in an hour."

Susannah then looked at Jessie with a slight hint of reservation.

“Sorry,” she said, “I didn’t think about Ryan. Do you want to push this until tomorrow?”

"No, he'll be okay for a while," Jessie said, just as pumped as her partner. "What I want is to catch this killer, and this is the first good lead we’ve had in hours. Let’s go

CHAPTER NINE

He watched her out of the corner of his eye, not wanting to draw attention to himself.

She was on a date at an upscale restaurant in West Hollywood, and it looked like it hadn't gone well. As he sat on the covered patio of the coffeehouse across the street, he watched through the giant street-facing windows of the restaurant as she stood up, said something to the man across the table, and headed in the direction of the restroom. That all seemed normal.

But then the coffeehouse man noticed that, after walking toward the back of the restaurant, she suddenly veered left, going around the back of the bar. Then she returned to the front entrance, which was out of sight of her date, who had his back to the hostess stand.

She spoke to the hostess and handed her something that he thought might be cash. Then she came out front and gave her ticket to the valet. She glanced back in the direction of her table nervously as if concerned that her date might start to wonder where she was.

As the coffeehouse man continued to watch, he stood up, too. If Evelyn Channing was leaving, that was his cue. This had gone better than he'd expected. He assumed he'd have to sit around all evening, waiting to see if Evelyn would go home alone or with her date. If it was the latter, the plan would have to be delayed. But it looked like he'd be able to go through with it after all.

He adjusted his baseball cap, making sure the brim was low enough to cover his eyes. It was probably overkill. The chances that the police would check surveillance video of the coffeehouse across the street from the where Evelyn ate were small, but he was still going to take appropriate precautions.

As he wandered out of the place, he kept half an eye on Evelyn. She was as beautiful as ever. He remembered the first time he saw her at an event, across the dark but crowded room. Statuesque, with long blonde hair that reached her lower back and a curvy but athletic frame, she was hard to turn away from.

He remembered the mix of longing and resentment he felt that first time he laid eyes on her as he watched her pair up with a guy who looked like a male model. It was clear that they were hitting it off in all the ways that mattered. Watching Evelyn with her date tonight had initially created the same churning pit of desire and malice in his gut.

But as she watched the valet pull up in her silver BMW, the feeling settled slightly. She wasn’t going home with her date. The coffeehouse man briefly wondered what the date had said or done to turn her off so quickly. She’d barely been at the table fifteen minutes when she stood up and he’d noticed that she never even took a sip of her drink.

Now, as she handed the valet a tip, she glanced back at the hostess inside the restaurant’s main door and nodded. The hostess nodded back at her before walking over to Evelyn’s date and leaning over to speak to him as she placed something on the table.

As the coffeehouse man hurried to his car, parked on the street in front of the place, he noted that the hostess had put cash down on the table. It occurred to him that Evelyn was paying for the drink she hadn’t sipped and wouldn’t finish. Unfortunately, it took her date a few extra seconds to figure that out. By the time he stood up and started looking around, Evelyn was in her car and pulling away from the curb.

Her date might not be going home with her tonight. But someone would. The coffeehouse man got into his own car and eased into traffic behind Evelyn. He already knew where she lived, but he wanted to follow her anyway.

To him, it was like foreplay.

CHAPTER TEN

Jessie had never been on Rodeo Drive at this hour.

It was almost 7 p.m., and the street was quieter than usual. Other than a couple of restaurants, most of the businesses were closed. There was minimal traffic, and the sidewalks were virtually empty.

Jessie and Susannah were able to park right in front of the shop, which was dark, save for one light in the very back. As they got out of the car, Jessie glanced down the street. Somehow, the glamour of the street was slightly diminished by the darkened signs for nearby stores, Ferragamo, Prada, and Dior for Men.

The sign for Marcel DuBois’s place, Belle of the Ball, was also hidden in shadows. Compared to some of the other shops, the space was tiny. They reached the front door and Susannah rapped on it loudly, just as she would have in any other neighborhood.

Jessie smiled to herself at her partner’s style, which didn’t vary depending on where she was or who she was dealing with. Susannah Valentine was a bit of a loose cannon, but she was a straight shooter, and to Jessie, it was a fair trade-off.

It didn’t take long for a diminutive man in his sixties to appear, shuffling quickly toward them. He was wearing tan slacks, a white dress shirt, and a navy sport coat. He had the wispy remnants of hair atop his head and was deeply, perhaps artificially, tan.

As he got closer, Jessie noted that he looked tired, perhaps from his long flight. But his eyes, though they were tinged with red, were darting around nervously.

“We’re closed,” he said, apparently not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

“We’re with the LAPD,” Susannah told him, holding up her badge and ID. “We’re here to discuss your masks, Mr. DuBois.”

The man nodded curtly and unlocked the door.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered for no apparent reason, “I just have to be careful.”

“Why?” Susannah asked bluntly as she stepped inside, “do mask stores get a lot of break-ins by women in their thirties on Sunday nights?”

“My merchandise is quite pricey,” DuBois said huffily, his French accent now more apparent, “and my security guard isn’t here. Forgive me for taking precautions.”

Jessie groaned to herself. Not the best start to an interview. She tried to change the dynamic as best she could.

“Thank you for meeting with us here, Mr. DuBois,” she said, “we know you had a long flight. We just have a few questions for you. The more forthright you are, the quicker we can leave you.”

"Of course, I will be forthright," he said, still sounding aggrieved.

“That’s great,” Jessie said, losing a bit of patience herself and deciding to use it to her advantage. “I just wanted to be sure because you seem kind of nervous, even after we identified who we are. Why is that?”

“I am not nervous,” he insisted. “I just don’t know what this is regarding.”

“Here’s what it’s regarding,” Susannah said, holding up images of the two masks taken after they’d been removed from the victims’ faces. “These masks belonged to Richard and Cynthia Hartley. What can you tell us about how they got them?”

DuBois peered closely at the masks for several seconds before returning his attention to his interrogators.

“I don’t know the names you mentioned,” he said, “but I think I know the origin of the purchase. May I check my computer?”

They followed him back to his office, passing glassed display cases of masks lining the walls. The back office was tiny, and they had to stand in the doorway while he typed away for a bit.

“As I suspected,” he announced proudly, as if he was Sherlock Holmes about to crack the case for them. “Those masks were purchased as part of a bulk order.”

When he didn’t elaborate, Jessie pressed him.

“Who placed the order and what was it for?” she asked.

“I’d rather not say.”

"You don't get to 'rather not say,'" Susannah said sharply.

The man, despite her warning, still looked torn.

“Please understand, those masks together were worth nearly $20,000. The entire order they were a part of, which included eight other masks, was worth over $215,000. I’m reluctant to alienate such a lucrative client by sending the police to harass them.”

Jessie felt Susannah stiffen next to her and jumped in before her partner blew up entirely.

“Mr. DuBois,” she said, keeping her tone aggressively polite, “did our researcher tell you what this was all about?”

She knew the answer to that question but wanted to lead the man down her preferred path slowly.

“No,” he said, “she was unwilling to provide details.”

“There was a good reason for that,” Jessie said, “But I’m going to tell you now. Your masks were found on the faces of two dead bodies earlier today.”

He gasped. She pressed ahead, ignoring it.

"So you can see why we're interested," she said. "We deal with lots of dead bodies in our job, but very few of them are wearing expensive masquerade ball masks. Now, that could just be a coincidence, but I kind of doubt it. So we're going to pursue this issue. Now, you can continue to be difficult, in which case we'll have to get a court order to check your sales records. That may require us to shut down your shop for a while. And in the end, we'll get the information we need and end up speaking to your client anyway. Or you can cooperate, avoid putting me and my partner in a worse mood than we are already, and perhaps we'll take your help into account when we speak to them. With that in mind, would you care to share the identity of the client who ordered those masks?"

DuBois didn’t think about it for long. He grabbed a business card from his desk and scribbled on it.

“Her name is Valentina Russo,” he said, almost mournfully, as she handed over the card. “She’s an event planner for a company called Arresting Affairs. I don’t know what events the masks are for. I asked once and she wasn’t forthcoming, so I decided not to pursue it again. I was just happy for the business.”

“Does she purchase masks regularly?” Susannah asked, taking the card.

“This is her third order in the last eighteen months,” he said. “The previous one was for a dozen masks, but the first one was much larger, for twenty-five. As they’re all hand-crafted by artists, mostly in Europe, it took some time to secure them all.”

“And she never said a word about why she purchased almost fifty super-expensive masks?” Susannah reconfirmed.

“Not once,” DuBois said. “I found that quite notable.”

“How did she pay for them?” Jessie wondered, though she had an idea.

“Always with cash,” he answered. “She arrived in a big SUV with two armed security guards. One placed the masks in a large travel trunk and then in their vehicle while the other kept watch. It was more than a little intimidating.”

"Thank you, Mr. DuBois," Jessie said. "We'll do our best not to upend your relationship with your client as long as they're above board as well. Let me ask you this though, if you had to guess what these cash-bought, hand-made, jewelry-encrusted masks were for, what you say?"

“If it’s alright with you,” he said, looking rattled by the question. “I’d just a soon not guess.”

Jessie understood his reticence. His business was caught up in a murder investigation, and one of his clients seemed pretty sketchy. He might not be willing to venture a guess, but Jessie had a few ideas. And she was anxious to pay Valentina Russo a visit to get some answer

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Kat pretended like this was just a lazy Sunday evening.

As she sat on the couch at Jessie and Ryan’s place, she sipped the hot chocolate that Hannah had made for her and made no mention of how she’d spent two hours this afternoon casing the courthouse where Ash Pierce would be appearing for a hearing tomorrow.

They’d spent most of the time she’d been here discussing Ryan’s hope to return to work soon, though the expression on Hannah’s face suggested she thought it might take longer than he did.

“Enough about me,” Ryan finally said. “How are you doing in the seventy-two hours since I last saw you?”

“Oh, not much different,” Kat said, deflecting as she turned her attention to Hannah. “But I’m bored with myself. I want to hear how our campus sleuth is doing these days.”

She could tell that Hannah knew what she was doing but thankfully, she apparently decided to play along anyway.

“I actually haven’t been doing much sleuthing lately,” Hannah said. “There hasn’t been a lot of free time. With my return visits here the last few weekends and the school workload lately, I’ve been focused mostly on academics.”

“I thought you said the classes were too easy for you,” Kat said.

“They were in the first two quarters,” Hannah confirmed, “but this spring has been challenging. Still, I’m getting by.”

“And the social life?” Kat asked, leadingly, well-aware of Hannah’s on-again, off-again flirtation with a student named Finn Anderton.

“We’ll save that for another time,” Hannah told her cryptically.

“She keeps saying that,” Ryan said, enjoying teasing her slightly.

“And I’ll continue to,” Hannah replied, leaving it at that, “but speaking of school, I should probably head back. Traffic will be lighter at this hour, but it will still take me 45 minutes to get there. Will you be good on your own, Ryan?”

He nodded.

“Yeah. I don’t expect to do much more than move from the couch to the bed for the rest of the evening. I think I can handle that, even if Jessie doesn’t make it back tonight.”

“You don’t think she will?” Kat asked.

Ryan looked over at Hannah, who seemed to know better than him.

“He was sleeping the last time I spoke to her,” she explained, “but it sounded like it might be a late night.”

Kat wasn’t surprised to hear it. She couldn’t remember the last time Jessie had handled a case that was tied up in a nice bow within standard working hours.

“Do you want me to stick around?” she asked Ryan, “just in case you need anything?”

“No,” he said, “thanks for asking but I’ll be fine.”

“Okay, but don’t hesitate to call if you need anything overnight.”

“I will,” he said, though she doubted he would.

“Do we want to walk each other out?” Hannah asked her. It was clear from her tone that there was something that she wanted to discuss outside of Ryan’s presence.

“Sure,” Kat said.

They walked to the front door, where Hannah inputted an eight-digit code on the keypad panel on the wall.

“I’ve activated the overnight security protocol,” she called back to Ryan, “you cool with that?”

“I prefer it,” he shouted back.

They checked the four-screen monitor by the door before stepping outside. Every camera view was clear, and the heat signature map showed nothing unusual in the area. Hannah undid the security bar lock that ran horizontally across the middle of the door, along with the two separate dead bolts and the chain lock before opening the steel-reinforced door.

Kat knew from experience that once they stepped outside and closed it, all the locks, save for the chain, would automatically snap into place. It might seem like overkill, but they all knew it wasn’t. Jessie had been the target of multiple serial killers, not to mention other vengeance-seeking criminals.

And despite their precautions, the man who’d poisoned Ryan and assaulted Jessie had managed to get into their home while Jessie was tending to Ryan. These security measures were more than justified, and with Ryan still not back to full strength, it was reassuring to know the house was well-locked down.

They waited for the sounds of the locks sliding into place and the three long beeps from inside, indicating that the overnight protocol was active. Only then did they walk out to their cars, which were parked next to each other on the street.

“So what’s the deal?” Hannah asked as they walked down the path.

“What do you mean?” Kat said unconvincingly.

“Come on, Kat, don’t make me do this dance,” Hannah replied, pausing and turning to her. “You promised me that you would stop obsessing over the Ash Pierce case. How’s that going?”

“I have my ups and downs,” Kat said vaguely, “but I feel good about where I’m at.”

“What does that mean?” Hannah demanded, unconvinced. “Jury selection for her trial starts in a week. There’s another hearing tomorrow. Are you honestly telling me that you haven’t thought about that?”

“Of course I’ve thought about it,” Kat answered indignantly, “but that doesn’t mean I’m obsessing.”

"Okay," Hannah said, relenting slightly. "Just tell me this then. When was the last time you were at the courthouse? Yesterday? Today?"

“I live downtown,” Kat protested. “I pass by it all the time.”

“That’s not what I mean, and you know it,” Hannah protested. “I’d bet a pastry from that coffee shop you hang out at across the street from the courthouse that you were there today.”

“Have you been following me?” Kat challenged.

Hannah smiled.

“I haven’t,” she said. “I’ve been cooped up in this house all day, but your answer tells me everything I need to know. So you broke your promise.”

Kat struggled to fight off a smile herself, despite getting the third degree. Hannah’s perceptive skills seemed to be improving every day. Pretty soon, the young woman would leave both her and Jessie in the dust.

“I promised to try not to obsess," she shot back, not in the mood to verbalize the compliment in her head right now... "I didn't say I'd be successful. And I certainly didn't agree to just throw my hands up and leave it to the dubious security efforts of the L.A. court system to make sure a trained CIA assassin is kept under lock and key."

“Keeping people under lock and key is what they do, Kat,” Hannah told her. “They spend all day dealing with violent offenders, often murderers, transporting them safely to legal proceedings and then back to jail. They’re the exact right people for the job.”

“First of all, they didn’t do such a great job when Pierce escaped and killed four guards, then came after you,” Kat said sharply. “You do remember that?”

“Considering that she came looking for me right after she got loose, yeah, I have some recollection,” Hannah replied. “That’s why I have confidence that they’ve made adjustments.”

“They’ve made adjustments for a run-of-the-mill killer, not for a woman who’s an expert in evasion and escape,” Kat countered.

“And you still don’t believe that she lost her memory and might have lost some of those evasion skills along the way?”

Kat shook her head vehemently.

“You know I don’t buy her amnesia story,” she admitted, “but that doesn’t really matter. Whether the memory loss is legit or not, she still has that skill set buried in her brain somewhere. On top of that, she’s well aware that her freedom is on the line. She doesn’t have to recall who she was to know what she can do.”

Hannah sighed as they reached their cars.

“So what are you going to do,” she asked, “sneak into the courtroom and take her out before she can make a move?”

Kat smiled.

“I don’t need to sneak into the courtroom,” she said. “Technically, I have every right to be there, just like you do. But to answer your question, I have a friend on the inside who’s been letting me in a side entrance for every proceeding. That way, I don’t have to deal with the press or curious onlookers. I haven’t missed a single hearing in this case. And you can bet that I’ll be there tomorrow. And once the trial starts the next week, I’ll be there every day for that too.”

Hannah seemed to take that information in stride. While she may not have known what Kat had been doing, she didn’t look surprised.

“What about your job, Kat?” she asked. “You’re a private investigator. Isn’t it going to cut into your income stream a little if you have to beg off on following a cheating husband or someone committing insurance fraud to watch every minute of the Ash Pierce trial?”

“It’s a risk I’m willing to take,” Kat said defiantly.

Hannah, looking defeated, unlocked her car door and was about to get in. But then she stopped and turned back.

"I get how you feel," she said softly. "You know I do. Pierce tortured and nearly killed you. I was there. But she tried to kill me, too—multiple times. So I know how dangerous she is. I'm not pretending otherwise. But I came to a realization a while back that I hope you reach sometime soon."

“What that?” Kat asked.

"You can't live your life fixated on her or you won't have any kind of life," Hannah said. "Eventually, she's going to be in a small cell for the rest of her days. But if you don't move past this, you're going to be in a cell too, one of your own creation."

“I hear you,” Kat assured her.

“I know you hear me,” Hannah said. “The question is whether you believe what I’m saying is true.”

Kat didn’t want to condescend to her young friend, and she didn’t want to deceive her any longer either. So she answered as truthfully as she could.

“I believe that you believe it,” she said. “But I believe something else.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Jessie didn’t blame the woman.

If someone had knocked on the door of her apartment, unannounced, at eight at night, she’d have been reluctant to answer too.

But they didn't have any choice. After getting Valentina Russo's contact information from Marcel DuBois, they'd called multiple times without a response. They'd had Jamil check for other ways to reach her. She didn't have a landline, but she did have three e-mail addresses and multiple social media accounts to which they'd sent direct messages.

But they hadn’t heard back from any of them by the time they reached the West Hollywood residential tower where Russo lived, so they went up to say “hi.” Before that, they had to negotiate the wild lobby scene.

Apparently, this tower was home to primarily young residents who liked a party vibe. That explained the loud dance music playing the second they walked through the doors, as well as the crowd of about two dozen people hanging out loudly in a lounge. Jessie noted multiple empty beer bottles and some half full liquor ones too.

Seeing the scene made her feel old. She was only 31, but she felt completely out of place here. Part of that was all the aches and pains she'd accumulated that made her feel a decade older than her actual age. But it wasn't just that. If she wasn't working right now, she'd be on the couch next to Ryan, watching bad TV while noshing on popcorn. Or better yet, she's be in jammies, getting ready for bed. Instead, she was at a homemade rave.

“These are your people,” she teased Susannah. “If you want to party with them after we talk to Russo, I’ll understand.”

“I know I give off that energy,” Susannah said, “but nothing looks less appealing to me right now than that.”

They approached the security guard, a forty-something, slightly paunchy guy who didn’t seem to be any more enthused to be there than they did. Susannah held out her badge for him.

“We need to see Valentina Russo,” she said. “Is she in?”

He glanced at the badge, then nodded.

“She got home about an hour ago.”

“You sure?” Jessie asked. “She came through the lobby?”

“No, she parked in the underground garage,” he said. “But you have to swipe your entry card to get access to it and to the elevator. I always check to make sure the card matches the person on the video camera. It was her.”

“We’ll need access to the elevator too,” Susannah told him.

Five minutes later they were standing at the woman’s door, ringing her bell for a second time after having knocked twice as well, each time identifying themselves as LAPD. They hadn’t gotten any response at all.

“Let’s try a different tack,” Jessie suggested.

“You want me to shoot the door handle?” Susannah asked with a smile, playfully putting her hand on her holster.

“That can be next on the list,” Jessie replied, “But late me take a different kind of shot first.”

Susannah removed her hand and shrugged. Jessie knocked a third time.

“Ms. Russo,” she called out loudly enough for everyone on the floor to hear her, “we’re getting concerned for your welfare. If you don’t open the door in the next ten seconds, we’re going to have to break it down.”

Jessie saw someone down the hall open his door, pop his head out, and then quickly close it again. She waited ten seconds, hoping they wouldn’t have to go through with the actual process of physically forcing their way in. Just as she was about to resign herself to that fate, they heard a lock click open.

The door opened slightly to reveal a young, dark-haired woman. They already knew that she was twenty-five and what she looked like generally from the driver’s license photo Jamil had sent them on the way over. But as was almost always the case, that image didn’t do the woman justice. Even at this late hour, without much makeup and with her hair tied back in a ponytail, she was attractive.

"Hi," Jessie said casually, as if they hadn't had such a difficult time getting that door open. "I'm Jessie Hunt, and this is LAPD Detective Susannah Valentine. We need your help with an ongoing investigation."

“I don’t know anything about an investigation,” Russo said defiantly.

“There’s no reason you should,” Jessie told her, trying to keep the conversational vibe going. “That’s why we’re here—to fill you in and get your assistance. So if you could please let us in, we can chat and then be on our way.”

“I was about to go to sleep,” Russo objected.

Jessie doubted that but kept it to herself. She also did her best not to give off the impression that what Valentina Russo wanted to do was irrelevant. She could almost hear the desire to say exactly that radiating off Susannah beside her.

"We understand," Jessie said calmly, choosing not to voice her skepticism that a 25-year-old like Russo went to bed at 8 p.m., "but this is a very important case. You'll still be able to get to bed afterward, but we're going to insist that you talk with us first. When it comes to investigating crimes, public safety takes priority over comfort. You understand, I'm sure."

Russo did not, in fact, look like she understood or much cared, but she did seem to sense that refusing a request from the police might not be well received. So she reluctantly held the door open for them. Jessie was unsurprised to find that Russo—who claimed to be about to go to sleep—was wearing designer yoga tights and a form-fitting tank top. It didn't seem like traditional sleepwear.

“What’s the deal, Val?” an irritated male voice asked from somewhere in the apartment.

A second later, a thickly built guy of about thirty with closely cropped black hair, stepped out of what Jessie assumed was the bedroom. He was shirtless and wore tight sweatpants. Jessie was pretty sure she recognized him. Then it hit her.

“Just give me a minute, Coy,” Russo said without looking back.

But that didn’t seem to appease Coy, who walked toward them with a certitude that bordered on arrogance. He stopped about ten feet from the doorway that Jessie and Susannah had just stepped through.

“Do we have some kind of problem?” he demanded.

“Who’s this fella?” Susannah asked Russo, not bothering to address the guy directly.

“Just a friend from work,” the woman said defensively. “I’m letting him crash here for a few days.”

“Hi, ‘friend from work,’” Susannah said, clearly amused. “Coy is it?”

“Your friend Coy looks a lot like a security guard for your employer, Arresting Affairs,” Jessie noted wryly, recalling the photos that Jamil had sent them of the guards who might have been with Russo when she collected the masks. She knew that calling that out would make Russo nervous and agitate Coy.

“How do you know about our work?” he barked. “And who do you think you are, barging in here at this hour?”

Jessie glanced over at Susannah and gave her best “please stay cool” expression. Her partner nodded in understanding before replying.

“First of all,” she said saccharinely, “we didn’t barge in. Val let us in. Secondly, we’re with the Los Angeles Police Department, so slow your roll, tough guy. We’re going to have a chat with your co-worker, so you can either return to the boudoir or take a hike. What you can’t do is stand there without a shirt, demanding answers. Which is going to be, big boy?”

The guy seemed torn. He clearly didn't appreciate being knocked down to size by a woman who looked less like a cop than a lingerie model. But he also didn't seem to want to push too hard and end up in a bad spot. Finally, he made his decision.

“I’ll be in the bedroom,” he pouted before trying to salvage some dignity. “Call me if you need me, Val.”

No one said anything as he retreated to the other room. Susannah followed him and made a point of closing the bedroom door. When she returned, they re-focused their attention on Russo.

“Have a seat,” Susannah said. The young woman did as instructed, sitting on a cushioned chair. Jessie sat on the loveseat opposite her. Susannah remained standing.

“We’re going to get straight to the point,” Jessie told her, leaning forward. “If you’re forthright with us, we can be out of here quickly. But if you hem and haw, this is going to take a while, and I have to tell you, we’ve both had a long, exhausting day and would love to avoid that. Are we all clear?”

Russo nodded sullenly.

“We know you purchased multiple bulk orders of masquerade ball masks from Marcel DuBois’s shop, Belle of the Ball. What were they for?”

Russo’s face grew hard, even as her skin turned pink.

“I can’t say,” she told them. “I have a confidentiality agreement.”

"We understand that," Jessie said sympathetically. "I'm sure that sort of thing was a priority for a client who ordered potentially millions of dollars' worth of these masks. But we're investigating a serious crime, and that trumps your agreement. Eventually, you're going to have to tell us. So you can do it now without having to incur any legal costs to fight the request. Or this can get very bureaucratic, which would look awful for you and your client, what with the whole crime investigation thing. They probably wouldn't love the publicity either. So let's keep this simple and quiet, and you just tell us, okay?"

Russo squirmed in her chair.

“Are you able to protect me so that my client doesn’t come after me, like legally and stuff?”

“Yes,” Susannah said, without any of her usual snark. “Confidentiality agreements and NDAs can’t be used to prevent reporting a crime. And this is a serious crime investigation. You’re covered.”

Jessie noted that Susannah didn’t add how talking to them might impact Russo’s future employment. Her client might not be able to sue her, but they could put pressure on her boss, who could probably find a pretext to fire her. If it came to that, Jessie would testify on her behalf. But that was an issue for another day.

“Okay,” Russo said, still sounding reluctant. “But can I ask what crime this involves?”

“We’ll see if we can share that afterward,” Jessie told her. “For now, we need to know what the masks are for.”

Russo glanced back at the closed bedroom door, as if worried that Coy might come out and tell her to keep quiet. But he remained out of sight.

“I work as a party planner,” she finally said. “And one of the events we organize is a party—actually a series of exclusive parties that can get…a little wild.”

“What does that mean exactly?” Susannah pressed.

Russo shrugged, not very convincingly to Jessie’s mind.

“I don’t attend the events,” she insisted. “I just know how they’re billed. They’re very secretive. I was asked to secure these masks via a memo. The specifications were detailed, but I never spoke to anyone in person about them. I did the research on finding a vendor, made sure that the completed masks met the requirements, and then made certain that they were delivered to the specified location.”

“What location?” Jessie asked.

“It changed regularly,” she answered. “Usually it was an abandoned warehouse, a large rented home, or some other off-the-beaten track location. We would learn the location the morning of the party, have the day to decorate it, and if new masks had been ordered, provide those to a representative of the event just before it started. But that last part only happened a few times. Once they had the masks in their possession, they just kept them for future events.”

“Okay,” Jessie said. “So you have to have paperwork on who ran the events, contact information—that sort of thing.”

"Not really," Russo said. "Everything was done in cash, so there were no contracts with names. They insisted on it. I never knew the names of anyone I dealt with. And they never used the same location twice, so there was no possibility of following up that way."

“You were willing to conduct business in that manner,” Susannah wondered. “Organizing these parties and getting these masks without any contracts?”

“Like I said, everything was done in cash,” Russo explained. “And they provided huge deposits each time. We were paid half of the cost of the masks in advance. Same for prepping the venues. Sometimes those payments were well into six figures. In one case, it was close to half a million dollars. So we didn’t ask many questions.”

“You had to have at least done some paperwork to secure those venues,” Susannah said.

“We didn’t secure them, only made them party-ready,” Russo told her. “I have no idea what the financial arrangement was for the venues. I can give you the specific locations, but like I said, often they were just warehouses or empty homes. I’m not sure there was anyone for the event hosts to have contracts with.”

“We’d still definitely like to get those locations—you never know what we’ll uncover,” Jessie said. “Back to the masks for a second. Did the memo explain their purpose? Do you still have it? Was it sent to you electronically?”

“I do have it at the office,” she said. “It was a hard copy. They only do things in person. But I don’t think it will help. It’s very detailed about the colors, the shapes, the number of jewels on each mask—there are even sketches. But the reason for those details is never given.”

“Still, we’ll need that memo too,” Susannah said.

“Now?” Russo asked.

The detective looked over at Jessie for guidance on that one. She was on the fence, while it was clear that Valentina Russo wasn’t being forthright about everything—there was a shiftiness to some of her answers that suggested deception—the answer to the mask questions didn’t seem to be a part of it.

“I think we can wait until morning on that,” Jessie allowed, “as long as you go in early and get it for us first thing.”

“Should I e-mail it to you?”

“No,” Susannah said. “If you got a hard copy, that’s what we want. We’ll also need you to come into the station to work with a sketch artist on everyone you interacted with in person. Was Coy with you for those meetings?”

“He and another guard accompanied me the first few time, but they stayed outside for the actual conversation, and the people I dealt with changed every time since then, so I doubt any guards would be able to give you very good descriptions. I’m not sure mine will be that great either.”

“Nonetheless, we need you to try,” Jessie said. “Did you notice any accents or unusual characteristics about the people you dealt with?”

“No,” Russo said, shaking her head. “I always met with boring white guys with American accents. They all looked similar. Dark hair. Medium height. Average looks. I think that was intentional.”

Jessie nodded, unsurprised. If she was running this enterprise, she’d do the same thing: make the interactions as forgettable as possible.

“Detective Valentine is going to give you her card so you can reach out first thing in the morning,” she said. “You’re to go straight to your office, collect the mask memo, and then come to the police station to meet with us. Understood?”

Russo nodded meekly.

“You’re also not to discuss those plans with Coy,” Susannah said sternly, “or anything else about this for that matter.”

“I don’t know what I would say to him anyway,” she said, frustrated. “You still haven’t told me what this is all about? What crime occurred?”

"For now, you're better off if we don't tell you," Jessie said. "The less you know, the less you can be pressured to share. If Coy asks, tell him we asked about who hosted these events, and you told us you didn't know. That's true, right?"

"Yes," Russo confirmed, her eyes darting away nervously.

Jessie let that go for now. The young woman was definitely hiding something, but this wasn’t time or place to push her on it, with Coy in the other room.

“Then just tell him that,” she instructed. “Say we kept pushing you, but you stuck to your story. Don’t mention your plan for tomorrow morning. You should be good.”

“Okay,” Russo said.

They got up to leave. Jessie could tell that Susannah would have preferred to bring the woman into the station right now. But Jessie feared that she would clam up even more if they tried to pry any more information out of her tonight. Coy might even call their boss to warn about this conversation.

Whatever Valentina Russo was hiding, Jessie was confident that she could discover it tomorrow. Once the woman brought that memo into the station, she was an accomplice to their investigation. She was committed.

That was when they’d really turn the screws

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Lights out was only thirty minutes from now and as Mark Haddonfield lay in the bottom bunk of his cell, he was having trouble deciding what to do.

If he was going to call Jessie Hunt, it needed to be now. The guards in his unit of the Twin Towers Correctional Facility stopped letting inmates make collect calls from the payphones fifteen minutes before lights out.

Mark was well aware that the jury on his case might very well come back with a verdict tomorrow. He had little doubt about the outcome. They were going to find him guilty of multiple counts of murder. He could see it in their eyes. Once that happened, his access to phone calls might be severely limited.

His mother had wanted to hire a private criminal lawyer to defend him, but Mark told her not to. He was nearly certain that he’d be convicted, and he didn’t want her spending her retirement savings in what was sure to be a futile effort. Besides, the public defender who’d argued on his behalf had done an admirable job. But it was always going to be an uphill battle.

There was a mountain of evidence against him, proving that he was responsible for seven murders. And that didn’t even include the testimony of Dr. Janice Lemmon, who was in the hospital room the night that he’d tried to kill Jessie. The prosecutors were so confident in their case that they hadn’t even called Jessie to testify. Even though he would have liked to have seen her up close again, he understood. They didn’t want to subject her to that trauma, and they didn’t really need her anyway.

The truth was that he didn't want to subject her to any more trauma, either. After all, she'd agreed to meet with him to discuss some of her ongoing cases. That's what he'd wanted all along, from back when he tried to enroll in her seminar on criminal profiling at UCLA—to be her protégé.

And in a way, now he was. In exchange for sharing details of cases with her, he'd agreed to renounce his manifesto, an online document that called for his followers to kill her and all of her loved ones. She had promised that even after his inevitable conviction, she would continue to meet with him. He would have liked to think it was because she was warming to him, but he knew deep down that she only came out of obligation.

And he felt an obligation to her, too. That was what the call he was considering making was all about. He wasn't sure when he'd get another chance.

A few weeks ago, on a prison transport bus returning to the jail from court, another prisoner being held there had made him an offer. Ash Pierce, the hitwoman who had tortured and nearly killed Jessie’s best friend, Kat Gentry, not to mention her little sister, Hannah, had suggested that, with their convictions imminent, they work together to escape.

He’d thought about the idea for a long time, weighing the pros and cons. There was one obvious “pro”—he might escape. Ash Pierce was formerly a Marines special operator and an off-book assassin for the CIA. If anyone knew how to do this, it was her. She’d already escaped from one prison transport vehicle. Was it that big a stretch to think that she could do it again, especially if she had assistance?

But then there was the major “con”—he could die. Pierce might be an expert at evasion and escape tactics, but he certainly wasn’t. He was just a tall, skinny college kid with pale skin, curly blond hair and glasses who’d become obsessed with a teacher and killed a bunch of people when she didn’t pay enough attention to him.

That’s not true, his Jessie told him. You deserved that attention!

Mark looked over at the version of Jessie that apparently only he could see, standing in the corner of his cell. His cellmate, a large, heavily bearded guy named Oscar, had given no indication that he’d heard her.

His Jessie had been both a thorn in his side and a great comfort to him. She had kept him sharp when he committed his murders, reminding him not to leave evidence at the scene and cajoling him to finish the job when he grew faint of heart.

But she’d also brutally scolded him from time to time, telling him that he’d never win over the other Jessie, who only deigned to speak to him because she had to. He knew that his Jessie was speaking the truth in those moments, even as she was lying to him now to make him feel better. He could see himself more clearly now than he could in the past, even if his Jessie was still wearing rose-colored glasses. She only wanted the best for him. But this was his call, not hers.

As he sat up in his bunk and swung his feet over onto the floor, he acknowledged that he needed to be honest with himself about his options. There were others besides escape or death. He could tell Jessie or the jail administrator about Pierce’s plan. If his assistance helped foil the escape plans of someone as dangerous as Pierce, it might earn him some post-incarceration consideration—maybe a single-person cell or more free time in the yard.

But if he was going that route, he needed to do it fast. If Pierce tried to escape on her own before he said anything, he’d have wasted his chance. And he would lose a lot of leverage after he was convicted, likely tomorrow. Right now, prosecutors might be open to a plea deal or special privileges if he was helpful. But after the jury had passed judgment on him, there would be a lot less wiggle room.

Of course, if Pierce found out that he’d squealed, there was a real chance that he’d be dead before he could take advantage of any of the perks for doing it. He didn’t know when or how she’d take him out, but she’d find a way. It was her special gift.

That was a big part of why he’d done nothing up until now. No one could get too angry with him if he didn’t upset the status quo. Jessie couldn’t be upset with him for not warning her about an escape plan if she didn’t know that he knew about it. And as long as he kept his mouth shut, Pierce would likely leave him be. At least that’s what he used to think.

Lately, he'd begun to suspect that she might want to eliminate him simply because he knew too much. Right now, everyone thought she was a reformed amnesiac. That gave her at least an outside chance at a hung jury. But not if he came forward to say she had a Machiavellian plan to break out of jail. And if he revealed her plan, the guards would obviously increase security around her, making any escape that much more difficult. Mark knew he was a loose end and feared she might snip it.

But his fear of what Ash Pierce might do to him was less powerful than his desire to please Jessie, not his Jessie but the other one. How grateful would she be when he came clean about what he knew?

Not as grateful as you think, his Jessie hissed. She’s just using you.

“That’s okay,” he whispered back to her. “I’m using her too.”

He realized that he’d already made his choice. Despite his Jessie’s disapproval, he stood, left his cell, and walked over to the nearest guard.

“I need to make a call,” he said.

The guard looked at him with amused indifference.

“It’s too late,” the man told him.

"No, it's not," Mark insisted. "I still have eleven minutes before the cutoff."

“I’m telling you that for tonight, it’s too late,” the guard repeated, seeming to enjoy himself.

“But this is a really important call,” Mark said, deciding to shade the truth a little. “It has to do with my case.”

“You had all evening to call,” the guard said evenly. “If it was that important, you would have done it earlier. Now it’s too late.”

He stared at Mark and his expression suggested that it would be ill-advised to pursue the matter. There was no point in arguing. It wouldn’t get him to the phone, and it might piss off someone who controlled his circumstances.

“Thank you,” he said, hoping he was projecting meekness.

He turned and headed back to his cell, accepting that he’d have to try in the morning before he was transported to court. He entered the cell and sat back down on his sagging mattress. He did his best to keep his frustration in check. He’d learned the hard way that expressing it in here only led to bad outcomes for him.

Instead he focused on something he did have control of. He thought about what was scrawled in crayon on the underside of his mattress. It was simple enough—the initials “J.H.”, followed by a series of numbers. None of that would make any sense to the guards. In fact, they were more likely to assume it was a bible verse than what it really was: a code.

He smiled to himself as he thought about it. In his box of personal effects, locked away in Twin Towers’ secure storage room, was a necklace with what looked like a large pillar bar pendant. It was admittedly a little elaborate for a twenty-two-year-old dude. But it had to be to hide what it really was.

The pendant was actually a tiny flash drive designed to look like jewelry. And on that flash drive was information that could be useful to any number of people. But it was only intended for one of them: J.H.—Jessie Hunt—the initials written in crayon on the underside of his mattress. And it could only be accessed via the code that followed those initials.

He wondered if he should mention the mattress when he talked to Jessie tomorrow morning in case he was transferred immediately after his conviction. No, that would have to wait. His calls could be recorded, and he didn't want the wrong person to hear such valuable information. He'd have to wait until he saw her in person to share that tidbit. It was his trump card, and he didn't want to risk losing it.

For now, there was a more pressing matter. Ash Pierce wanted to escape, and she’d asked for his help. That nugget might not be worth as much as what was on the flash drive, but it had to be worth something. He’d find out tomorrow

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Jessie’s eyelids felt like they had weights attached to them.

It was well past 11 P.M. now, and she was really struggling. The last few hours hadn't been as fruitful as she would have liked.

After leaving Valentina Russo’s apartment and returning to the station, she and Susannah had harbored hopes that, with the help of Jamil and Beth, they would have found some connection between these wild parties that she had helped organize and their victims, Richard and Cynthia Hartley. But they’d hit dead end after dead end.

Russo had turned over the locations and dates for all the secret parties going back nearly two years. Like she had said, they were never held at the same place twice. Amazingly, there was almost nothing in the way of ownership records. Yes, the warehouses often had owners, just like the empty houses. But they were never the same, and based on the calls that the team had made so far, the owners were totally unaware, even now, that their properties had been used for parties of any kind, much less secret, extremely wild ones. To make matters worse, the last date that Russo gave them for a party was four months ago. After that, the trail went completely cold.

Even more frustrating, Jamil’s analysis of both Hartley’s phone and vehicle GPS data showed that neither of them had ever been to any of the party locations. There was no indication, other than the masks, that they had ever been to any of them.

And yet, they were wearing the masks when they were found. It was always possible that whoever killed them brought the masks with them, that they didn’t belong to the Hartleys at all, and that trying to tie them to the parties was a waste of time.

But Jessie didn’t buy that. The parties were somehow relevant, if not to the victims, then at least to their killer. She was sure that if she could find any connection between the couple and these events, it would unlock all kinds of other possibilities. And if only the cobwebs of exhaustion clouding her brain could be swept away, she felt certain that she could find the key to that lock.

Her phone rang, interrupting her train of thought. It was Ryan. He should have been long asleep by now. That fact he was calling had her concerned, and she picked up before the end of the first ring.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” he said, sounding surprised by the question.

“I just thought you’d have gone to bed by now,” Jessie said. “What’s up?”

“I was actually in bed, starting to drift off when I got a reminder on my phone,” he said. “You know we still have that appointment with the adoption counselor tomorrow, right?”

In fact, Jessie had completely forgotten. She tried to avoid admitting that.

“Remind me of the exact time again,” she asked.

“3 P.M., at the house,” he told her. “With the case and everything, are you still going to be able to make it or should we postpone?”

“I hope to be there,” she answered. “Can we decide for certain closer to the appointment?”

There was a long moment of silence on the other end of the line before he responded.

“I don’t think it’s a great look to cancel on the day of the appointment,” he finally said. “It doesn’t ooze super responsible. Besides, you’re the one who’s been pushing hard to go the adoption route. I would have thought you’d want to do everything to move the process along. Are you reconsidering?”

“No,” she said quickly. “I’ll be there one way or another.”

She wanted to keep the appointment, if for no other reason than to keep the alternative off the table. If adoption plans fell through, Ryan might again push to discuss having a child the old fashioned way. That was a conversation she didn’t want to repeat.

She’d already told him about her concerns about how well her battered body would hold up during a pregnancy, as well as her apprehensions about putting her profiling career on hold right when it was taking off. But lately another concern had loomed larger for her than either of those, one she hadn’t had to think about in great depth because it seemed moot now.

Though she’d never admitted it to Ryan, deep down, she held onto a fear that couldn’t be easily set aside. Both she and her sister, Hannah, fought a constant battle against a bloodlust that simmered inside them, always waiting to boil over.

Though she couldn't prove it, Jessie had come to believe that it was a cruel gift passed down from their shared serial killer father, Xander Thurman. Both of them had, after early trauma in their childhoods, grown up in loving adoptive families. But the bloodthirstiness still lingered inside both of them. That couldn't be a coincidence. Could it?

Lately, with therapy, treatment in a facility, and the support of loved ones, Hannah seemed to have gotten a handle on it. In fact, she seemed to be thriving. But Jessie could never forget that her sister had once killed a man in cold blood, right before her eyes. Admittedly, he was a serial killer who had been hunting them. But he had been in custody when she shot him. That couldn’t be wiped away.

Jessie had decided to pour her vengeful energy into profiling, in part to atone for her father’s crimes, but also because she was good at understanding the psyches of people who could do these things. It didn’t seem alien to her. And by bringing them to justice, her urge to violently punish those she deemed unworthy had, until recently, been curbed.

But it had come back with a fury of late, something she was painfully aware of. And if it was still in her, as it was still in Hannah, what was to prevent that desire from being passed on to a child she bore? She had no scientific proof that such a thing was a certainty or even likely. And yet here she was, living proof that the possibility might be real.

"Jessie?" Ryan said. She realized that he'd been talking, but none of his words had registered.

“Sorry, what was that again?” she asked.

“Just making sure that you’re okay. You got awful quiet.

“I’m good,” she assured him. “But it’s late. You should get some sleep.”

"I'd ask you how the case is going," he said, "but it would probably only make me more stir-crazy when I'm supposed to be settling in for the night."

"Believe me, I get it," she assured him. She was about to say her final goodnight when Susannah got a call on her phone. She held up her screen for Jessie to see. It was Captain Parker.

“Sorry to cut this short,” Jessie said quickly, “but something just came up. I love you. Get some sleep.”

“I love you too,” he said just before she ended the call.

Susannah, who had been anxiously waiting with her finger next to the “answer” button, pushed it.

"Hi, Captain," she said. "You're on speaker with me and Jessie, as well as Jamil and Beth."

“I’m glad you’re all there,” Parker said. “I just got a call from Captain Pryor in Hollywood Division. He’s got a victim that he thinks might be a fit for your case.”

“What makes him say that?” Susannah asked.

“The woman was found dead in her bed, naked, except for a bejeweled masquerade ball mask on her face.”

Jessie stood up so fast that her vision went black for a moment. But she responded anyway.

“Please send us the address,” she said. “We’re going to the car now.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

As they pulled up at the address twenty minutes later, Jessie looked out the car window.

At this late hour on a Sunday night—approaching midnight—traffic was minimal, even in the heart of Hollywood. The victim lived in a large apartment tower near the corner of Sunset and Vine. It wasn’t immediately obvious that a crime had been committed here. There were two squad cars and a crime scene truck on site, but they were parked a half block up, giving the impression that they might be here for an incident that happened on the street rather than inside.

Susannah parked in a loading zone right in front of the building and they hopped out, rushing up the stairs to giant, locked glass doors. Susannah rapped on the glass to get the attention of the security guard, who was talking to an LAPD officer. The guard, a portly man in his fifties, shook his head as if he ran a business and was telling them it was closed for the night.

Susannah slammed her badge against the glass, which seemed to have an impact. The guard, along with the officer, a tall, youngish Latino man with uncertainty in his eyes, walked over. When they were close enough to hear, Susannah shouted, "We're handling the case. Open the door."

The officer nodded at the guard, who pushed a button to the left of the door. A lock automatically clicked. Once he opened the door, Susannah stepped in with Jessie close behind.

“We saw the CSU truck out front but no medical examiner van,” Susannah said, dispensing with any pleasantries. “Are they not here yet?”

"Not yet, Detective," the officer said. "There was a drive-by shooting near the corner of Fountain and La Brea about an hour ago. There were two fatalities, and this late on a Sunday, they're a little short-handed. I've been told someone will be here in the next thirty minutes though."

“Okay, tell us where we’re going,” Susannah said.

“14th floor,” he said. “Apartment 1406 at the end of the hall.”

They went to the elevators with the guard, who had to swipe his access card to unlock the buttons. He pressed 14. The door was about to close when Jessie stopped it.

“What time do you lock those front doors?” she asked him.

“10 P.M.,” he said. “After that, residents need to swipe cards like this for entry or be admitted by me.”

"What about earlier in the day?" Jessie pressed. "Do non-residents have to sign in, or could they just walk in after someone else does and head upstairs?"

"In theory, everyone is supposed to sign in," he answered, "but I have to be honest. Sometimes people slip through the cracks. This building has twenty-one floors with ten units on each one. There are well over four hundred residents. I don't claim to know each one on sight. Sometimes, people get by when it's busy. I've had food delivery people come out of the elevator after dropping something off and didn't even realize they'd gone upstairs. I do my best, but I'm one guy working a ten-hour shift."

“Do you have video cameras in the elevators, stairwells, and residential hallways?”

“Yes to the first two, along with the fitness center, the parking garage, and the lobby here,” the guard said, “but not to the individual floors.”

“Sergeant Frank, who’s upstairs, already requested everything from today,” the officer told them. “One of our people is processing it all now. It should all be available soon, certainly by the morning.”

“Great,” Jessie said, handing over a card. “Make sure it gets sent to our research team as soon as it’s ready.”

She let the elevator doors close. As it started upward, Susannah looked over at her.

“Any preliminary thoughts, Ms. Hunt?” she asked.

“Nothing brilliant just yet,” Jessie conceded. “I’ll be curious to check out what’s on those cameras, but the truth is that whoever did this was likely aware of them too. I doubt we’re going to find someone putting on latex gloves as they stare up at the elevator security camera. Our killer might have snuck in here twelve hours ago with a big group. Or they could be a resident with access to the whole place.”

“Hopefully, the officers in the room will have clues,” Susannah said. “What do we know about this woman again?”

“According to what Beth pulled together while we drove over,” Jessie said, looking at her phone, “the victim’s name is Evelyn Channing. She’s twenty-six and works in marketing for a record label. She went to school at USC, graduated four years ago, and moved to this address about eight months ago soon after she got a promotion. She’s also quite attractive.”

Jessie held out her phone to show Susannah a headshot of Channing from the record label's website. On the screen was a blonde with bright blue eyes and a vivacious, high-wattage smile.

The elevator doors opened, and they were met by an officer who was blocking the hallway in the direction of Channing’s apartment, making sure that no lookie-loos got by. They displayed their credentials and headed to the end of the hall, where they again showed their IDs to another officer, who stepped aside to let them in.

Once they entered, Jessie took in the place. It was more impressive than the building’s exterior, which was fine, but essentially a cookie-cutter residential tower. Channing had done up her apartment to reflect her interest in music.

There were posters of album covers from multiple eras on the walls, framed like pieces of art. A bookshelf that took up half of an entire wall was filled with vinyl albums instead of books. Jessie guessed that there were over three hundred of them. Even her furniture reflected her love of the music industry.

A circular coffee table in the living room looked like an actual LP. It was black with grooves and album information in the center. When she looked more closely, Jessie saw that it was from Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours. The throw pillows on the couches had recreations of famous album covers from Michael Jackson’s Thriller to Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks to Pixies’ Doolittle.

It was admittedly a little cheesy and not what Jessie would have anticipated, based on Channing’s website photo. The woman’s personal vibe seemed more akin to a male rock critic in his early forties than a stunning twenty-something music executive. It was a reminder that as a profiler, she needed to check her assumptions at the door.

Just then, a man Jessie recognized stepped out of the bedroom. It was Sergeant Robert Frank. In his late forties, Frank’s belly was fighting his belt and what little hair he had left was more gray than brown. Jessie and Susannah had handled a case with him once before, and while he had exuded a worn out, beaten-down demeanor most of the time, he’d proven to be a competent professional. They could have been dealt a worse hand.

“Hello again, Sergeant,” she said as he approached.

“Ms. Hunt, Detective Valentine,” he replied, nodding. “Thanks for coming so quickly.”

“Thanks for reaching out,” Valentine replied. “Did you call us because you’d heard about the prior case or just because the scene was so unusual?”

"A little of both," he said. "As soon as my people described the scene, it sounded really out there, so I checked the database and found your case in Hancock Park. Didn't seem like a coincidence. There was one other reason, too."

“What’s that?” Jessie asked, noting the ominous note in his tone.

"The only reason we found her was because of an anonymous tip. Someone called 911 from the victim's cell phone to report the dead body. Then, they left the line open. I believe the killer wanted this woman found fast rather than wait for friends or co-workers to get worried after not hearing from her for days."

“That was a risk,” Susannah noted. “If there was an officer in the immediate area when the dispatcher put the alert out, the killer might have been caught leaving the building.”

“That means they considered it a risk worth taking,” Jessie noted. “They wanted their work to get full credit right away. Apparently, after having to wait for the Hartleys’ bodies to be discovered the next morning, they didn’t want to take any chances. Whoever this is, it doesn’t appear that delayed satisfaction is up their alley.”

Sergeant Frank nodded in silent agreement.

“Did you find any sign of forced entry?” Susannah asked.

“No,” he said. “Your tech people will want to verify it, but we think they swiped an access card to gain entry. This might be a fancy apartment complex, but the cards are no better than at a cheap motel. They can be duped easily if someone has even basic skills. We also think they might have snuck in while Channing was in the shower.”

“Why do you say that?” Jessie asked.

“I’ll show you if you’re ready to go in the bedroom now. Jessie looked over at Susannah and nodded that she was. The followed the sergeant through the door. Jessie made sure not to look at the bed yet as he led them to the bathroom. They stopped at the threshold.

“The shower interior is still wet, as is the towel,” he said, pointing at the giant bath sheet lying in a heap on the floor. “Plus her body was still damp when we arrived, along with her hair.”

“You ready to take a look?” Susannah asked her.

“Yeah,” Jessie said, girding herself for what was to come.

They walked over the bed and Jessie’s scanned the body on it. The first thing she noted was that, as Sergeant Frank had indicated, her naked body still had beads of water on it. The comforter was damp, as was her hair, which was splayed out, Medusa-like, around her head. Her arms and legs had also been spread out like a recreation of Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man at its widest point.

She was wearing a mask. It was clearly in the same style as the Hartleys’, but this one was adorned with a dozen small rubies, some above the eyes slots, some on the cheeks as if intended to give the impression of them being flushed.

Unlike with the Hartleys, it was clear where on her body the killer had made their initial assault. A large bump protruded from the upper back right section of her head, and there was some goopy, coagulated blood matted in her wet blonde hair. Jessie guessed that she'd been knocked out as she exited her shower, then dragged to the bed, where she’d been positioned like this before she was murdered.

As she stared at the young woman, Jessie felt a wave of empathetic loss overcome her. Evelyn Channing was in the prime of her life, beautiful and clearly doing what she was passionate about. And all that had been snuffed out in a matter of minutes.

Jessie sensed another emotion pushing the empathy out of the way and asserting itself. It was a familiar feeling, especially lately. It was as if acid was churning in her gut, a pit of venom that she wanted to spit at whoever was responsible for this act.

She had a flash of herself grabbing something heavy, maybe one of the dumbbells she saw in the corner of the room and using to smash in the skull of the perpetrator. She pictured it cracking like an egg, then saw herself pounding it over and over again, until the brains oozed out. Turnabout was fair play. She had to literally shake the image out of her head as she tried to refocus on the task at hand.

"You should have those dumbbells by the foot of the bed checked by CSU," she told Sergeant Frank, pointing at them. "One of them might have been used to knock her out. I doubt there will be prints or DNA, but it's worth looking at."

“Will do,” he said, scribbling on a little notepad he’d pulled out.

“And you should have her pillows bagged and tested for saliva,” she added. “The medical examiner at the last scene determined that the victims were knocked out but still alive. The killer used their pillow to suffocate them, then placed the masks on their faces.”

“Okay,” Frank said, looking visibly disturbed, which was a rarity for him.

“Anything else?” Jessie asked, turning to Susannah.

The detective sighed in frustration.

“Since the killer used it, we should have Channing’s phone tested too,” she suggested, “but like the dumbbells, I doubt we’ll find anything on them. Maybe Jamil could do voice analysis on the 911 call, help us narrow down potential suspects.”

“I listened to it,” Frank told them. “It appeared to have been altered, but the voice sounded clearly male to me.”

Jessie nodded. If verified, that would help a little, but she didn’t want to put too much emphasis on it. There were a lot of guys in L.A.

“I hate to say it,” Susannah muttered, “but this ugliness has at least one positive.”

“What’s that?” Sergeant Frank asked.

Jessie answered, giving the same response she knew Susannah would have.

“It gives us fresh evidence,” she said. “More potential clues on the body. But from our perspective, it also offers additional lines of inquiry. We’d kind of hit a brick wall before we got your call. Maybe this will send us in a new direction.”

She didn’t mention it out loud, but she was already wondering if they’d be able to connect Channing to any of the warehouse or mansion parties. Or to the Hartleys?

She turned to Susannah, who said exactly what she was thinking too.

“We’ve got a long night ahead of us.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Jessie decided it was time for more coffee.

Even though there were no windows in the research department, her phone told her that the sun was just starting to rise. She figured that after being up all night, she might as well at least try to follow some standard, accepted Monday morning behavior.

“I’m getting coffee,” she said, standing up. “Anyone want some?”

“I’ll take a cup,” Susannah said, running her hand through her hair, which was developing a greasy sheen.

“Me too,” Beth requested.

“Not for me,” Jamil said, never looking up from his screen.

Jessie wasn’t surprised by his answer. The head researcher was like the Energizer Bunny, and never seemed to need caffeine stimulants to keep him alert. She left the research department and headed down the hall to the break room, trying to put what they’d learned overnight in some context.

They knew more than they had when they left Evelyn Channing’s apartment late last night, but she wasn’t sure what to make of it yet. Channing’s GPS data showed that, like the Hartleys, she’d never gone to any of the warehouse or mansion parties associated with the masks they wore. In fact, they hadn’t been able to find any information that suggested Channing knew or had ever interacted with the Hartleys. That was an unwanted revelation, but there was some good news.

Jamil had been able to use some filtering software to determine that there was a 97% chance that the person who made the 911 call alerting police to Channing’s murder was male. There was no sign of a strong accent. Unfortunately, he couldn’t nail down an age other than that it wasn’t a child and probably not someone very elderly, both of which Jessie already knew.

Soon thereafter, the surveillance footage from Channing’s apartment tower confirmed that fact. It showed someone entering the elevator at the parking garage level and riding up to her floor with her. They never spoke or interacted in any way, but he did get out on her floor.

The man was wearing a baseball cap pulled low to cover his face and had dark, bushy hair that Jessie suspected might be a wig. He appeared to have lighter skin, though the quality of the camera footage made it difficult to be certain. He wore gloves. He appeared to be taller than Evelyn, who was listed as five foot six, but because the angle of the camera was so high up, it was impossible to be sure if he was 5’10”, 6’2”, or somewhere in between.

Jessie poured coffee into three cups as she thought back on the one thing that had given her hope as she had watched the video. She recalled how her observation had escaped everyone else’s attention until she mentioned it around four in the morning.

“Since he got into the elevator when she did,” she had pointed out, “then there’s a good chance he was either lying in wait in the garage or possibly followed her from wherever she’d just been.”

That piece of information had sent Beth through a search of Channing’s movements last night. The woman’s GPS data showed that she’d been at a West Hollywood restaurant, but for less than twenty minutes. When Beth checked her texts, the reason became apparent.

“According to a message she sent a friend on the way home,” Beth had explained, “her date was real jerk, and she snuck out before they ordered dinner.”

“Let’s look into the date,” Susannah had instructed them,” maybe the guy didn’t appreciate being bailed on.”

That’s what the researchers had started doing when Jessie went to get the coffee. As she returned to the office with the cups, she sensed an improvement in the mood, even before a word was said.

“What did you find?” she asked quickly.

“How did you know we found anything?” Beth asked, surprised.

“Just a vibe,” Jessie told her, not really able to explain it. “Tell me.”

“Good news or bad news first?” Susannah asked.

“You know I always prefer to get the bad stuff out of the way,” Jessie reminded her.

“Then you go ahead, Jamil,” the detective said.

“Apparently her date decided to stick around at the restaurant,” Jamil said. “He moved to the bar and finished his evening there. A restaurant receipt and video footage from out front both confirm that he left the place at 8:25. But the 911 call was made at 7:16 from Channing’s apartment, so he couldn’t be the perpetrator.”

“So what’s the good news?” Jessie asked, deflated.

“Your turn, Beth,” Susannah said.

The junior researcher smiled excitedly as she spoke.

“I noticed that when Evelen Channing texted to friends about her various dates, she mentioned that none of them had gone well since she broke up with Callum. So I scrolled back through her texts and found her communication with him. She’d been dating a man named Callum Clay on and off for close to a year. From what I can discern, they dated for about seven months. Then she broke up with him for a few weeks. They got back together for three months. And then he dumped her. That was about a month ago.”

“Do we know why?” Jessie asked.

“No,” Beth says. “When she broke up with him, there are texts to friends saying he was just too square and traditional. But after he dumped her, she’s very cagey with her friends about why. She just says stuff like ‘it didn’t work out’ or they ‘just weren’t a match.’”

Jessie looked over at Susannah, who had a little grin on her face.

“What are you thinking?” Jessie asked her.

"That maybe whatever led to the second breakup wasn't your standard stuff. Maybe he was abusive. Maybe he wanted to go to one of these secret parties, and she wouldn't do it, pissing him off. Whatever the reason, he knew where she lived and how to get in. Feels to me like someone we should talk to."

“Agreed,” Jessie said. “Let’s make these coffees to go.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

It was still only 6:52 a.m. when they rang the doorbell of Callum Clay's Culver City cottage house, but Jessie didn't care.

When he didn’t answer at first, Susannah proceeded to ring the bell non-stop for a full minute before they finally heard a voice yelling from inside, “hold on! I’m coming.”

The door opened a moment later. They were faced with a handsome but bewildered-looking young man who generally matched the description they’d been given on the way over. His ID photo had shown a 27-year-old with wavy brown hair and large brown eyes. Only now, the hair was smushed against his skull, bed-head style and his eyes were bleary. He wore a loose robe over boxers and a t-shirt that read “Pepperdine University.”

“What?” he demanded irritably.

Jessie cut him the tiniest bit of slack since it wasn't yet seven in the morning, but not much.

“Mr. Clay,” she said, holding up her ID, “I’m Jessie Hunt with the LAPD. This is Detective Valentine. We need to talk. Maybe we come in?”

His expression suggested he hadn’t totally comprehended what she said, or perhaps that was just the impression he wanted to give.

“Did you say that you’re the police?” he asked, still irked but less overtly confrontational.

“That’s right,” Susannah chimed. “We’re investigating a high priority case, and we’ve determined that your assistance is essential.”

"It's not even 7 a.m.," he objected.

"So it's obviously important," Susannah countered. "Now, why don't we go inside so you don't have to stand out here in your underwear."

His eyes became more focused, and he squinted hard at the two of them.

“You need to tell me more than that,” he said. “I know my rights and I’m not just going to invite you into my home without knowing what this is about.”

Susannah looked over at Jessie, deferring to her to see how much she wanted to reveal.

“It’s about Evelyn Channing,” Jessie said.

He looked momentarily surprised before responding.

“Listen, we broke up a few months ago, so whatever issue she has, it’s not with me. Talk to whoever she’s…spending her time with now.”

Jessie decided that this was when to drop the hammer. She could better gauge the sincerity of his reaction before he had too much time to settle in.

“Evelyn is dead,” she said simply.

For a moment, it looked like he hadn’t heard her. But she knew he had when he stumbled backward slightly and reached out for the door to steady himself.

“What?”

“Let’s go inside,” Jessie said softly. His reaction was impressively convincing. Either he was truly stunned, or he was an excellent actor.

He nodded and opened the door wide for them.

“Lead the way,” Susannah said, not wanting him behind them. “Let’s go to the living room.”

He walked ahead of them slowly as if giving himself time to process what they'd said. They entered a cozy room with an oversized sofa and a large flat screen TV in the corner. Jessie knew the guy worked as an executive at a payroll company that specialized in the music industry. But his wealth at an early age apparently hadn’t translated into style yet. His décor suggested that he was still living the post-collegiate single guy lifestyle. He sat down on one end of the couch. Jessie took the other. Susannah remained standing, looking guarded.

“Evelyn is dead?” he repeated as if making sure it was really true.

“Yes,” Jessie said. “She was murdered last night. Since you were her longtime boyfriend until recently, we thought you might have some valuable insights for us.”

For now she left out that he was also an intriguing suspect.

“I don’t know what I can tell you,” he said. “We haven’t been seeing each other for over three months, since January. Other than a couple of texts about dropping off stuff that one of us left at the other’s place, we hadn’t been in touch at all lately.”

“Why did you break up with her?” Susannah asked, ripping the Band-Aid right off.

“Is that appropriate to be talking about at a time like this?” he asked, taken aback.

“It’s the perfect time,” Susannah assured him. “Was it because she dumped you a few months earlier? Were you trying to get back at her?”

"What? No!" he said, offended. "Look, I don't know what I'm supposed to say here. You're asking me a really intimate question, and I feel like it would be disrespectful to speak ill of Evelyn now that she's passed on."

"She didn't pass on," Jessie told him. "She was murdered in her own apartment. We're trying to catch her killer. So, let's dispense with the diplomatic platitudes. How about you just tell us the truth?"

“Okay,” he said, chastened. “Here’s the thing. Evy—Evelyn and I dated for most of last year. But just before the holidays, she told me that I was too much of a straight arrow, stuck in my ways, that I wasn’t willing to try new things, and she needed someone who was willing to explore the world more.”

“How did you take that?” Jessie asked.

"I was hurt," he conceded, "but she wasn't wrong. I'm more of a traditional guy, and she definitely liked to get…a little wilder. I accepted her decision, and we parted on amicable terms. But then, right after the New Year, she told me that she'd changed her mind, that she wanted to give it another shot."

“And you agreed to it,” Susannah said.

“Yes, she was very convincing,” he said. “She told me that she’d just gotten cold feet and that our time apart taught her that she really needed the stability I offered. I still had my doubts that it would work, but Evelyn is—was—a lot of fun and really beautiful. I always felt like a more interesting version of myself around her. So I said yes.”

“But you broke up with her three months later,” Susannah reminded him. “Why?”

He looked reluctant to answer.

“Callum,” Jessie said, her tone like a teacher addressing a recalcitrant student, “remember what I said. This is a murder investigation. Just be honest.”

He sighed and then, after swallowing hard, replied.

“I found out that she wasn’t being straight with me,” he said.

“What does that mean?” Jessie asked.

"I'm still not a hundred percent sure," he admitted. "Most of the time, she was fun and open-hearted. But sometimes, I couldn't get hold of her for long stretches. She would just disappear. I actually got worried a few times. After the fact, she'd say she was in meetings and couldn't talk but this was often late at night, and we're talking three or four hours of radio silence. She’d also sometimes cancel when we had plans, and her explanations were vague to the point of infuriating.”

“You got furious?” Susannah pressed.

“You know what I mean,” he insisted. “Eventually, I called her on it and said that whatever it was—an affair, drugs, who knows—that she needed to tell me, or I couldn’t be with her. I said I couldn’t handle a relationship where one person kept so many secrets.”

“And how did she respond?” Jessie wanted to know.

“She admitted that she hadn’t been honest but that she couldn’t tell me why or what she’d been doing. I offered her an out. I said that if, from now on, she could just stop doing whatever she was hiding from me, that maybe there was chance that we could find a path forward. But she said she knew herself—that she wouldn’t be able to stop whatever this was. So I had to end it. I just couldn’t go on that way.”

Jessie and Susannah exchanged a look that they both understood. They’d have to learn Evelyn’s secret some other way. But even though it felt like a formality, they still need to put a button on Callum Clay’s story.

“Where were you last night from seven to eight?” Jessie asked bluntly.

His face sagged.

"You need my alibi," he said slowly as if it hadn't occurred to him until now that he might be a suspect. "I understand. I work for a payroll company. That's where I was until one in the morning. And that's why I was so tired when you rang my bell. Because April 15th fell on a weekend this year, the IRS extended the filing deadline until tomorrow. We’ve been slammed.”

“Can anyone corroborate that?” Susannah asked.

“About eight or nine people,” he said.

“We’ll need all their names,” Susannah told him.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

They waited until they were in the car, headed back to the station before discussing what they’d just learned.

“What do you think Evelyn’s secret behavior was?” Susannah asked Jessie as they pulled out into traffic.

Jessie didn’t have to mull it over for long before replying.

"It could be an affair or drugs, like Callum feared," she mused, "but my money would be on her attending these secret parties. The only problem is that there were no parties in the last few months, and her GPS location data from prior to that indicates that she never went to any of them anyway. So I don't know what to think for sure."

Susannah started to reply but then stopped herself. Apparently, she'd hit the same wall. They sat in silence for a few minutes until their phones rang simultaneously. Jessie looked at hers. It was Jamil. She held it up to show Susannah.

“Put him on speaker,” the detective said.

“What’s up, Jamil?” Jessie said.

“Are you able to speak freely?” the researcher asked.

“Yeah, we’re in the car on our way back,” Jessie told him. “It looks like Callum Clay isn’t our guy, so I hope you have something good for us.”

“I just might,” he said. "I’m starting to get the financial data on the Hartleys that was so difficult to access last night, and it’s very interesting.”

“Don’t keep us in suspense,” Susannah said.

“It looks like those $22,000 monthly withdrawals they made went to an overseas charity called the International Children’s Support Fund or ICSF.”

“That’s one of the blandest charity names I’ve ever heard,” Susannah muttered.

“And I think that may be by design,” Jamil replied, sounding as excited as Jessie had heard him in a long time. “I think this ‘fund’ wants to sound boring to help it slip under the radar, because the more I look into it, the shadier it seems. It has a 401(c)3 charitable designation, but for the life of me, I can’t discern how that originated. It appears to be based in India, but all my efforts so far to contact anyone there have failed. I also can’t find biographical info on the charity’s executive officers that goes back more than three years. I can’t prove it yet, but I’m not sure that any of these people even really exist. It’s like some ghost charity. And whoever created it did a masterful job.”

"Okay, that's interesting, Jamil," Susannah said, frustrated, "but if we can't trace the source of the charity or tie it to anything here in L.A., how does that help us?"

“I’m not sure,” Jumail said, “but I haven’t told you the most interesting part yet.”

While they waited for him to end the suspense, another call came in on Jessie’s line. She didn’t recognize the number and immediately sent it to voicemail. In that time, Jamil still hadn’t shared his big revelation. Under other circumstances, Jessie would have been tickled by Jamil’s newfound flair for the dramatic and teased him a little, but not today.

“Tell us,” she said.

“Evelyn Channing also made monthly withdrawals that were donated to the ICSF. Guess how much she paid?”

“$22,000,” Susannah said with a shrug.

“$11,000,” he said.

A tiny explosion of recognition went off in Jessie’s head.

"Why is that significant?" Susannah asked. Apparently, she hadn't made the connection yet.

"Because it's exactly half what the Hartleys donate," Jessie said. "But most charities don't require donations to be a specific amount. They'll take whatever you're willing to give. But you know who does?"

“Who?” Susannah asked.

“Clubs—secret clubs,” Jessie said. “I think these are monthly membership dues. $22,000 for a couple like the Hartleys. Half of that for a single member like Evelyn. Is that what you’re thinking, Jamil?”

“Yes, Ms. Hunt,” Jamil replied enthusiastically.

“And I get the feeling that you’re holding back one crucial detail, aren’t you Jamil?”

“Yes, Ms. Hunt.”

"Well, go ahead and tell us," she said. "This is your moment."

“Those payments—or membership dues—were withdrawn from their accounts on the first of March and the first of April.”

Jessie saw the pieces start to fall into place for her partner.

“So this secret club is still active after all!” Susannah said.

“That’s right,” Jessie agreed. “These parties might not be happening at abandoned warehouses or empty mansions anymore, but they’re still happening. And you know what that means.”

“What?” Jamil asked, apparently stumped for the first time in this conversation.

“It means that our party planner friend, Valentina Russo, wasn’t completely forthcoming with us. I knew she was holding something back, but until now, I didn’t know what. These parties—possibly with attendees wearing masks like the ones found on our victims—are still happening and she knew it.”

“Isn’t she supposed to be coming into the station this morning with that memo describing the design instructions for those masks?”

“She is,” Jessie said, “but considering her lack of forthrightness, I think it’s time we checked in with Ms. Russo—forcefully.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Hannah debated whether to answer the call.

She didn't recognize the phone number, and it was already 7:57 a.m. Her Mood Disorders class started in three minutes.

But with Ryan still recovering and Jessie working a case, she was a little unsettled. The 213 area code was for downtown L.A. What if this was a call from an LAPD co-worker of Jessie’s, sharing bad news? She knew that if she let it go to voicemail, she’d never be able to concentrate in class, so she answered it.

“This is Hannah,” she said.

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. She was about to hang up when an automated voice spoke.

“You have received a collect call from ‘Mark Haddonfield,'" the voice said, with Haddonfield inserting his name after the pause. Then the automated voice returned. "Will you accept the charges?"

Hannah felt her mouth go dry. Why the hell was the guy who tried to murder her last summer, and who attempted to do the same to Jessie mere months later, calling her? She still remembered how he’d come at her on the Santa Monica Pier that September summer night seven months ago; how she’d managed to kick him in the knee, sending him limping off into the darkness with an injury that would eventually require surgery to repair.

Haddonfield had spent the last few weeks on trial for multiple murders, and the jury was rumored to return with a verdict as early as today. What could possibly have motivated him to call her on the very morning when the rest of his life would be decided? She had to know.

“Yes,” she said. “I’ll accept the call.”

There was another long pause, after which Haddonfield’s excitable voice came on.

“Thank you for accepting the call, Hannah,” he said. “I was really starting to get worried.”

“We’re not on a first name basis,” she told him coldly. “And I have to be somewhere in three minutes, so that’s how long you have to tell me what you want.”

“That works out well because they only let us make five minute calls and I have to be on the bus for the courthouse in about half an hour,” he said apparently unfazed by her lack of enthusiasm to be chatting with him.

“Then I guess you should get to the point,” she instructed. “Why are you calling me?”

"To help you," he replied, "or more accurately, your sister. I tried to reach her directly but she's not answering her phone. At this hour, I doubt she's sleeping, so she must be in the middle of a case."

“Or maybe she just blocked this number,” Hannah suggested, before adding, “Is this really how you want to be spending the precious two minutes you have remaining with me?”

“No, sorry,” he said. “I’m a little discombobulated this morning because I think I may be about to be found guilty on several counts of murder today. But let’s set that aside for now. I think Ash Pierce is going to try to escape.”

It took several seconds for her to fully process his words. Pierce had already escaped from custody once, and instead of making a run for the border or something, she'd found a safe house where she'd holed up to plan an attempt on Hannah's life. If the woman got out again, there was no telling what she’d do. But how would Haddonfield have any clue what Pierce was planning?

“How would you have any clue what Pierce is planning?” she asked him straight out.

“Because she told me,” he said simply. “We’re often on the same prison transport bus to and from the courthouse. On a recent trip she proposed that, in light of us both likely getting convicted, we work together to escape.”

“Have you told anyone about this?” Hannah asked, still somewhat skeptical.

“I’m telling you.”

“Anyone else?” she demanded. “The administrator of the jail? Your defense attorney?”

"I'm ashamed to say I have not," he said, sounding genuinely embarrassed. "I've actually been holding on to this information for a few weeks now. Part of me thought I could use it to my advantage. In fact, that part of me is still very hopeful. But another part of me was worried that if I tattled on her, she'd find out somehow and, you know, end me. And finally, some teeny, weeny little portion of me actually considered teaming up with her. That is until I determined that I almost certainly wouldn't survive the attempt."

“So you decided to go to Jessie,” Hannah said.

“Exactly,” he told her. “I figured that if anyone would hear me out, it’d be her. She has the pull to ensure that more security is put on Pierce and maybe get me some perks for having helped out. But that plan got screwed by her not answering her phone. And since I had your cell phone number memorized, too, I thought you were the next best thing. You know how dangerous Pierce is, and you know that, as a guy who kind of tried to murder you, I wouldn't ask for your help unless it was a desperate situation."

Hannah had to concede that it all made logical sense. But she also knew that even though Haddonfield was currently incarcerated and on the verge of being convicted and sent to prison for life, he was a sneaky bastard who couldn’t be trusted. What if this was some ploy to get resources diverted away from him and to Pierce so that he could escape?

Or what if it was simply an attempt to mess with Jessie’s head one last time? If Hannah passed on this message to her sister, was she playing right into the hands of the man who, only six months ago, tried to murder her while she lay in a hospital bed awaiting brain surgery.

“This call has one minute remaining,” the automated voice said, interrupting her thoughts.

“We’re running out of time,” Haddonfield said unnecessarily, “what are you going to do, Hannah?”

“Again, not on a first name basis,” she reminded him, before asking, “exactly how long ago did she make this offer?”

“Eighteen days ago,” he said quickly.

“And yet she hasn’t acted on it.”

"Not yet," he conceded, "maybe she's just waiting for the right time. Hell, that could be today. My jury will probably come back with a verdict before the day is out. After that, the attention will shift exclusively to her. That means more guards watching her. This could be the perfect opportunity to make her move before that happens."

It was a compelling argument. Of course, it could also be total crap, completely made up in order to get him those perks he mentioned. If this was all an elaborate lie, how could that even be proven? Pierce could deny it, but that would just be the word of one killer against another. How was anyone supposed to choose who was more credible in that situation?

“I’ll think about telling her,” she finally said. “That’s all I can promise you.”

He was quiet for a few seconds, and she sensed his disappointment. Whether it was because she hadn’t taken him as seriously as he wanted or because he hadn’t fully duped her, there was no way to know.

“I understand,” he said. “One last thing. While it’s clear that you don’t fully trust me, I’m going to trust you with something important, and I really need you to listen closely, okay?”

"I'm listening," she said, wondering if the call would cut out before he could spin some other wild yarn.

“If you want to be independent, you have to go to the mattresses,” he said slowly and with great portent, as if he was some fortune teller sharing the secrets of her future.

“What the hell does that mean?” she asked, annoyed. “Isn’t that a line from The Godfather or something?”

“You’ve seen it?”

“No, but I’ve heard the phrase,” she told him. “I can’t believe that’s how you want to end this conversation.”

“And yet it is,” he assured her. “If you want to be independent, you have to go to the mattresses. You have to tell Jessie that I said that. Okay?”

Before she could answer, Hannah heard a click, followed by a dial tone. The call was over.

Great, she thought, now I have to decide what the hell I’m supposed to tell Jessie, if anything.

She walked into her class two minutes late, fully aware that she was unlikely to be able to focus on anything other than what a serial killer had just told her.

CHAPTER TWENTY

If they weren’t under such time constraints, Jessie would have strung the woman out even longer.

As it was, they let Valentina Russo sit alone in the interrogation room for a half hour, getting increasingly fidgety before finally joining her.

It turned out that Russo had indeed gone to her office at Arresting Affairs and snuck out with the masquerade ball mask design memo. In fact she was driving to the station with it when the squad car that Susannah sent pulled her over on the side of the road.

Nonetheless, the officers removed her from her car, handcuffed her, and transported her to Central Station in the back of their vehicle. They wanted her unsettled, even scared, and from her expression, visible through the one-way mirror, it had worked.

"Hi, Valentina," Jessie said warmly when she and Susannah entered the interrogation room.

She wanted to keep the young woman off balance for this conversation. Acting as if everything was normal and friendly, while Russo’s wrists were cuffed to a metal hook on the metal table bolted to the floor, was one way to throw her off.

“Why did you have me arrested?” Russo demanded angrily.

“We didn’t have you arrested,” Susannah informed her. “We just had you detained so that we could better assist you in meeting your obligations. You promised us that you’d bring in that memo first thing this morning and we got concerned that you might be in danger, so we sent some officers to help you out.”

“I was on my way here,” the woman protested. “You put me in handcuffs.”

“Only to make it look legit in case anyone was watching,” Susannah lied with a wave of her hand.

“Can you at least uncuff me now?” Russo pleaded.

"I have to say—I'm more than a little disappointed," Jessie told her, ignoring the request. "You weren't totally honest with us yesterday, and being deceptive with law enforcement is a big no-no."

Technically, Russo was under no official obligation to be completely forthright with them. Lying to the police was a misdemeanor. But merely holding back potentially relevant information wasn’t as clear a violation. Still, creating the impression that she might have crossed some line could keep Russo on her heels.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the woman insisted.

“Sure you do,” Susannah said.

“I really don’t.”

"Yesterday, you told us that those wild, secret parties were a thing of the past," Jessie replied. "But that wasn't strictly true, was it? They might not held at abandoned warehouses and empty mansions anymore. But they're still happening, aren't they?"

Valentina Russo looked crestfallen.

“You have to understand,” she pleaded, “I was just protecting myself. I know you said the NDA didn’t apply, but I wasn’t sure you were being straight with me, and I didn’t want to risk getting sued for everything I have. Besides, it didn’t seem like such a big deal. I don’t know if the jewels on those masks were stolen or if there are mountains of cocaine or sex shows at these parties or what. But I figured it couldn’t be that bad if you let me go.”

“That was our mistake,” Susannah said.

“Actually, it was my mistake,” Jessie corrected. “We should have just gone with you to get that memo last night and brought you straight here. But I misjudged you; I thought I could trust you. I won’t make that mistake again, especially because what we’re dealing with here is a very big deal.”

“What do you mean?”

“We didn’t reveal this last night but I’m going to tell you now,” Jessie said, leaning in close so that her face and Russo’s were only inches apart. “Two people were found dead—murdered—wearing those masks. And in the time since we last saw you, a third person was killed, also found in a mask.”

“Oh god,” Russo muttered.

“Yes,” Jessie continued, “and while we don’t know this for sure, we think there’s a good chance that they may have attended these parties. Of course it’s possible that they didn’t, but it sure seems like at the very least, their killer did. So you can see why it’s important that we learn as much about them as possible.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about people being murdered yesterday?” Russo asked. “If I had known how serious this was, I would never have kept anything from you.”

“We didn’t know if we could trust you,” Susannah told her, “not until you brought in that memo. How could we be sure you wouldn’t go to your boss or your client with what we said?”

Russo shook her head in frustration.

"You don't get it," she said. "My boss doesn't know any of the particulars about this account. The guy is seventy years old. He is semi-retired and lets me handle all my accounts how I see fit. He knows the business gets cash payments for securing some fancy masks and helping coordinate some fancy parties for a client. Other than that, he’s in the dark and happy about it. He doesn’t want to ask any questions that could mess up this money regularly coming in.”

“What about the security guys?” Susannah wanted to know.

“My boss employs them, but they basically answer to me,” Russo explained, “and as much as possible, I keep them in the dark too. I didn’t want to inadvertently reveal something that could put the account at risk. So I keep everything close to the vest, not that there’s much to keep. I know a little more than everyone else, but not much. Like I told you, everything is done in cash. There are no names used. I rarely meet with the same person twice. It’s all cloak and dagger, which is another reason I don’t ask too many questions. It’s a little scary.”

“But you do know more than that,” Jessie reminded her. “You know where these parties are being held now. And it’s time that you told us.”

Russo squirmed uncomfortably, adjusting herself as much as she could while handcuffed to a metal table.

“Okay,” she said, sounding defeated. “All the parties in the last two months have been held at the same location. There’s a large, twenty-four-hour spa in Koreatown called Elite Spa. It’s very popular. I’ve been there myself once, for a bachelorette party.”

“This doesn’t sound like the kind of place that could offer the privacy that these party attendees would want,” Jessie noted.

“That’s what I thought too,” Russo said, “especially based on my personal experience. But it turns out that there’s more to this place than meets the eye. There’s an entire, hidden back area of the spa that’s not open to regular customers. It has its own entrance and is used for special, private events. I didn’t know it existed until my contacts for the parties showed me. There’s no way you would ever know it was there unless you had specific instructions and knew exactly where to go. I was only given that information because my team has to dress the location when we learned about a party that night.”

“So tell us about this place,” Susannah said.

“You access it through an alley behind the spa,” Russo explained. “The door says, “staff entrance.’ Once you’re inside, there’s a long hallway that leads to a real back entrance to the spa. Before you get there, about halfway down the hall is a door that says, ‘utility room.’ But it’s not a utility room. I mean, it looks like one when you first go in. There are cleaning supplies and mops and stuff like that. But all of that is just for show. I don’t think those mops have ever been used. There’s an inner door inside the room next to a metal cabinet. That’s what leads to the secret space.”

“What does that mean exactly—secret space?” Jessie pressed.

“It’s basically like a private nightclub,” Russo said. “It’s huge, with multiple rooms. There’s a bar in the large central open space, with about a dozen high-top tables. Then are a half dozen other rooms of varying sizes that extend off the main one, like sections of a spider web. Each room is furnished differently. One is all loveseats and couches. Another has small round-tops, like you’d finds in a comedy club. Others are a mix of the two. One room was completely empty until we added to it.”

The way she said that last line, with a hint of embarrassment, piqued Jessie's interest.

“What did you add?” she asked.

“Beds,” she said quietly. “We brought in five rollable twin-sized beds.”

Both Jessie and Susannah were quiet for a moment. It was the detective who spoke first.

“So when you say that these are wild parties, what you really mean is that they’re orgies.”

“I don’t honestly know,” Russo said. “I’m called on the morning of an event and told to prep the place. I’m supposed to have everything done by mid-afternoon. I’ve never been there when the actual events take place. But like you, I’ve drawn a few conclusions.”

“Okay, but you have to be able to do more than just guess,” Jessie countered. “Not to be gross, but when you collect all the stuff you’ve dropped off, isn’t the furniture…soiled?”

Russo winced at the question.

“One of the items we’re tasked to bring to each event is a collection of plastic coverings. Imagine giant shower caps big enough to cover couches and beds. Having said that, we are also instructed to have a professional cleaning service care for every piece of furniture the following day. I don’t typically ask those cleaners questions, and they don’t share any details with me.”

“Okay, let’s set that tidbit aside for now,” Jessie said. “You don’t have the guest list, right?”

“No,” Russo said. “We have no idea who attends these things, but we do provide a car service that picks up the guests. But they don’t go to people’s homes. They are assigned to specific pickup locations that I assume the party organizers also share with the guests. My understanding from talking to some of the drivers is that the guests are required to leave all their possessions—phones, car keys, etc.—in the vehicle, which picks them up at the spa at an assigned time at the end of the evening.”

Jessie looked over at Susannah excitedly.

“That’s why Jamil couldn’t lock in on their location last night,” she said, relieved to have at least that question answered. “While they were at this party, their driver was just tooling around town until it was time to pick them up again.”

“That solves one mystery,” Susannah agreed before turning back to Russo. “How many town cars are we talking about?

"It varies," Russo said. "Once, it was only ten. Usually it's between twenty and twenty-five total."

“So depending on how many people are in each vehicle, individuals or couples, we’re talking a maximum of about fifty people at any given event?” Susannah surmised.

“I couldn’t say for certain, but that sounds reasonable.”

“Do the cars remain there?” Jessie wondered.

“No,” Russo answered firmly. “They are instructed to leave immediately after drop-off and only return five minutes prior to their designated pick-up time.”

"That would explain why Jamil hasn't been able to make a connection between our victims yet," Jessie said excitedly. "They didn't drive themselves to these parties, and the cars that took them were only at the spa briefly. The GPS location data wouldn't have looked suspicious until he did a deep dive."

“Yeah,” Susannah agreed. “I’m sure he would have eventually noted that there was an overlap in their location, but if it was only a couple of times in the last few months, it wouldn’t jump out at first.”

“How many events have there been at this place?” Jessie asked.

“Five so far,” Russo answered in a tone that made Jessie wonder what the woman wasn’t sharing. But before she could follow up, Susannah jumped in.

“So if you were only informed of a party on the morning of, and you don’t have a contact phone number for the organizers, how did you communicate on such short notice?”

"The same way I imagine they informed the guests about an upcoming party," Russo said. "They established an e-mail account and gave me the login information. When the time came for a party, they would write an e-mail but not actually send it. They would leave it in the 'drafts' folder. When it was complete, I would get an alert saying to check the e-mail account. I would read the instructions in the draft e-mail and respond within that same draft. That way, there are no actual e-mails being sent and no way to track them without the login."

Now, Jessie asked the question that had been on her mind since Russo had aroused her suspicion moments earlier.

“Valentina,” she said, using the woman’s first name again, only this time it wasn’t to establish rapport. It was to create a feeling of intimate dominance. “You just said that there have been five events so far. I want to know when the next one is.”

The woman looked at her sheepishly.

“That’s what I’ve been meaning to tell you for a while now,” she said, “but I was scared to because of this whole ‘being handcuffed in a police station’ thing.”

Jessie reached over and uncuffed her.

“No excuse now,” she said.

Valentina Russo rubbed her wrists nervously as she looked at the table instead of Jessie. When she finally spoke, her voice was quiet.

“They’re actually doing an event today,” she said. “ I got the alert extra early this morning because they’re doing something new.”

“What?” Susannah demanded.

“They’re having a party in—,” she looked at the clock on the wall, “five hours. That’s one of the reasons I’ve been so anxious. I’m supposed to have the place fully prepped by noon, which is much earlier than usual.”

“Why the change?” Jessie asked.

“I don’t know,” Russo said. “Maybe they just wanted to shake things up. At least that’s my guess, based on the name they gave the party.”

“What name?” Jessie and Susannah asked in unison.

Russo closed her eyes as she answered.

“Afternoon Delight.”

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

They didn’t have long to get ready.

Jessie would have preferred to keep Valentina Russo at the police station. They still wanted her to meet with a sketch artist, although that no longer took precedence. A higher priority now was to have her provide more particulars of how these events functioned.

But she couldn’t stay. They had to let her leave so that she could prep the event without drawing unwanted attention. That didn’t stop them from having her get on speakerphone and walk them through what they needed to do to prepare. When they hung up, it was time to get to work.

According to Russo, the event was supposed to start at 2 p.m. That’s why Jessie was hurrying to squeeze into the extremely tight, little black dress that she’d selected from the Vice unit’s wardrobe room. Funny how it could be appropriate for either working the streets or attending a cocktail party. In this case, it seemed to be the perfect fit for something in between.

If they were going to make progress in finding out who killed the Hartleys and Evelyn Channing, getting into this party was crucial. And if they were going to get in and make convincing guests, they had to look the part. That was why she was currently wriggling into an outfit that she would never wear in real life.

“How do I look?” Susannah asked from across the room.

Jessie looked up. Her partner was far less averse to wearing revealing outfits than she was. In fact, she reveled in it. And this was no exception. She was wearing a bright red spaghetti strap bare midriff club dress that looked like it had been painted on her. She appeared satisfied with it.

“Terrible,” Jessie teased. “What about me?”

“You’re a real snack,” Susannah told her. “I think you’ll be very popular at the orgy.”

“Just the words I was hoping to hear when I woke up today,” Jessie replied. “Are you sure none of the bruises I got in that death match with the poisoning killer two weeks ago are visible?”

“From where I’m standing, I don’t see any,” Susannah said. “They must have all healed. So what’s our plan when we get to this place?”

“Well, Valentina said we could swing by to get two of the extra masquerade ball masks she has,” Jessie reminded her. “It’s a good thing there were a few that didn’t meet the clients’ specifications, or we’d be out of luck.”

“Should we be worried about that?” Susannah said. “What if they notice and we get called out?”

“I’m hoping that the folks who allow us physical entry to a darkened sex club won’t be as fastidious about the details of the masks as the people who gave Russo the design instructions. My guess is that they’ll be looking at other parts of us than our faces.”

“Fair enough,” Susannah said. “So she’s having a town car pick us up and drive us to the spa, right?”

“Yes,” Jessie reconfirmed. “She said it’s the driver she trusts the most. He’ll do what he’s told and won’t ask us questions. But when we get there, we’ll still have to go in without our phones. And I don’t know about you, but there’s no place to hide my gun on this outfit.”

“Maybe I can still bring my cuffs,” Susannah suggested, only half-joking. “They probably wouldn’t bat an eye.”

“It’s not a totally crazy idea,” Jessie conceded. “If we find a credible suspect, we might need them.”

“How are we going to know the proper criteria for a credible suspect at a dark sex party where everyone is wearing masks and letting their inner Caligula out?”

“I don’t know,” Jessie admitted. “Maybe we look for someone who’s overly energetic, to the point of aggression. Or someone who seems really into choke play.”

Susannah stared at her, openmouthed. Even for someone as comfortable in her body as she was, this seemed like a lot.

"I have to say, I did not have 'sex party on a Monday afternoon' on my BINGO card today. Now, if it was a Wednesday evening—that would be a different story."

“I’m glad you’re so chill about this,” Jessie said. “Frankly, I’m super uncomfortable. The only saving grace is that Ryan is home, hopefully sleeping, rather than here with us right now. He wouldn’t be enthused.”

Hearing herself say that, her heart sank as she remembered that Ryan probably wasn't sleeping at all. He was more likely preparing for the meeting with the adoption counselor, which she had forgotten about and realized she wouldn't be able to attend. She had to let him know.

“He should be enthused,” Susannah told her. “You look super-hot in that dress.”

“Right back at you, Detective Valentine,” Jessie said, pretending that everything was fine. “But for now let’s dispense with the mutual admiration society and figure how we’re going to catch this guy before he kills another party guest.”

“Let’s do it!” Susannah said enthusiastically.

“Great,” Jessie said. “Just give me five minutes. I have to make a quick call.”

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

They were only a block away from Elite Spa when they got a final update from Jamil.

Jessie was well aware that this was their last opportunity for communication until they returned to the car after the party. That might be just as well. Her conversation with Ryan a little earlier had gone about how she expected, and having to be radio silent for a little while, even if it meant going undercover into a sex party, seemed preferable right now.

From his tone of voice when he answered her call, she knew he suspected she’d have to bail on the appointment.

“I’m really sorry,” she had said, briefly explaining that they had an undercover operation starting just an hour before the adoption meeting and that there was no way she’d make it in time. She pointedly didn’t share the details of the operation.

“I’ll cancel it,” he had said, not even bothering to chastise her for breaking her promise. He sounded more resigned than angry.

“Thanks,” she replied, wincing at his clear disappointment. “We’ll figure out something new when I’m not so crazed, okay?”

“Okay,” he had said flatly before hanging up without saying goodbye.

Jessie tried to push that phone conversation out of her head as she adjusted her earphones to better focus on the one she was having now. She and Susannah were both using them for their current chat with Jamil so that the driver, a pleasant enough guy named Freddy, didn’t hear anything he shouldn’t have. They were also being very cryptic in their responses to what Jamil told them.

“So our friends all attended meetings at the convention,” she reconfirmed.

“Yes,” Jamil said, cognizant of the fact that they couldn’t be direct in their questions even if he could be clear in his answers. “Based on GPS data, they all attended, but never at the same time. The Hartleys went to two parties at the spa, including one on the night they were killed. Evelyn Channing went to two as well, but there was no overlap. There was one other party that none of them went to.”

Since they had company in the car, Jessie couldn’t say what she was thinking. The fact that all three victims were never at a single party together suggested that their connection might have less to do with anything specific to their interactions with each other than what they meant to the killer.

"We're pulling up," Freddy, the driver, said.

“We have to go, Jamil,” Susannah said. “We’re here. Please ask our ‘friend’ to stay ready. Hopefully we won’t need him.”

“You got it,” Jamil said. “Good luck.”

After they hung up, Jessie leaned forward to talk to Freddy.

"So, can you remind us how this will work one more time?" she requested.

"It's pretty straightforward," he said. "When we get to the alley, I'll pull over to the curb. You walk straight back to the door on the right. Only take your masks and a small, clear plastic baggie and only bring essentials with you. No electronics of any kind. In my experience doing this, most people just bring baby wipes and hand sanitizer."

“Jeez,” Susannah muttered under her breath.

"There will be someone to greet you at the door," Freddy continued. "Just give them the password you were provided, and you should be good to go. I'm sorry, but I don't know what happens after that."

“Okay, thanks.” Jessie said.

“Do you want to write down my license plate number?” he asked. “All these cars look the same.”

“We’ve got it memorized,” Susannah assured him.

"Okay," Freddy said, "according to Valentina, your pickup time will be at 4 p.m. I'll be waiting for you. Have a good time."

“Thanks,” Jessie said.

While Russo trusted Freddy, they didn’t know him and had therefore acted the part, as if they really intended to party. They got out of the car at the curb and headed toward the square-looking man in the black suit by the back door ten paces into the alley.

As they approached him, Jessie glanced back toward the street they’d just come from. Across the road, she could see the camera they’d had set up on the streetlight pole about fifteen feet up. About an hour earlier a crew of tech unit police officers wearing L.A. Department of Water and Power uniforms had arrived to do some “maintenance.”

When they left, the camera—which Jamil and Beth were operating—was in place. They would have preferred to have set up others too, including in the alley itself. But they worried that doing anything that close to the building would have set off alarm bells.

They'd also co-opted Detective Jim Nettles—the "friend" that Susannah had referenced to Jamil—as backup. If all was going as planned, he was currently in Elite Spa's men's locker room, preparing for a massage he wouldn’t actually be getting that was scheduled for two hours from now.

He wouldn’t have been Jessie’s first choice. Burly, grizzled, and taciturn, with flecks of gray in his black hair, he’d just turned forty and didn’t seem like the massage type. Self-care wasn’t really his style.

But the more likely candidates, Detectives Karen Bray and Sam Goodwin were working a case of their own. And after sleeping for twelve hours straight after closing a case on Saturday night, Nettles was available and prepared, which was an attractive combination right now.

“Can I help you?” the brawny, black-suited man by the door asked politely.

“Ligament,” Susannah said, giving him the password with more confidence than Jessie could have brought to the moment.

"Excellent, ladies," the man said, swiping a card at the sensor by the door. It unlocked, and he opened it. "Please proceed to the door marked 'utility' down the hall to the right. Once you're given access, put on your masks and keep them on until you exit the utility room at the end of the event. Understood?"

They both nodded and started down the long hallway, which was completely empty. Jessie surmised that the hosts staggered guest arrivals so that no one saw another attendee without a mask on. In the distance, they could see the door that led to the back entrance of the legitimate portion of the spa.

“You ready for this?” Susannah whispered when they arrived at the utility door.

“I guess I have to be,” Jessie replied.

“Just remember that we’re badass bitches who are here because we love stranger sex in a semi-public place. Don’t be shy. If you don’t seem like you belong, they’ll notice.”

“Good advice,” Jessie said, knocking on the door, “I just have to remember to be the exact opposite of who I am for the next few hours. Should be easy.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

Valentina Russo had undersold the place.

While Jessie could see how the space might be used for conventional parties, maybe even corporate events, that’s not the vibe it gave off this afternoon. As she expected, the lighting was very dim. She doubted she’d be able to see many faces clearly, even without the masks.

There was pulsating music that could best be described as menacing, low-grade techno. A droning, propulsive beat was adorned by relentless percussion and intermittent vocal groaning. It was exactly what she would have expected.

There were strobe lights placed at strategic locations, along with several ceiling disco balls that sprayed muted, kaleidoscopic rays of color everywhere. To add to the sense of displacement, there were multiple fog machines draping the whole space in an unsettling haze.

As they passed from the utility room entrance into the main room, complete with the bar in the back, she tried to count how many people were there. It was hard to be sure with all the visual distractions, but in this room alone, there were at least two dozen folks. She had no idea if that was the majority of the partygoers or if some guests had already split off into the adjoining rooms.

Seeing all these guests with masks on was an adjustment. She was used to being able to glean details about people by studying their expressions, but that wasn't possible here. Since she didn't feel like making assumptions based on the styling of their masks, she was at a real disadvantage.

“Our masks don’t look noticeably different than everyone else’s,” Susannah said with relief. “I don’t think we’re going to get called out on them.”

“I hope you’re right,” Jessie said, “because I just had a thought that should have occurred to me earlier.”

“What?”

“Because of my unwanted semi-celebrity status as a profiler, some of these people might recognize me. If I have to take this mask off, it could blow our whole cover.”

"Then you'll just have to find a way to distract them so they don't ask you to remove it," Susannah said as they neared the bar. "Also, I'm thinking that maybe we should split up. We might seem more approachable and less intimidating if we don't look like we're here as a pair."

“Susannah, you’re an intimidating presence all by yourself, but I take your point. I’m going to do a loop of the place.”

They parted ways. Susannah continued in the direction of the bar. Jessie wandered around as casually as she could toward a room just off to the left of the main one. It was about the size of a large living room, with four high-top cocktail tables in the middle, with four plush sofas surrounding them in a square.

There were already three couples making out on the plastic-covered couches. Well, not actually making out. Because of the masks, they could better be described as pressing their "faces" against their partners' necks, ears, and shoulders. To Jessie it seemed both deeply unsexy and more important, ineffective. But they seemed to be enjoying themselves.

On the fourth couch, another couple had moved on to more than just kissing. It took Jessie a moment to process that it wasn’t actually a couple but a threesome, all writhing around, seemingly in rhythm with the music.

She left that room and, over the next fifteen minutes, checked out the others, trying to look more curious than uncomfortable. No one approached her. She didn't know if she should be offended or if there was just some signal that guests gave each other to indicate they were open for business. But she was glad not to have to navigate that minefield in the moment.

It allowed her to focus on the people around her. Because she couldn’t lock in on faces, she tried to commit other identifying features to memory. Hair color and length, general height and weight, clothing choices.

To her relief, she found that most of the women were dressed like her, in tight-fitting revealing outfits. She stifled a chuckle as she noted that she would actually have stood out if she’d dressed more modestly.

Some of the men—mostly the older ones—wore suits, but the younger guys were more dressy casual, if with some flair. There were a lot of slacks and dress shirts. But many of the shirts were loosely buttoned or not buttoned at all. In fact, there was only one younger guy in top shape that had a sport coat on. Above his mask, he had short brown hair. Maybe this was his first time too and he didn’t get the fashion memo.

Eventually, she found her way to the room with the beds. She did her best not to gasp. All five of them were already in use. A few folks were easing into the festivities, but on at least two beds, the participants had already left the dress code in the dust. They expressed their enthusiasm for each other in full all-natural display for everyone to see. Jessie turned away, blushing under her mask.

As she directed her attention to the room’s exit, she caught sight of the same guy she’d noticed earlier—the younger one in the sport coat. He was standing in the corner of the room, watching the activity intently, but hadn’t made any move to join in. In fact, he seemed quite stiff, as if he wasn’t completely comfortable in the environment. A silent ping went off in Jessie’s head.

He must have sensed her eyes on him, even behind the mask, because his gaze turned away from the action on the beds and toward her. He made no move to approach her but stared for several seconds before returning his attention to the main activity in the room.

Jessie, hoping she looked bored and not anxious, strolled out. She scanned the main room, hoping to catch sight of Susannah. It wasn't hard to find her. With her bold red dress, she stood out, even in this crowd. She was sitting on a stool at the bar, stirring but not sipping the drink in front of her, talking to a man that Jessie guessed was in his early forties.

She gave a tiny wave to get the detective's attention, but with all the visual distractions, it was a waste of time. So she walked over, trying not to act like a person who thought they might have found a credible suspect.

There was nothing overt that suggested the sport coat guy was worth investigating. But something about his awkward bearing was setting off alarm bells, and she wanted to see if Susannah would have the same reaction. When she got to the bar, she adopted her best "come hither" voice.

“Hey baby, there’s a new friend I want to introduce you to,” she said to Susannah before turning to her companion. “Do you mind if I steal my girlfriend away for a minute.”

“Of course not,” he said, clearly disappointed, “but I hope this is ‘see you soon’ and not ‘goodbye.’”

“See you soon,” Susannah purred, giving his forearm a stroke with her finger before getting off the stool and walking with Jessie. “This better be good because I was making progress with that guy.”

“You think he might be a suspect?” Jessie asked, surprised.

“Probably not,” she said. “he’s too eager and forthcoming. But I was warming him up. I think I was on the verge of getting some good dirt on this whole secret sex club.”

"I'm sorry to interrupt that, but I found a guy who is definitely not eager and forthcoming, which is why I want you to give him a look. I need a vibe check on him.”

“Okay,” Susannah said. “Where is he?”

“He’s in what I’m affectionately calling the ‘sex room.’”

“I thought they were all sex rooms,” Susannah challenged.

“This one leaves the others in the dust,” Jessie assured her.

As they approached the room, Jessie caught movement out of the corner of her eye and something registered. She looked in that direction and saw that sport coat guy had left the sex room and was now walking briskly in the direction of the utility room door. And he was staring at her.

“I think I blew my cover,” Jessie said, continuing toward the sex room but slowing down.

“What do you mean?” Susannah asked.

"Don't look now, but my suspect has left the sex room and is currently headed for the exit. I might have spooked him."

“How?” Susannah demanded, incredulous.

Jessie looked over at the detective, both embarrassed and defensive.

“I think by looking at him,” Jessie said in frustration, doing her best not to stare after the man as he moved. “I don’t know what the rules are here, and I guess I broke one. Either way, we can’t let him just leave.”

“Okay, then it looks like we’re following him,” Susannah said, glancing in the direction of the entrance. “I think you might be right about this guy.”

“Why do you say that?” Jessie asked, still trying to casually look anywhere but at the man.

“Because he just broke into a trot. I think he’s making a break for it.”

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

Jessie was impressed. The guy was fast.

By the time they passed through the utility room, right past the startled young woman who had given them entry to the party and into the back hallway of the building, their target was nearly to the back “staff entrance” to the regular part of Elite Spa.

At first, Jessie was confused as to why he'd chosen to go that way instead of darting out into the alley. But then she remembered the squarely built guard. If he was any good at his job, he might be suspicious of someone shooting out of the club hours early and decide to take him down and ask questions later.

The man reached the door just as a small woman in her fifties wearing all white opened it. She looked to be an employee and was clearly startled as the man wearing a fancy masquerade ball mask barreled past her into the spa proper.

“Hold that door open,” Jessie shouted as she kicked off her heels. She could run faster barefoot. They dashed toward the spa’s back entrance, yanking off their masks. Susannah, who was far more adept in heels, left hers on.

The woman held the door open as instructed. When they arrived, Susannah breathlessly asked, “which way did he go?”

The woman pointed down the hallway to the right and said in a hushed voice, “steam room.”

They headed in the direction she advised until they came to the steam room. Jessie looked at the frosted door with beads of water pouring down it and had a thought. She turned back to the woman, who was still standing by the back entrance with her mouth agape and called out to her.

"Please get a male staffer to go to the men's locker room and ask for James Nettles. Have them tell Mr. Nettles to come here to the steam room right away. It's a police emergency."

The woman nodded silently before darting off. Jessie turned to Susannah.

“If this is our guy, it might be advisable to have someone with a gun with us.”

“Good idea,” Susannah said before reluctantly adding, “did you want to wait for him to get here?”

“No way,” Jessie replied forcefully. “We can’t be sure that woman was right, or for that matter, honest. If that guy is somewhere else in this spa and we wait around, he could get away. And if there’s some side door in that steam room, he might sneak out.”

“Then I guess we’re going in,” Susannah said with a grin as she finally kicked off her heels. “Maybe I’ll actually get to use these handcuffs after all.”

“Just be careful,” Jessie warned. “We don’t know if he has a weapon.”

“I will, and you stay behind me,” the detective replied. “Your husband will kill me if you get another head injury on my watch.”

Jessie didn’t argue with her. It was a fair point, and she could tell Susannah meant it.

“Let’s do this,” she said.

She yanked open the door and Susannah stepped inside as a wave of humid air enveloped them both. Jessie followed, squinting as she entered the white, tiled room, looking for any movement. On the floor at her feet were their suspect's clothes and the mask. He must have stripped down to blend in. After several seconds, it became clear that they were in a "men-only" steam room. She counted six guys, all sitting on the tiled benches.

“What are you doing?” one of them demanded, understandably startled by the sight of two scantily clad women in an off-limits area.

She ignored the question, scanning each man. She was looking for a guy in good shape with short brown hair. As she stepped forward, several others grumbled in protest. She still couldn’t see faces clearly, but as her eyes fell on one of them, she realized she didn’t need to.

Even from this distance, it was obvious that he didn't have a towel. Everyone else in there had them wrapped around their waists. She was about to point him out to Susannah when, apparently seeming to know he was made, he leapt forward.

For a moment, Jessie thought he was leaping at her, but it quickly became clear that he was trying to shoot past her toward the door. Without pausing to think, she extended her leg as he dashed by, clipping his ankle. He stumbled and landed unceremoniously on the floor, stomach first.

Susannah appeared out of the mist, dropping to her knees, one of which smashed into the small of his back just above his uncovered backside. Sure enough, she whipped out her cuffs and slapped one of them on his right wrist as she yanked his left arm behind his back. A few seconds later, his other wrist was secure.

"You have the right to remain silent," she began as the door burst open behind them. Jessie spun around, prepared to take on anyone who might come their way. Instead, Jim Nettles stepped into the steam room. His gun was unholstered and pointed at the tiled floor.

“What did I miss?” he asked

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

Jessie toweled off before joining the others.

A mere sixty seconds in the steam room had done a number on her. So while Nettles kept an eye on their suspect in the Elite Spa’s small conference room, which they’d commandeered for the questioning they were about to do, she cleaned up.

Once she was presentable again, she joined Nettles and Susannah, who had just done the same wipe down. Their suspect was wearing a robe provided by the spa. His clothes were in a large plastic bag and would be tested as evidence once they returned to the station.

Without his mask, Jessie got a better sense of him. The man looked to be in his mid-thirties, with brown eyes that matched his hair. He was clean-shaven and had a bland, generic look that she’d label “milquetoast good-looking.”

“Has he said anything?” she asked as she took a seat opposite the man.

“He keeps trying,” Nettles said. “But I told him to wait until you were both back. He’s very antsy, this one.”

Just then, he got a text that made his eyebrows rise. He got up and moved to the corner of the room, his fingers typing the whole time. Jessie was curious as to what that was about, but she had more pressing concerns right now.

She looked man’s ID, which was sitting on the conference room table, then glanced over at Susannah.

"You want to start, or shall I?"

“Considering that I already got way more up close and personal with him than I wanted, why don’t you have a go?”

“All right,” Jessie said, turning her attention to the man in front of her, “Gregory Lambert, is it?”

“Yes. Please, can I talk?” he pleaded. “If you would all just let me explain, then we can move beyond all this.”

“Go ahead,” Jessie said. She had her fair share of questions but anytime a person of interest was willing to talk of their own volition and without a lawyer present after having been read their rights, she was going to let it happen.

“I’m sorry that I ran out of the party like that, but I didn’t know you were with the police,” he said. “I thought that maybe you were private investigators hired by my wife.”

“Why would your wife hire investigators?” Jessie prodded.

“It’s possible that she got suspicious that I was having an affair or something,” he answered, shifting uncomfortably in his chair.

“It sounds like she’d be right,” Jessie noted. “Do you honestly expect us to believe that the only reason you ran out of that party was because your wife might catch you cheating?”

“I mean, kind of, yes,” he said. “That place would be hard to explain to her, you know. It’s not regular run-of-the-mill cheating. It’s an underground sex club. And even though I prefer to watch rather than participate, she’d probably have a hard time with it.”

“I would imagine so,” Jessie agreed.

Lambert put his head in his hands for a moment before looking back up at her.

“Look, can I be straight with you?”

“That’s kind of the whole point of this endeavor, Mr. Lambert,” Jessie said coldly.

“Okay, sure,” he said. “Here’s the thing. I’m on the executive board at my church. I coach a little league team. I guess I just saw my life flash before my eyes, and I got scared that this would come out and ruin everything.”

“How much do you pay for your membership in this club, Mr. Lambert,” she wanted to know.

“$11,000 a month,” he said.

“What do you do that you can afford to shell out that kind of money on a regular basis?”

“I work for a hedge fund,” he said, “and it’s run by a man who is also a board member at my church. So you can see how messed up it would be if this came out.”

“Were you at the party on Saturday night?” Jessie asked.

“No,” he answered quickly. “I was at a fundraiser for the church. Why?”

“And after the fundraiser?” she pressed, ignoring his question.

"We went home because the babysitter could only stay until eleven. I was in bed asleep by midnight. Why are you asking me where I was like I need an alibi for something?"

"Because you might," Susannah snapped. "Stop asking questions and answer ours, or we'll call your wife and ask her to pick you up. Is that what you'd like?"

“No,” he said, immediately chastened. “What else do you want to know?”

“Where were you last night?” Jessie asked.

“I was at my office,” he said. “Because of the delayed date for tax filing—were you aware of that?”

“Keep going,” Jessie said, irked. This whole tax thing was really doing some heavy lifting for the alibis of the suspects in this case.

"Okay, well, we always have last-minute issues with clients about how to best appropriate their investments for tax purposes. We're basically on call until the filing deadline. So I was there until about 1 A.M."

“Okay,” Susannah interjected, “but the filing deadline isn’t till tomorrow. So how are you able to cut out in the middle of the afternoon today?”

Lambert looked suddenly sheepish.

“I told my boss that one of my kids was sick and that I had to take her to the doctor,” he muttered, barely above a whisper. “I promised that I’d be back this evening.”

“So you were so intent on going to this sex party,” Jessie concluded,” that you lied to your employer about a sick child on one of the most important days of the year for your business?”

Lambert shrugged unceremoniously.

“I’m a sex addict of sorts,” he said. “I get off on watching other people get off. I’m not super proud of how I conduct my life, but I’m not committing any crimes as far as I can tell. But you seem to think I have. So can you please tell me what this is all about?”

Jessie looked over at Susannah. She wasn't inclined to let the man know anything, but she'd defer to the detective on this one. Apparently, they were in lockstep. Susannah tossed a pen and a notepad on the table in front of him.

“Write down the names of everyone who can confirm your whereabouts at the times we discussed,” she ordered.

“Including my wife?” he asked. “She was in bed with me on Saturday night.”

“What a change of pace that must have been,” Susannah snarled. “Including your wife. You’re under suspicion for something much worse than staring at people having sex, Mr. Lambert. And the more proof you can give us of where you were, the better it will be for you. Maybe not in your marriage, but in terms of your freedom.”

As the man began scribbling, Jessie and Susannah exchanged a glance. Jessie knew her partner was thinking the same thing that she was: this guy might be a scumbag and a hypocrite, but he didn’t feel right for these murders. If they were right, then this whole undercover operation might have been for naught.

Jessie’s fear was further exacerbated by Jim Nettles, who had continued to furiously text during the entire interrogation. He looked up at her now.

“What is it?” she asked.

"Apparently the sudden departures by you two and Mr. Lambert here caused a bit of a panic at the sex party. It seems that folks there thought the event was about to be raided, so everyone bailed. The whole club has cleared out, and most folks are either currently in town cars or about to be."

Jessie sighed.

“Including potentially, our murderer,” she groaned.

Gregory Lambert’s head shot up. His expression was a mixture of shock and horror.

“Did you say murderer?” he exclaimed in horror. “You thought I killed someone?”

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

He watched the action from across the street. A little while ago, he hadn't been sure that he'd ever get the opportunity.

Initially, he’d just wanted to get away from the spa as quickly as possible. That’s why, when the kaleidoscopic disco ball lights in the club all turned red at once (the pre-determined warning signal from the organizers that a raid might be in progress and people should leave), he followed the rest of the crowd out of the place.

At first, the club staffers had people wait in the hallway behind the club, but concerns about police bursting in at any moment proved intense, and people poured out into the alley behind the building.

There was a backup of people waiting for the town cars and, deciding that he didn't want to be a sitting duck if the authorities arrived and took everyone into custody, he left the alley and walked down the main road. He caught sight of his ride stuck in traffic halfway up the block and waved to the driver. He got in, and they were about to pull away when he had a change of heart.

“Actually, I’m going to get back out again. This traffic backup could take forever,” he lied. That wasn’t his real concern. “Just let me grab my phone and other stuff and I’ll be out of your hair.”

Once he collected his things and left the car, he headed across the street to a coffee shop. He bought a drink and settled in at a table with a clear view of the front entrance to Elite Spa. To his surprise, no army of squad cars appeared. After a while, he became suspicious that there hadn't been a raid at all.

What if the cops were here for him? He hadn’t expected that the authorities would make the connection between the masquerade ball masks and the parties—referred to by the organizers as “Special Friends Events—so quickly, or even at all. After all, they’d been going on for nearly two years now without any issues. The organizers, whose real identities he was unaware of, had been masterful at keeping the parties secret.

But maybe he should have expected this attention. Finding naked dead bodies with masks on their faces was certainly unusual. And having three victims made him a serial killer of sorts, even though he hadn't really viewed himself that way until this moment. Now that he thought about it from their perspective, of course, the cops would pour a ton of resources into this case. To have thought otherwise was naïve.

To that point, it was probably foolish of him to have gone to another party so soon after his kills. If the police had connected the masks to the parties, then it was logical, at least in retrospect, to assume that the killer might be found there. But he was new to all of this, and his brain didn’t work like a cop’s. It worked like a security software developer, which is what he was.

He’d have to change how he thought. Of course, he never went after a victim at the club. That would mean an end to the parties and to his supply of victims. So it’s not like the police would be able to catch him in the act while he was there.

But if they somehow got access to the parties’ guest list, they could conceivably go through everyone and backtrace their location at the time of the killings. They would discover that he’d been at the home of Richard and Cynthia Hartley on Saturday night and the apartment of Evelyn Channing last night. It would only be a matter of time, whether it be hours, days, or weeks, before they linked the killings to him.

Then again, if the police couldn’t secure a list of guests, then they might never be able to determine who was committing these acts. He’d been very careful to hide his face from the cameras at Channing’s building and to avoid them entirely at the Hartley’s mansion.

In fact, with his security software and design expertise, he’d been able to hack into the security systems at the victims’ residences, so he knew what to expect. And copying the access card to Evelyn Manning’s apartment had been a breeze. He’d thought well ahead.

But then he had a thought that sent a shiver through him, one that not even the coffee he was sipping could contain. While he’d been very careful to hide his identity at the homes of his victims, he hadn’t thought to do the same thing as he entered the back of the spa through the alley.

If the police had known enough to have people inside the club posing as guests, then they likely would have prepped for their undercover operation by setting up recording devices to log anyone entering the building. If that was the case, then they'd eventually have his identity. Suddenly, all those concerns about them discovering his geolocation in recent nights returned.

In that moment, he realized that he was almost certainly on borrowed time. At some point, likely sooner than later, they would realize it had been him. But that didn’t have to be the end of it.

After all, he was more than just a software developer. He was a millionaire twenty times over after selling his first company three years ago. He’d simply book a flight to a non-extradition country, pack a bag, and head to the airport. He could be gone before the clock struck midnight if he wanted to be.

And he did want to be. He just had to do one thing first. There was a young woman he’d been hoping to pay a visit to later tonight. But now he’d have to move faster than anticipated. It would have to happen this afternoon.

He thought it through as he sipped his drink. He knew where his next choice worked and the building she lived in, but he wasn’t sure of the exact apartment number or the details of her security setup. So he had some work to do before he followed her home after she left work.

As he plotted out a timeline in his head, he took note of four people exiting the front of the spa. There were two men and two women. One of the men, in his early forties and weathered-looking, was dressed casually. The other looked to be wearing a spa uniform, though he didn’t seem at all comfortable in it.

The women were a different story. Both were wearing dresses that would have worked at the party. Then, it occurred to him that they likely had been at the party. In fact, he thought he remembered ogling the one in the painted-on red dress. But his attention was soon diverted by the one in black, not so much because of her outfit but because of her face. He recognized her. It was Jessie Hunt, the famed criminal profiler.

No wonder they had moved so quickly on this case. With her involved, it was a surprise that he wasn’t already in custody. He was flattered that she’d considered his work important enough to take on. But it also meant he needed to move even faster than before.

If he wanted to get in one final kill before escaping for good, he had a lot of work to do and not much time to do it. The realization made him both apprehensive and a little giddy. This was all very exciting.

He waited until their town car pulled away and then left the coffee shop, focused on the task ahead of him.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

They were on their way back to the station in the town car when Jessie saw that she had a voicemail from Hannah. She turned to Susannah, who was driving.

“Can you see when Jamil will have access to the footage from the camera we posted outside the alley entrance?” she asked the detective. “I have to check this message.”

Susannah called HSS while Jessie checked the voicemail. It was a couple of hours old.

“Hey Jessie,” her sister said. “I probably should have mentioned this to you earlier, but I was in class, and then I was debating whether or not to call at all. But I need you to call me back when you get a chance. It's not an emergency. In fact, I'm not even sure it's worth your time at all. Just give me a call back when you’re able.”

Jessie immediately hit redial. Despite her sister’s hemming and hawing, it was clear that something was troubling Hannah, and when that happened, it was worth paying attention. Her instincts were usually right on.

“Hi,” Hannah said when she picked up. “How are you?”

“A little uncomfortable in the outfit I’m currently wearing,” Jessie admitted. “And a little nervous after hearing that message. What’s up?”

“Hold on,” Hannah said. “My thing can wait. What outfit are you wearing exactly?”

“It’s a long story,” Jessie said. “Maybe another time. You tell me your thing.”

"No way," Hannah argued. "My thing might be nothing, but yours definitely isn't. Tell me what's going on with you."

Jessie could feel her sister's stubbornness through the phone and knew that she'd never pry anything out of her unless she talked first, so she filled her in on the basics of the case and how she'd ended up poured into a dress that she'd never normally wear.

“First of all,” Hannah said. “You have to take a selfie. My day won’t be complete until I see you in a steam room-soaked little black dress. Secondly, if this hedge fund guy isn’t your killer, do you have anyone else in mind?”

"We're working on that," Jessie said. "Jamil's going to have access to the faces of everyone who entered that club pretty soon, but that only helps if we know what we're looking for. There could be dozens of male suspects, and unless I hone my profile of this guy a little more, someone else might die before we get to him."

“Well, maybe I can help,” Hannah offered. “What do you know about him so far?”

Jessie decided to play along. It might help to think through her ideas out loud, and Hannah was no slouch in the human behavior department. She might have some insights as an outsider that eluded the pros.

“We know that he’s a male, agile enough to climb over a residential fence, and wealthy and kinky enough to pay eleven grand a month for admission to an underground sex club.”

“So no guarantees, but probably closer to forty than twenty with those kinds of resources, right?” Hannah suggested.

“You never know these days,” Jessie countered. “He could be a twenty-year-old social media influencer raking in millions of dollars a month.”

"So, do you think his motive is like the hedge fund guy?" Hannah wondered, "someone who doubts that his proclivities will go over well in his normal life, so he embraces a secret one, where he can stare at people going at it without being judged?"

"Maybe," Jessie allowed, "But the hedge fund guy had a hands-off vibe that made him unlikely to get down and dirty like this. These killings feel personal. The way our guy posed the victims—it's as if he wanted to make them vulnerable even as he was de-personalizing them by putting masks on their faces. It's like he craves intimacy but, at the same time, doesn't know what to do with it when he gets it."

“Okay,” Hannah mused, “so do you think he maybe had sex with these victims at a party and then things ended badly?”

The question made a light go off in Jessie’s brain.

“No,” she said excitedly, making Susannah pause her conversation with Jamil to listen in. “But now that you mention it, I think he wanted to have sex with them and couldn't for whatever reason. I think our guy coveted his victims. I think he watched them but couldn't join in. Maybe he had the money to join the club, but no one was interested in him once he got there. Maybe he approached the victims but was rejected by them. I think he thought that this club was his ticket to sexual satisfaction, and when it turned out not to be, he got mad. I think this might be his way of asserting control."

As she spoke, it was as if the killer’s anger at his victims seeped into her. She could feel her whole body tingling with barely controlled rage at the man who had done these things. Beside her, Susannah’s attention was diverted by something Jamil said to her on the phone. But Hannah’s apparently wasn’t.

“Are you okay?” her sister asked.

“Yeah,” Jessie assured her, whispering now. “This guy just pisses me off.”

“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that,” Hannah said.

“Is this what you called about?”

“No, I’ll get to that, but I was talking to Ryan yesterday and he mentioned that you’d been having some of the intense anger issues that I dealt with not that long ago.”

“I wish he hadn’t have said anything to you,” Jessie muttered in frustration. “That’s personal, and besides, I don’t want to worry you.”

“He’s worried about you, Jessie. And as to it being personal, you know better than anyone that I have some experience with this issue. If anyone can relate, it’s me. Can I help?”

Jessie was quiet for a moment, deciding how best to proceed.

“Maybe,” she said, speaking quietly so Susannah wouldn’t hear, “but that’s something we can talk about another time.”

Now, it was Hannah's turn to be quiet for a bit.

“Okay,” she finally said, “but don’t let it fester. I can hear the rage in your voice, sis, and I know all too well that if you wait for the perfect time to address it, it could be too late by then.”

“Noted,” Jessie said, hoping to move on, “now what did you originally want to tell me?”

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Mark Haddonfield called me.”

“What!”

“Don’t worry,” Hannah said quickly. “He didn’t threaten me or anything. He said he was actually trying to reach you, but you didn’t pick up.”

Jessie vaguely remembered getting a call this morning from a number she didn’t recognize. She’d rejected it and no one had had left a voicemail, so she hadn’t thought about it since.

“I guess I missed it,” she said. “What did he want?”

“He said he wanted to help,” Hannah told her. “Take this with a huge chunk of salt, but he claimed that Ash Pierce approached him on a prison transport bus and proposed that they work together to escape.”

Jessie didn’t know whether to scoff at the idea or be concerned.

“How long ago did he say this happened?”

“Eighteen days ago,” Hannah said. “He was very specific about that.”

“But he’s only coming forward now?”

“He said he didn’t see any advantage to himself until now. And he was worried that Pierce might find a way to kill him if he squealed. But he thinks that with his jury verdict likely coming down today, she might want to use the chaos around that to make her move.”

“Did he sound believable to you?” Jessie asked.

“You never know with that guy,” her sister conceded. “But to be honest, the only reason I decided to tell you all this was because what he said makes sense, knowing what I know about Pierce. She probably would consider this the perfect time to make a move.”

“Did he ask for anything in return?”

“He said he hoped that his assistance might lead to some perks wherever he ends up serving time,” Hannah said. “He sounded resigned to being convicted.”

“Okay,” Jessie said. “I’m glad you told me. I’ll pass the word along to the powers that be at Twin Towers so they can increase security on Pierce as a precaution. Did you tell Kat any of this?”

“Are you kidding?” Hannah said appalled. “She’s already attending every court proceeding involving Pierce as it is. If she knew about this, she might try to pre-emptively impose her own death penalty, just to be safe.”

“Smart move on your part, then,” Jessie said. “Like you said, this could all be some kind of scheme from Haddonfield. We don’t need Kat Gentry going on trial for murder because of a rumor. Thanks for telling me. I’ll take it from here. You can go back to getting straight “A”s. Deal?”

“I’ll do my best,” Hannah said. “But keep me posted. Until this is resolved, I’m going to be a little distracted.”

“I promise to keep you updated,” Jessie said, “but put it out of your head for now. I’m sure it will amount to nothing.”

Part of her wouldn’t put it past Mark Haddonfield to create chaos just to improve his post-conviction situation. But of late, he’d been more of an asset than a liability. He had tried to warn her about an attempt on her life by a rogue cop. He had provided insight on one of her cases that helped lead to the apprehension of a killer.

So when she hung up, her next call was to the Twin Towers administrator to warn him that she’d heard talk that Pierce might attempt an escape and advise that he increase her guard contingent. With that done, she turned to Susannah, who’d been patiently waiting for her to finish her calls.

"So, did Jamil have anything helpful to share?" she asked hopefully. "Do we know our killer's name yet?"

She didn’t need to wait for an answer. The expression on the detective’s face told her they weren’t out of this thing yet.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

Jessie was playing the waiting game now, and she wasn’t happy about it.

“Anything yet?” she asked for the third time in the last few minutes.

The young woman seated across from her in the research department at Central Station shook her head. Still nothing.

Jessie sighed, trying not to let her frustration get the better of her. She reminded herself that it wasn’t all bad. At least she was out of that tiny black dress and back in normal clothes. To take her mind off her helplessness, she mentally reviewed what they knew so far.

Jamil had gotten access to all the back alley camera footage behind Elite Spa. Using that, the team had been able to narrow down the attendees to sixteen potential suspects based on their general appearance. They were assuming for now that their killer was a male member of the underground sex club that Gregory Lambert had told them was called “Special Friends Events.”

They narrowed the pool down a bit more by only including men who looked to be between the ages of 18 and 65 and were in decent shape. They also assumed that their killer was wealthy and had some technical or electronic expertise, but neither of those things could be definitely determined just by looking at the video.

Unfortunately, while sixteen suspects was a much smaller group than what they had started out with, it was still far too large, considering their time constraints. The victims had been murdered on each of the last two nights. Jessie feared that the man might be planning another attack right now, one that might take place as early as this evening.

The facial recognition system was going through each attendee, trying to identify them. But searching the LAPD’s entire database of possible matches was a time-consuming process, one that Jessie feared would offer results too late to help them.

Once the system eventually ID’d the men from the party, the HSS team could go through the GPS location data for each of them to see if any had been to the Hartley or Channing residences. But getting approval to run each man’s data through the system was another hurdle to leap. Each of those obstacles added time to the process—time they might not have.

And even once they managed to do all of that, there was another concern that they all shared: there was no guarantee that the killer had even attended the “Afternoon Delight” party. It had been announced on short notice. What if he had to work today and couldn’t get away? Or what if he happened to be out of town? Then all of these machinations would be for naught.

That was why Jessie had suggested a shortcut. The shortcut's name was Valentina Russo, the young event planner currently seated at a computer screen across from her. She was in that spot because Jessie had decided it was time to shake things up. They had to bring in the organizers of these Special Friends Events.

She had Valentina come into the station and write an e-mail to the “draft” folder of the shared account. It basically said the truth—that she’d been co-opted by the LAPD in their investigation into the murders of three of the club’s party attendees, all of whom were found wearing their masquerade ball masks.

The e-mail continued as follows: The police say they don’t care about shutting down the events. They care about catching a killer. They want the real names of all male club members between the ages of 18-65 who attended at least one party at Elite Spa with Richard and Cynthia Hartley and at least one with Evelyn Channing. They believe another murder attempt is imminent and need a response ASAP.

Russo had added the e-mail to the draft folder a half hour ago. Since then, as the team tried every other avenue to unearth the killer, they’d all waited restlessly while Russo refreshed her e-mail every sixty seconds. Even though it had only been about half a minute since the last attempt, Jessie was about to instruct the woman to refresh again. But before she could, Russo’s phone rang.

The woman nearly jumped out of her seat. Once she recovered, she picked it up and held out the screen to Jessie. It read “unknown caller.”

“If it’s them, it’s likely a burner phone,” she said, then instructed, “Answer it and put it on speaker.”

Russo nodded and, with shaking fingers, did as she was told.

“Hello?” she said uncertainly.

“Put the police on,” ordered a digitally altered voice that Jessie thought was male.

“You’re on speaker with us now,” Susannah told them.

After a short pause, the voice responded.

“Can you guarantee that you aren’t interested in our business?”

“Some of us attended your party this afternoon,” Jessie replied. “As far as we could tell, everything going on there seemed to be activity among consenting adults. That’s not our priority anyway.”

She didn’t mention the questionable legal status of the India-based charity that they were apparently using as a front for their Special Friends Events. That was something the financial crimes unit—or the IRS—could pursue.

“Not prioritizing it is not the same as ignoring it,” the voice noted, perhaps worried about that very issue.

Jessie wasn’t in the mood for semantic games and said so.

“Perhaps not,” she said. “But you need to look at the bigger picture. If it gets out that members of your club are being murdered by another member, how long do you think your business will survive, especially if we let it be known that you were unhelpful in apprehending the killer? Your business might have some issues going forward regardless, but I suspect that particular revelation would be a death knell for you.”

There was another long silence, so long in fact that Jessie wondered if she’d pushed too hard and they’d simply hung up. But then the voice returned.

“We are sending a list of members who meet your criteria to the draft folder now. We expect that this is the end of our communication.”

This time, Jessie knew that the silence that followed meant they’d ended the call.

***

Ten minutes later, they had their marching orders. The list they’d been sent managed to reduce the number of potential suspects from sixteen to nine. But only two of those nine had what they agreed was enough technical or electronic experience to circumvent Evelyn Channing’s security system and know that the Hartley’s was on the fritz after that big storm. And as it turned out, both had been at the party this afternoon.

The first suspect was a thirty-nine-year-old named Thomas Reed. Married with three kids, he had formerly served in the military in a unit that specialized in network-centric warfare. It appeared that his job was to undermine the efficacy of enemy computer networking and information technology. Since leaving the service, he'd become rich as an executive at a firm that prevented exactly those kinds of intrusions into private sector companies’ systems. He definitely had the skills to evade or undermine the basic security at most people’s homes.

The other promising suspect appeared to have a similar skill set. Michael Pearson was a thirty-one-year-old, unmarried multi-millionaire who designed software for home and business security systems. He made his fortune when he sold the company three years ago. He could likely outsmart the victims’ systems in his sleep.

“We’re going to head out,” Susannah announced. “Nettles will pull Detective Garrison from Homicide and pay Thomas Reed a visit. Jessie and I will look in on Michael Pearson.”

“I noticed that you assigned me the guy with military experience,” Nettles said. “Should I be worried?”

“That’s why Garrison is going with you,” Susannah said. “He’s a former Green Beret. You should be safe.”

“It’s going to take a bit of time to get access to their GPS location data,” Jamil warned, “that is, assuming they’re driving and have their phones with them. I don’t know whether these guys will be at work or home, or either for that matter.”

Susannah looked over at Jessie to get her thoughts.

"Have uniformed officers go to both men's offices," she said. "They're less likely to do something drastic in a public environment. But warn the officers to stay alert. Assume their target is armed and dangerous. Nettles and Garrison can check Reed's home, and we can do the same for Pearson."

“Sounds good,” Nettles said.

"But we should all remember not to jump to conclusions," Susannah added as they headed for the door. "These guys both look good for this, but there's no guarantee that our working theory is right. That’s why, while Jamil tries to get the location data on these two, Beth will be looking at the other seven guys on the list to see if we’re missing something.”

“Will do,” Beth promised.

“Let’s also remember the converse,” Jessie said. “Both of these guys were at the party this afternoon. That means they know the cops were there. They might have gotten spooked. Depending on how they react, that could mean that if one of them is the killer, they’ve gone to ground. Or it could mean that they know there’s a ticking clock. That could lead him to move everything up. If that’s true, then we might not have until tonight. He could be stalking his next victim right now.”

“Okay,” Susannah barked, “with that in mind, let’s move out!”

Jessie noted that the detective had a joyful smile on her face. She was loving this. Unfortunately, Jessie couldn’t claim to feel the same way. Her primary sentiment right now was barely contained fury. She knew that wasn’t a productive emotion under the circumstances.

But knowing it didn’t make the feeling go away.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

Michael Pearson tried not to let his enthusiasm get the better of him.

He was really concerned that his latest selection was going to make his life difficult. Claire Hoffman, an attorney with a prestigious Beverly Hills entertainment law firm, didn’t work normal hours. It was conceivable that she might have to work into the late evening on some legal issue. That would mess everything up, which was why he’d called in the bomb threat.

It had worked exactly as he’d hoped. After calling in the threat on his burner phone, he had ordered a muffin from a nearby bakery and just” happened” to be sitting on a bench outside the law firm’s offices when people began pouring out of the place.

They milled about, waiting to see what would happen next. It only took a few minutes for word to spread among the staff: out of an abundance of caution, and because it was already well into the afternoon, the executive team determined that everyone should just work from home for the rest of the day.

Upon hearing that, he’d returned to his car, which was parked across the street from the firm’s parking garage. He waited for Hoffman to exit the garage, then followed her. He could have gone straight to her place but worried that she might choose to work at some other location. Since this would be his one opportunity with her, he couldn’t make any assumptions.

They were getting close to her West Hollywood condo complex now, and he felt the giddiness return. He tried to stifle it, but it was hard. He'd gotten the same feeling with his other selections, and the rush had been addictive. His only regret was that after he completed his mission with Claire, he'd have to start all over in a new country.

Still, it had been worth it. He still recalled the moment when he’d decided to first take action. It was a long time coming. He’d been a member of Special Friends Events for over a year now and had high hopes that being a part of a club like this might finally change things for him.

He was tired of being ignored. All through high school, he’d been mocked because he was a “nerd.” Girls would only look at him to laugh. Same with the boys, who sometimes went further, bullying him if they got bored.

That wasn’t as much of an issue in college, where people like him could be found everywhere. But the problem was that by the time he got there, his high school experience had made him so awkward and uncertain that anyone he was interested in avoided him just because he made them uncomfortable. He was aware of the issue but couldn’t seem to change how he interacted with folks.

He was fine in academic settings, as long as the discussion was about coding or design or something similar. But once the conversation turned to anything social, he froze up, often saying the wrong thing, that is if he spoke at all.

By the time he graduated, he still hadn’t gone on a date, much less had sex. Opportunities for either became even more sparse in graduate school. He retreated into himself, focusing on the work and little else. Eventually, during his PhD program, he’d come up with the idea for PSS—Pearson Security Systems—and dropped out to focus on that exclusively.

When his mind was on the work, everything was great. But any time his thoughts weren’t consumed by it, he was overwhelmed with an intense loneliness that he didn’t know how to overcome. He thought about seeking therapy but worried about the stigma, especially as he was looking for buyers for PSS.

After he sold the company and fell into more money than he knew what to do with, he considered buying the services of a high-end professional. But again he worried about the stigma if it ever got out. He was planning a new business venture and the revelation that he paid for sex likely wouldn't help his cause.

There was another reason he didn’t want to pay for affection. He was ashamed to admit it, but what if he froze in that situation too, just like all the other social ones where he’d gotten too nervous to act? What if he embarrassed himself in front of this person? It was too much to bear. So he simply remained celibate, though only half-heartedly by choice.

Then he heard about the Special Friends Events. It seemed perfect. Because it was anonymous, with all members wearing masks, there was no fear of an embarrassing moment that might haunt him in the future. Or so he had thought.

It turned out that he was wrong. After ten months of attending parties but only observing— which others did as well—he finally decided to take a risk. That was the moment of action that was still burned on his brain.

He had approached Evelyn Channing, though he didn't know her name at the time, and asked if she'd like to "spend a little time with him." They'd chatted briefly, but he must have done something wrong because within a couple of minutes of talking, she said it had been nice to meet him but that she didn't think they were a match. She wasn't mean about it, but it had stung nonetheless.

So the next time, he tried a different tack. He had seen a couple that he later learned were the Hartleys. They were engaging in an enthusiastic threesome with a young man about Michael's age. So at a subsequent event, he'd approached them, asking if they might be interested in a repeat session with him. They also declined. And while they weren’t outright rude, they were more brusque than Evelyn had been.

He tried to shake it off an and attempted to engage several other folks. All of them passed, culminating in his encounter with Claire Hoffman. Unlike everyone else, she made no attempt to soften the blow when she rejected his offer. In fact, she’d laughed in his mask-covered face, just like the girls back in high school had.

In that second, something inside him broke. He went home that night and hacked into the Special Friends Events e-mail system. They thought they’d made it secure, but not from him. He was able to get all the relevant personal information on every member of the club. It didn’t take long to identify the people who had rejected him.

He decided that the time for such rejection was over. He would take matters into his own hands. And so he did. He wanted to do his work in order of who had refused him. But he had to tweak his plans when he learned that Evelyn Channing was out of town for a work-related music event. So he did the Hartleys on Saturday.

The process, as with everything he did in life, was very methodical. First, he smashed the couple in their heads, removed their clothes, and then positioned their bodies. There was no special reason for that. He just liked the idea that he could do what he wanted with their bodies without objection, something that had been denied to him at the parties.

After that, he found their masks, suffocated them with their own pillow, and lastly, placed their masks on their faces. It was a breathtaking experience. He’d planned it out in such detail that when he was actually completing the acts, he had his first orgasm. He knew that it said something strange about him that it occurred as he was pressing the pillow down on Cynthia Hartley’s face. But he wasn’t in the mood to examine what it said.

With Evelyn, it had been easier. There was just one of her, and she had no idea he was there when she stepped out of the shower. Later, when she lied naked on the bed, unconscious, but before he used her pillow to suffocate the life out of her, he'd considered whether he should take advantage of her compromised situation to finally end his virginity. But that somehow felt wrong. So he'd simply suffocated her like the Hartleys and got his release in that moment.

But as he sat in his car and watched Claire make a pit stop at a grocery store near her home, he acknowledged that everything was different now. He only had time for one more encounter. And while he had originally planned to continue working in chronological order of his rejections, that plan had changed.

If he was only going to get one more chance to eliminate one of his torturers, it had to be Claire, the one who had laughed in his face. The one with derision in her eyes as she told him, "No way. Never."

Well, never was about to change.

The idea was so exhilarating that he couldn’t stifle the giggle that escaped his lips. Soon that giggle would turn to a laugh when he was on top of Claire Hoffman. When he got his sweet revenge.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Kat could tell something was wrong.

As she sat in the back of the courtroom, she watched while Ash Pierce was brought in. She immediately sensed that something was off, even if she couldn't put her finger on what it was. She'd been to so many of Pierce's hearings in anticipation of her trial starting next week—over a dozen now—that she had become familiar with the assassin's routine and tics.

As that last word—tics—tumbled around in her brain, something clicked for her. Ash Pierce didn’t really have tics. Everything she did was measured and controlled. The way she breathed methodically throughout the proceedings no matter what was said to or about her. The way she kept her gaze calmly focused on the person speaking, whether it be the judge, a lawyer, or someone offering information from the witness stand. The way she always placed her hands on the table, left hand over right, almost never moving them unless she was writing an occasional note to her attorney. She was the epitome of self-control.

But not today. Kat doubted that anyone else even noticed. But she did. As the hearing began, Pierce’s breathing seemed ever so slightly more rapid than usual. When someone spoke, her head darted in that person’s direction more quickly than it otherwise would. And her hands, typically still and relaxed on top of the table, were slightly more active. Every now and then, she would switch things up and place her right hand on top of her left. After a few minutes she would go back to the original position.

Eventually it became clear to Kat what was going on. Ash Pierce was hyper-alert today. More than that, she seemed borderline nervous. But Pierce never got nervous. It was part of her thing. In the video showing her killing four prison transport guards while escaping, she always moved with methodical precision, never in a rush, never out of control. So why was she different today, even if it was imperceptible to everyone else?

Kat wasn't sure, but she didn't like it. Seeing Pierce this way made her nervous. But what was she supposed to do about it? Go up to the bailiff and tell him the defendant was acting minutely different than usual, and he should pass that on to the other guards.  Tell the prosecutors? Ask to see the judge in chambers. If they didn't laugh right in her face, they'd probably say that the woman was about to go on trial for her own life. Of course, she was nervous.

Then Kat remembered that there was one person who might believe her and could potentially do something about it: her best friend, Jessie Hunt. Jessie would take her seriously and if she passed along the word, so would everyone else.

Kat resolved that at the next break in the proceedings, she would call Jessie. With that decided, she tried to settle in and let go of the anxiety that was needling at her. But then she looked at Pierce again. The woman switched her hand placement for the fourth time in ten minutes. Kat’s stomach began to churn.

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

Jessie thought it would be harder.

Michael Pearson wasn’t home. And she assumed that the home of a guy who created security systems for a living would have had an impenetrable one protecting his. But it turned out that Pearson was renting the Hollywood Hills house that they were currently walking through. Apparently, the property owner and landlord had declined to give him permission to add extra security measures, despite repeated requests.

Understandably, the owner had originally balked at giving Jessie and Susannah access to the home without a warrant. Normally, they'd need one. But soon after their arrival, the officers who checked Pearson's new startup offices said he wasn't there. So Susannah, sounding as tired and irritable as Jessie felt, let the owner know where things stood.

 “These are exigent circumstances,” she told him sharply, “and not letting us in is tantamount to interfering with a police investigation.”

He caved right away. The circumstances became even more exigent when they got a call from Jim Nettles.

“We’re at Thomas Reed’s house now,” he said. “He was uncooperative at first but when I mentioned the phrase ‘Special Friend Event’ in front of his wife, he offered to get very chatty with us in private. I’ll cut to the chase. The guy was at a convention in Chicago from last Thursday until late Sunday night. He has receipts and everything. We’ll need to reconfirm that the story holds up, but it doesn’t look like he was in Los Angeles for either of the murders.”

Upon getting that news, their next call was immediately to Jamil. He picked up on the first ring.

"It looks like Thomas Reed is in the clear," Susannah said quickly. "We need you to prioritize locating Michael Pearson. Work on getting approval for accessing his geolocation data. He's not at his office, and he's not at his house. I'm worried that he might already be with his next potential victim."

Jessie had the same fear and began moving more quickly through the house, looking for anything that might help them find Pearson. They split up, searching different rooms. Jessie took the bedroom wing, which had a main one and three others. At the end of the hall was a locked door that she assumed led to one more. She called to the landlord.

“What’s this room?” she asked.

“It’s a bedroom,” he said, “but Mr. Pearson asked if he could convert it to a study. After our disagreement on the whole additional security issue, I didn’t want there to be any hard feelings, so I relented and told him it was okay.”

“I need you to unlock the door,” she said.

There shouldn’t be any lock,” he said, surprised. “If there is one, he added it without my permission.”

Susannah had heard the discussion and joined them. Her face was determined.

"Hate to tell you this, sir, but you have two options," she told him. "We can smash this door open, or I can shoot out the lock. Option two is louder, but option one will cause more damage in the long run. What's your preference?'

After getting over the initial shock, the man said, “shoot it.”

Susannah didn't need to be asked twice. As she unholstered her weapon, Jessie guided the man out of the bedroom wing. A moment later, they heard a loud bang.

“It’s open,” Susannah called out.

When they rounded the corner, Susannah was already in the room with the light on.

“Jessie, you better get in here,” she yelled.

Jessie dashed down the hall. Some small part of her feared that they were too late and there might be a naked body in the room. But when she stepped inside, she understood that Susannah’s urgency had been for another reason entirely.

On the wall above the desk in the corner of the room was a corkboard. Affixed to the board were photos of multiple people with addresses handwritten below. Jessie immediately recognized three of them as Richard Hartley, Cynthia Hartley and Evelyn Channing. But that wasn’t what had Susannah so anxious. There were four other photos on the corkboard: three women and one man.

“I’m going to call all these in right now,” Susannah said. “We’ll have units go to each address.”

“Okay,” Jessie said.

While the detective made the call, Jessie moved closer to the corkboard to get a better look. She noticed something right away. At first, she thought that her fatigued, bleary eyes were playing tricks on her. But they weren’t. Three of the addresses were transcribed in meticulous handwriting. But one of them was scrawled more haphazardly, to the point that she had to squint to read all the letter and numbers.

“Send units to the other three, but we’re taking this one,” she said to Susannah as she pointed at the photo of the severely attractive brunette whose name was apparently Claire Hoffman.

“Hold on a second,” Susannah said to the dispatcher on the other end of the line, then asked, “Why?”

“For one thing, it’s close,” Jessie said. “This address is just down the hill in West Hollywood. We’re probably five minutes away. And two, because she’s going to be his next victim.”

“How do you know that?” Susannah demanded.

“Look at the difference in how he wrote her address information compared to the others,” she said, her blood pumping faster as she spoke. “He couldn’t control himself. She clearly brings out strong feelings in him, and not good ones. We need to get to her place right now!”

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

Claire Hoffman was annoyed.

She’d forgotten to take her plastic grocery bag into the store and ended up having to get one of their paper ones. She didn’t mind the $.10 charge. What she did mind was how crappy the bag was.

One of the handles broke as she was carting it down the hallway to her condo and several items had fallen out. She was lucky none of them was the wine bottle. Actually, the store was lucky. If that had broken, she'd have gone back to give them hell.

She was so tired of ineptitude. The folks she represented at work, mostly actors and directors, were a whiny bunch who didn’t appreciate what she did for them. The service industry people she dealt with seemed disinterested in giving half a damn about their work.

It was enough to make her wish that bomb threat to the office had come in early enough for her to go to the “Afternoon Delight” event at Elite Spa today. But the party announcement had come on such short notice, and she couldn’t justify it with all the work she had. She’d just have to find a nasty boy toy who could satisfy her needs next time.

As it was, she had the bag in her left arm and her briefcase in her right, making it impossible to unlock her door. She put down the bag and searched for the keys in the pocket of her slacks.

As she did, she felt a strange shiver go down her back. It reminded her of that feeling she and her friends got as kids when they'd say that meant someone had just walked over their grave. She glanced back down the hallway behind her, but there was no one there.

She finally managed to get hold of the keys and pull them out. She fished around for the right one, then unlocked the door. As she picked up the briefcase, she got the same shiver as before. But this time, she didn’t have the energy to look over her shoulder again.

She pushed open the door and was just starting to step inside when she heard what sounded like shoes reverberating loudly on the wooden floor behind her, coming her way.

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

Jessie had been wrong.

It didn’t take them five minutes to get to Claire Hoffman’s condo complex. It took seven.

Susannah pulled up to the curb, and Jessie was out the passenger door before the car had come to a complete stop. They reached the exterior gate, which was locked. Susannah punched in the special gate code for the complex that was only available to emergency personnel so they could gain access in situations exactly like this one.

As they raced through the courtyard to the building’s main entrance, Jessie got a call. She pulled out her phone and looked at the screen. It was from Kat. That would have to wait. She sent it to voicemail and waited as Susannah entered the code for the interior door as well.

The building was only four stories high, with four units on each floor. But, of course, Hoffman lived on the fourth. Susannah hit the elevator button. When it didn't open immediately, Jessie made a decision.

“I’ll take the stairs,” she said, “meet you up there!”

She darted over to the stairwell and took the stairs two at a time. By the time she reached the top floor, she was out of breath. Her recovery from the fight with the poisoner two weeks ago had left her unable to do her normal workout routine and she could feel the difference.

Seeing that Susannah hadn’t arrived yet, she tried to put her physical and mental exhaustion out of her head and find Hoffman’s unit. She was in 404, which was at the end of the hall.

Jessie was debating whether to wait for her partner to arrive when she saw something that made her blood run cold. On the floor just outside the door to the unit were two oranges and a head of lettuce.

It was certainly possible that someone inadvertently dropped an item from the store as they returned home. But three? No—this seemed less like an oversight and more like someone who had been forced into their home while holding groceries and had several items fall out without the assailant noticing.

She sprinted down the hall. When she got to the door, she found it closed. Forcing herself to breathe more quietly, she delicately turned the handle. It didn’t give at all. The thing was locked.

She was torn. She knew Susannah had the ability to pick locks, but she wasn’t here yet, and even if she had been, there wasn’t time for that. Clearly, Pearson was already in there with Claire Hoffman, doing who knows what. Jessie knew what.

Without another thought, she pulled out her weapon and did exactly what Susannah done at Pearson’s rental house. She fired a single shot at the handle and then a second one just to be sure. Then she kicked in the door.

She dropped to the ground and rolled inside. Pearson might prefer to knock out his victims and then suffocate them, but that didn’t mean he didn’t carry a gun or some other weapon. There was no one in the living room, which didn’t surprise her. That’s not where he did his dirty work.

But now that she’d fired her weapon, finding the bedroom became a race against time. She needed to get to Claire before Pearson completed his task. As she rushed through the living room toward the small hallway leading to what she hoped was the bedroom, she heard a cacophony of approaching sirens. Apparently the cavalry was on the way, but she feared they would be way too late.

On the short drive over here, Jamil had informed them that this was a one-bedroom condo, so she was pretty certain that the door she was staring at had both victim and perpetrator behind it. It was far more flimsy than the front door, and she didn't even bother with the gun this time.

She kicked at the most vulnerable spot and the door, after giving the briefest of opposition, flew open. She knelt down on one knee and scanned the room.

Sure enough, a woman lay on the bed, completely naked. She didn’t have a mask on, which Jessie prayed meant that Pearson hadn’t gotten to the final stage of his process yet. As she peeked into the room, he was nowhere in sight.

Had he made a run for it when he heard the sirens? No, Jessie was already inside the condo by then. Had he tried to escape when he heard the gunshot? Unlikely. There was only one door to this place, and he wouldn’t have had time to sneak by as she came back here.

There was a balcony beyond the sliding glass door along the far wall, but that would be a forty-foot drop. She was dubious that he'd made that choice. She shimmied inside the room, making sure that there were no closets behind her. There weren't, but there was one against the other wall. The door was slightly ajar.

She was about to move in that direction when she heard something. It sounded like an exhale from someone who’d been holding their breath. And it had come from the other side of the bed, next to the sliding door. She was just lifting her gun to point it in that direction when it happened.

Michael Pearson, who’d been crouched in hiding on that side of the bed, popped up slightly. Something flashed in his right hand. Jessie started to take aim when she realized what it was.

The man was holding a letter opener, and it was pressed against Claire Hoffman's throat. Jessie considered firing but most of his torso was still behind the bed and his head was blocked by Claire's body. She didn't have a clear shot, and she wasn't confident enough in her skills to take on this challenging.

“I’ll kill her!” he shouted.

Jessie took some small solace in those words, however threatening. They meant that he hadn’t already suffocated Claire. With that information in hand, Jessie, despite the rising anger in her chest, decided to change tactics.

"Okay, Michael," she said, lifting her arm in the air and pointing her gun at the ceiling, "let's stay calm here. I'm going to put my weapon away, and we can just talk this out."

“You’re just trying to stall until the other cops get here,” he snarled.

“The other cop is already here,” Susannah said from behind Jessie, startling her. She hadn’t heard her come in. The detective’s gun was drawn and pointed at Pearson.

“Looks like your friend didn’t get the memo about putting the guns away,” Pearson said. His voice was confident, but his hand was shaking, intermittently poking Claire’s Hoffman’s throat slightly. Jessie saw a small trickle of blood roll down the woman’s neck.

“Michael,” she said, holstering her gun. “Let’s all bring the temperature down in here. Detective Valentine is going to holster her weapon and we’re going to find a way through this. That’s what you want, right?”

“I want transport to a non-extradition country,” he barked. “That’s what I want.”

“We can discuss that,” Jessie said, her voice even despite the rage that made her feel like her body was shaking from the inside out. There was no way this bastard was leaving the county, much less the country. “But we need a show of goodwill from you. Move the letter opener away from Claire’s neck.”

Pearson seemed to consider the idea. As he did, Jessie studied him. The man had an unassuming air about him. Nothing screamed serial killer, although appearance rarely gave that sort of thing away. Pearson was of average height, with lifeless brown hair, dull eyes, and generally unmemorable features. Maybe that was part of the issue. Maybe this was his way of finally making an impression.

“How do I know that if I do that<” he finally asked, “you won’t just pull out your guns and shoot me dead?”

Susannah took that one.

“Because we’re law enforcement officers, not murderers,” she said. “We want everyone to get out of this alive. Even you.”

Jessie wasn’t so sure she agreed with that sentiment, but she kept her thoughts to herself.

“You know,” Pearson said, his voice turning plaintive as he nodded at Claire Hoffman’s naked torso, “if this one here had been as decent as you two, maybe she wouldn’t be in this situation right now.”

Jessie somehow doubted that the man was choosing his victims based purely on how nice they were. But she held her tongue on that point too. Instead, she tried to appeal to his ego.

“Listen, Michael, maybe these people didn’t treat you right, but forget about them,” she said. “I can’t promise you that you’re going to leave the country. That’s not realistic. I want to be honest with you about that. But I can promise that you’re going to become a celebrity now. Your trial will be all over television. You’ll have women sending you letters asking to meet you, talking about how great your conjugal visits will be.”

He licked his lips at that idea, so she kept going.

“But all of that only happens if you’re alive,” she added. “You hear those sirens? Those officers will be up here soon. And the more cops in this room, the more chance that something goes wrong. But if you toss that letter opener away and surrender yourself to us, you’ll be in cuffs before they even get up here. And then the whole process starts. The news stories. The jail interviews. Those letters I mentioned from adoring groupies. Your life is about to change, in some ways for the better. So what do you say, let’s end all this craziness?”

He turned the offer over in his head. Jessie could tell that it appealed to him. He just needed to take that final step. He looked over at Claire and then back at Jessie. And then he stood up. He started to walk slowly, moving toward the foot of the bed.

“That’s great, Michael,” Jessie said. “You just need to drop the letter opener.”

“You know,” he said, “maybe if the girls back in school were more like you, I wouldn’t have ended up like this.”

Saying those words seemed to do something to him. Jessie watched as he cast his mind back to whatever trauma from his youth had led him down this road. And in that instant, she saw his eyes darken. She knew the moment was lost.

Suddenly he leapt across the foot of the bed, the pointy end of the letter opener headed toward her. But apparently, she hadn't been the only one to notice the change in Pearson. With incredible speed, Susannah unholstered her gun and fired, hitting the man in the right shoulder.

He collapsed onto the bed, his torso landing on Claire Hoffman’s legs. His arm fell limply by his side and the letter opener dropped from his hands, bouncing once on the bed before coming to rest at Jessie’s feet.

Susannah, without hesitation, holstered her weapon and moved toward Pearson. Within seconds, she had yanked him from the bed to the ground. He lay on his stomach, where she jammed her knee into his back as she pulled out her cuffs.

Jessie looked at Pearson. The man had tried to kill her, even after she set aside her feelings and tried to help him survive this thing, an offer he’d never made to his victims. The rage returned.

Jessie glanced at the letter opener lying at her feet. She could imagine the cold steel in her palm as she grabbed it, clenched it tight in her fingers, and jammed it deep into the top of Pearson’s skull. Unable to stop the image from invading her brain or the excitement from filling her gut, she bent down to pick it up.

“What are you doing?” Susannah said, shaking her out of her fever dream. “Don’t touch that, Jessie. You know it’s evidence.”

“Right, sorry,” Jessie said, covering quickly. “I was just going to move it away from him. I guess I wasn’t thinking.”

“Just let the crime scene folks bag it,” Susannah said, apparently oblivious to the churning hatred still roiling inside her partner. “Can you check on Hoffman?”

"Yes. Of course," Jessie said, trying to get back into her normal headspace. She wanted to slap herself in the face but decided against it. Instead, she moved over to the bed to check on the victim she was supposedly here to save.

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

Jessie was almost back to normal.

They had watched one ambulance take Claire Hoffman away after the EMTs managed to get her conscious. She was disoriented and in pain from the blow to the head she suffered, but she was alive. A second ambulance would take Pearson to a separate hospital, where he would be treated for the gunshot to the shoulder before being processed right there in his hospital room.

His surgery would take a while, so Jessie and Susannah decided to head back to Central Station to get a head start on the paperwork. Susannah hadn't made any more mention of Jessie, almost grabbing the letter opener. It seemed like she'd bought the story that Jessie had just gotten lost in the moment and almost made a mistake.

That was reassuring, but Jessie didn’t feel all that relieved. She was quite sure that if her partner hadn’t noticed her reaching for the letter opener, the thing would be in Pearson’s skull and Jessie would be in handcuffs. This had to stop.

She pulled out her phone as they headed back to the station, about to text Dr. Lemmon. That’s when she noticed the voicemail from Kat. She’d completely forgotten about her call. She hit play and put the phone to her ear.

“Jessie,” her friend said, clearly agitated, “I know this is going to sound crazy, but I need you to believe me. Something is up with Ash Pierce. I’ve gone to all the proceedings in her case. I get that people think that’s not great for my mental health. But set that aside. I know how this woman typically acts. And she’s acting differently today. I don’t know if it’s because her trial starts next week or what, but she’s agitated. And she never gets agitated. I feel like something’s going to happen. I’d say call me back, but the hearing is supposed to resume at 4:15. That’s in ten minutes. Maybe you can reach out to people you know here at the court and give them a head’s up. Something isn’t right.”

Jessie looked at the time. It was 4:37, meaning the hearing was likely in session right now. Normally, she'd think that Kat was overreacting because of her personal history with Pierce. But between this call and Hannah's warning from Mark Haddonfield earlier, she wasn't so sure.

She was tempted to call her contact at the courthouse but thought better of it. It was one thing to warn the jail administrator. Increasing Pierce’s guard contingent was no big deal for them. If needed, they could simply confine Pierce to her cell.

But the courthouse was another matter, and she just didn’t have enough information to justify putting them on even higher alert. That required moving precious resources around. The best move under the circumstances seemed to be just to go there herself.

“Hey,” she said, turning to Susannah in the driver’s seat,” do you think you could start on the paperwork without me?”

“Sure,” Susannah said without hesitation. “Why?”

"Kat's at the courthouse," Jessie explained. "She's got some anxiety over the Ash Pierce case, and I'd like to be there to offer her some moral support. Would you mind dropping me off there? I'll catch up with you after this hearing is done."

"Not a problem," Susannah said, pulling out the cherry light and turning on the siren. "She's your best friend, so let's get you to her ASAP."

Jessie settled into her seat as the detective punched the gas. She knew Susannah was using this as an excuse to tear through traffic like a knife through butter. But she didn’t mind. The sooner she got to the courthouse, the sooner she could reassure Kat that this was all going to be okay.

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

Ash Pierce learned the news while she was sitting at the defense table.

It was during a moment when the judge was conferring with the court reporter.

Even though all phones had to be turned off in the courtroom, one of her attorneys somehow got word: Mark Haddonfield had been found guilty on all counts.

That might have just been juicy gossip to the lawyers, but to Ash it was something more. With the end of his trial, Haddonfield wouldn’t be returning to the courthouse until his sentencing, which might take weeks or even months. That meant that all the media attention related to his trial would now transfer over to the next big case at the county courthouse, one which just happened to be starting next week: hers.

More attention meant more security. And that would complicate Ash's plans. While no one thought she would be acquitted, her attorneys had some optimism that, with her amnesia, a mistrial might be possible. Ash harbored no such hopes. She would be convicted and sentenced to a maximum security prison, which even she doubted she could ever escape from.

But even before that, with all the extra security about to be transferred from Haddonfield’s trial to hers, escaping from the Twin Towers jail where she was currently housed, or from the courthouse, would become infinitely harder.

In fact, today was probably the last day she could count on a less involved security protocol. The courthouse security staff, the cops, and the jail guards would all be focused on getting Haddonfield from court back to jail without incident and with minimal press hassle. But once he was back in his Twin Towers cell, all those resources would be directed toward her.

That meant that this was it. Today was her last real opportunity to take advantage of the weaknesses she’d observed in those courthouse security protocols. It was now or never.

“We’re going to wrap thing things up for the day,” the judge announced. “Other matters require the assistance of some of our court personnel, so we’ll conclude this hearing in the morning. I’ll see you all here at 9:30. Court dismissed.”

He slammed his gavel and left without looking back.

The four guards assigned to her had her stand up. As they guided her out of the courtroom, Ash glanced behind her. There, in the far back right corner, as always, was Kat Gentry. The woman was eyeing her suspiciously.

Ash didn’t know how, but she sensed that Gentry knew she was up to something. Not that it would matter. By the time the woman was able to warn the appropriate people, this would all be done.

The guards led her from the courtroom, down the hallway, and into the holding room, where prisoners waited until it was time for the bus to transport them back to Twin Towers. There were only four other prisoners in there today, about half the usual number. Three of them were unfamiliar to her, but the fourth wasn’t.

Mark Haddonfield sat in one of the hard-backed chairs near her looking glum. She knew why, and she almost felt bad for him. After all, if she let the system do its thing, she'd be in the same boat as him soon enough.

But that was all the time she had to consider the feelings of others. With the buzz surrounding Haddonfield's verdict and the temporary uncertainty over which specific guards would be added to his contingent for transport, she was, at least for now, an afterthought.

She studied the guards. All of them had keys to her manacles, but getting the right one in position to remove them was essential. She knew who she wanted.

Ash began to cough quietly at first, before it eventually morphed into a full-on hacking fit. That led a young guard named Poulter—a gangly type with close-cropped black hair who had just returned from two weeks of paternity leave after the recent birth of his son— to grab a tissue and offer it to her.

“Thank you,” she said sweetly.

He nodded and rejoined his colleagues, but he was now the closest one to her. She waited until most of the guards had their backs turned and were all distracted by the Haddonfield transport plans before she made her next move.

“Did you hear that?” she demanded loudly, suddenly standing up and pressing her back against the wall as if she feared she might be attacked at any moment.

"What?" Poulter asked, turning around, confused.

“Mark Haddonfield just whispered that if he was going down, so would I,” she said, her voice panicky. “He ran his finger across his throat like he was going to slice mine!”

“That’s not true!” Haddonfield protested, standing up angrily just as she’d hoped.

“Please don’t let him near me!” she pleaded to Poulter.

As expected, the guard took a spot in between the two of them, facing Haddonfield and with his back to her.

“Sit back down, Haddonfield!” one of the other guards barked.

“But she’s lying,” Haddonfield insisted. “I haven’t said a word.”

“You mouthed it, you cruel bastard!” she cried out. “You know you did!”

“She’s up to something!” Haddonfield shouted, pointing at her.

His aggression made Officer Poulter take a small step back. It was all she needed. Now he was close enough.

In a flash, she swung her manacles over Poulter’s head and yanked back, tightening them around his neck. The remaining six guards in the room all pulled out their guns and pointed them at her.

“Put all your weapons on the ground now,” she instructed calmly, “or I snap Officer Poulter’s neck, and his little baby boy never gets to know his father. You know I’m capable of it. I’ve been trained to do far worse.”

They all stood there dumbfounded. But that wasn’t what she’d instructed them to do. It seemed that she’d have to up the ante. Ash squeezed the manacle chain tighter. Poulter coughed and began to gasp desperately.

"Do it now," she ordered serenely, ignoring his failed gulps for air. "I know I'm not winning my case, so that leaves me with two options: escape or die. I'm cool with either. Do you think Mrs. Poulter will be equally cool if you make that choice for her husband?"

The guards all put their guns down.

“Good, now do the same with your radios.”

They complied.

“Now all of you pile into that broom closet and close the door. Be quick about it.”

The guards crowded into the closet. Once the door was closed, she turned her attention to Haddonfield.

“Jam a chair against the door so they can’t get out.”

“I won’t do it,” he protested.

Without hesitation, Ash swung her manacles hard to the right, slamming Poulter’s head against the wall. In the extended moment when he was dazed, she reached down and grabbed his gun before quickly re-tightening her grip around his neck.

“I know you don’t care about this guy, Mark,” she said. “But you should care about yourself. Because if you don’t do as I say, I will simply shoot you and ask one of the other inmates here to do the job. Now, are you more amenable?"

Haddonfield reluctantly went over and did as she’d told him, forcing the top of the chair against the door handle.

“Good, stay there,” she ordered before turning her attention to the still discombobulated Officer Poulter. “Officer, I need you to remove your key and undo my manacles. Can you do that?”

He nodded weakly. After several seconds, her hands were free. The manacles dropped away. But she held the officer close to her, the gun pressed against his temple.

“Good boy,” she said. “Now Mark, I need you to open the door to the transport area and tell anyone out there to back off because I have a gun to their colleague’s head.”

Haddonfield looked like he wanted to protest, but she cut him short.

“Remember,” she said. “You’re expendable. I bet any of your buddies will happily do the job if you have a bullet hole in your head. Now get moving. Time is running short.”

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

“I’m willing to tell the head of courthouse security about your concerns,” Jessie promised Kat as they stood in the hallway outside the courtroom where proceedings in Ash Pierce’s case had just ended for the day.

“Why do I hear a ‘but’ in there?” Kat asked.

“Because there is one,” Jessie said. “I’ll do it because, despite everything, I believe in your instincts. But I’m not sure everyone else will take your concerns as seriously. And I’m worried that if they think you’re a crank, then they won’t let you in the courtroom for the trial, which I know is important to you.”

“It is,” Kat conceded, “but making sure that Pierce doesn’t get away with whatever deception I know she’s planning is a higher priority.”

“Okay, how about this?” Jessie offered. “I have authorization to access the courthouse holding room and transport area. Let’s go back there and you can show me what about her behavior has you so rattled. I’m a professional profiler. I should be able to pick up on it too.”

“Fine,” Kat agreed, her tone increasingly anxious with each passing moment. “Let’s go.”

They stepped into the courtroom, where the bailiff was closing up shop for the day.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but this area is off limits when court isn’t in session.”

“We need access to the holding room,” Jessie said, showing her credentials. “I know the back hallways will get us there quicker than going the long way around, so I need you to unlock the door to the ‘staff only’ section.”

He looked reluctant, but without any formal reason to object, he did as she asked. They passed through the door and down the hallway to the holding room.

“We should hurry,” Kat said, breaking into a jog. “If she’s already on the bus, it’ll be too late for you to see what I’m talking about.”

“I’ve been back there before,” Jessie said. “They have to process each prisoner individually, make sure their respective judge has signed off on their return to Twin Towers, and do a full pat down. It usually takes fifteen to thirty minutes, depending on how many prisoners there are, so we have time.”

But Kat didn't seem convinced. Instead, she picked up the pace. They were approaching the entrance to the holding room when they hear what sounded like a gunshot, followed by a second, and then a third. They broke into a run. When they got to the holding room door, Jessie yanked on the handle. It was locked. Kat didn't have her weapon, as she was required to turn it in when she entered the courthouse. So for the second time today, Jessie shot at a door.

Then she kicked it open and squatted down, surveying the room. It took several seconds to process what she saw. There was a pile of guns and radios in the center of the room. In addition, there were three men lying on the floor. They were all wearing blue scrubs, the ones assigned to Twin Towers inmates.

Two were on their backs, with manacles around their wrists. They had each been shot in the forehead. The third man was lying on his stomach with a gunshot wound in his back. He was groaning. Other than that, the room was empty.

Jessie dashed over to the groaning man and bent down.

“What happened?” she demanded.

Wincing, he pointed at the closed door to the transport area. Jessie looked that way, trying to comprehend what was happening. Neither Pierce nor Haddonfield was anywhere in sight. Had Haddonfield been right? Was Ash Pierce attempting an escape? Or was he part of this too?

“Where the hell are Pierce and Haddonfield?” Kat demanded. Her voice had a panicky edge to it.

“I think they’re out there,” Jessie said, standing up and approaching the transport area door.

She was about to open it when she was startled by a banging sound. She looked in that direction and saw a closet door with a chair jammed up against it.

“Who’s there?” she shouted.

“Courthouse officers,” a male voice replied. “Let us out.”

Jessie was tempted but couldn’t be certain if the man was telling the truth or if he was an inmate lying in wait.

“We’ll let you out once we have the area secured,” she said. “What happened here?”

“Who is that?” the man demanded.

“This is criminal profiler Jessie Hunt,” she shouted back. “Now answer my damn question!”

“Ash Pierce took one of our officers hostage and forced us all in here,” he said quickly. “That’s all I know.”

“Let them out,” Jessie told Kat. “And have them call an ambulance for the inmate with the gunshot wound to the back.”

But before her friend could take a step, they heard another gunshot coming from the transport area.

“Those guys will have to wait,” Kat hissed, grabbing one of the guns from the pile in the middle of the room, then darting toward the transport area door. Her eyes were nearly popping out of her head.

“Wait,” Jessie hissed. “We can’t just go out there guns blazing. Remember who we’re dealing with.”

“Remember who she’s dealing with,” Kat shot back, unbowed. “I was an Army Ranger. I can handle myself.”

Jessie couldn't argue with that. But right now, Kat wasn't acting like a Ranger. She was acting like someone with a vendetta. She did her best to keep her friend under control.

“Okay, but let’s do this the smart way. We go together on three,” she said.

Kat nodded in hurried agreement.

Jessie silently counting down with her fingers. When she reached three, she yanked open the door and followed her best friend through it.

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN

Jessie and Kat scurried behind an empty squad car. Once there, Jessie only had to do a quick scan to see what had happened.

The prison transport bus was full of cops and guards, who had apparently been ordered onto it. The bus driver lay on the ground near the door, coughing quietly as he held his hands to a wound in his gut.

An officer was lying dead on the ground by the passenger door of his squad car. Another officer was hiding behind the driver’s door of the squad car, his weapon pointed at Ash Pierce, who was behind a dumpster, holding a gun to the head of a third officer, whom she was using as a human shield.

Off to the side, still manacled and looking at the whole situation with a mix of horror and fascination, was Mark Haddonfield. He was leaning against a wall for support. Pierce looked over at the new additions to the scene.

“Hey ladies,” she said with a nasty smile. “I thought I might eventually find Kat here, but Jessie Hunt? What a delightful surprise! You know, I never got to complete my assignment when it came to you. Maybe I should do that now.”

Jessie didn't take her eyes off Pierce, but she could sense Kat stiffening beside her. Fearing that her friend would let her anger cloud her judgement, she responded quickly.

“It looks like you’ve already got a lot on your plate,” she called back. With everything that had gone down with Pierce—all the assassin’s attempts to harm her loved ones—Jessie realized that they’d never actually spoken until now.

“I can always make time for you, Miss Big Britches Celebrity Profiler,” Pierce said giddily.

“Let’s worry about you and me later,” Jessie said, refusing to play the killer’s game. “Right now, why don’t we talk about how to get all these folks out of here safely so that no one else has to die.”

“There’s no reasoning with her, Jessie,” Haddonfield told her. “You can’t trust a word she says.”

“Ha,” Pierce chuckled. “Are you going to take advice from the little punk who decided to kill people to get the attention of his dream girl?”

“It’s not like that! We’re colleagues,” Haddonfield shouted, before adding, as if in response to some invisible person who had disputed his claim, “yes we are.”

“Your little buddy seems to be a tad delusional,” Pierce teased.

Haddonfield, ignoring her taunts, turned to Jessie. His eyes were plaintive.

“Did you talk to Hannah?” he asked. “Did she pass on my message? It’s really important that you know what’s going on, Jessie.”

“She told me about your warning,” Jessie assured him. “Clearly you were right.”

“No, the other thing,” he insisted angrily. “The message I said was for you.”

Jessie didn't know what he was talking about, and she didn't have time to worry about it. Apparently, neither did Pierce.

“I’m getting tired of this whiny little bitch,” she said. “And time’s a’wastin’. I’m thinking I should just put him out of his misery.”

“Go ahead,” Kat shouted with venom, speaking for the first time. “Maybe you could actually do some good with those assassin skills for once. He had my fiancé’ killed. In fact, you should be embarrassed. This pathetic college dropout wannabe serial killer has been more effective than you lately.”

“I missed you and your deeply damaged soul, Kat,” Pierce said. “Do you remember our good times together in the desert? I sure do.”

“It seems like you remember everything these days,” Kat shot back. “I guess that whole amnesia bit is a thing of the past.”

Jessie noticed that her friend’s whole body was shaking slightly. There was no way she could accurately fire a gun right now.

“It really is,” Ash agreed. “And since I remember everything I did to you out in that desert, I think I owe you a solid. Here it is.”

Without warning, Pierce pulled the gun away from her hostage’s head and aimed it at Haddonfield, firing once. In the same instant, Jessie saw the officer behind the squad car driver’s door step out and fire at Pierce. He missed. She turned her gun on him and fired back. He immediately dropped to the ground, unmoving.

Jessie wanted to take a shot of her own, but Pierce had the gun back against the hostage’s head and his body in front of hers. She looked over at Mark Haddonfield. He was still standing, but only for a moment.

She realized that he had fully slumped against the wall he had been leaning on. Then he slowly slipped down as blood poured from his mouth. In the spot on the wall where his head had been only moments earlier was a large circle of red splatter, among other things. His body toppled unceremoniously to the left, and his head hit the garage floor like a bowling ball. His gray eyes were vacant.

Jessie blinked in disbelief. Mark Haddonfield was dead. Just like that. She had no idea how to feel. Next to her, Kat regripped her gun.

“I think I have a shot,” she whispered but she was still shaking.

Jessie knew her friend well enough to guess what she was thinking. Part of her just wanted vengeance. But now there was more. She’d dared pierce to kill Haddonfield, and the woman had done it. Even though she might not mind him being dead, she didn’t want to be responsible for his murder. She was in no condition to take any shot.

“Now let’s stop playing around,” Pierce called out, guiding the hostage officer in front of her toward the open squad car door. “Here’s what’s going to happen. Officer Poulter and I are going to leave now. If you make any attempt to stop us, you can explain that decision to his widow and his orphaned son, who is less than a month old. Isn’t that right, officer?”

Officer Poulter nodded. Jessie sensed Kat’s arms tighten beside her.

“Don’t,” she muttered quietly.

“If she gets away, everyone is in danger again,” Kat muttered, her voice tight.

“Do you want that cop’s blood on your hands if you miss?” Jessie asked.

“It’s a risk I’m willing to take,” Kat said.

“I’m not,” Jessie told her. “This isn’t the way.”

And then it was too late. Pierce had slid into the squad car, behind the bulletproof glass. They no longer had a shot. She wriggled over to the passenger side as Poulter took the car keys off the dead officer’s body and started the vehicle. Then he put the car in drive and pulled away.

In the passenger seat, Pierce rolled down the window just slightly and, in a loud, cheerful voice, called out to them as they drove out of the garage.

“I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again soon!”

CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

Jessie hung up the phone and returned to the couch.

Ryan had drifted off while she spoke to Susannah, but as she sat down, he startled awake.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “That medication makes me so drowsy. Are there any updates on the situation?”

"Yeah," she said. "I just got off the phone with Susannah. She's still at the station, but she wanted to fill me in."

"Tell me," Ryan said, sitting up, the cloudiness in his eyes clearing up almost immediately.

“The police car was abandoned less than a mile from the courthouse,” she told him. “A woman had been carjacked nearby. Her body was found in the bushes beside the squad car. The police think that Pierce feigned being an officer to get the woman to stop her car, then shot her and took the car and her ID so the police wouldn’t know who she was or what car she drove.”

“What about Officer Poulter?” Ryan asked.

“She took him with her,” Jessie said. “By the time they identified and located the woman’s vehicle, a 2014 Honda Accord, it had been three hours. It was in an alley behind an apartment complex in Tustin. They think it was one of Pierce’s safe houses. Officer Mike Poulter was found in the apartment bathroom shower, bound and gagged, but alive.”

Thank god for that, at least," Ryan said, exhaling heavily.

“Yes,” Jessie agreed. “But he was in the minority. Counting him, the bus driver, and the inmate shot in the back, there were three survivors. But Pierce’s rampage left six people dead: two officers, the carjacked motorist, and three inmates, including Mark Haddonfield. And that’s just the people we know about so far.”

Ryan’s expression suggested that he knew not to ask her how she felt about that right now.

“Do they know where Pierce went after that?” he asked instead.

“They do, thanks to Jamil,” Jessie said. “A street camera caught a woman with Pierce’s bone structure and features leaving the complex. She wore a wig and had on sunglasses, but they’re pretty confident it’s her.”

“How can they be so sure?”

“Because a woman matching that same description was seen on CPB cameras at the San Ysidro border crossing between San Diego and Tijuana. She appears to have crossed on foot an hour and a half ago. They identified her on the surveillance footage thirty minutes ago, so she’s probably well south of Tijuana by now, likely headed to another safe house.”

“So she’s in the wind?” Ryan concluded.

“It looks that way,” Jessie confirmed.

“How are Hannah and Kat taking it?” he asked, well aware that those were Pierce’s last targets and that she might have chosen to go after them rather than pursue an escape.

"I'm about to call Hannah back," Jessie said. "I updated her right after it happened but haven't had a chance to check back in since. She'll be happy to hear from me, considering that she's spent the last six hours under officer supervision at the Irvine Police Department headquarters. Kat will have to wait until tomorrow to find out."

“Why is that?”

“Because she’s out cold,” Jessie answered. “I didn’t tell you this earlier, but after Pierce escaped, she kind of lost it. She was in a state of shock once she realized that her worst nightmare—the one she'd feared for months—had actually come true. Ash Pierce is a free woman. After Pierce drove out of that garage, she just sort of shut down. I tried to snap her out of it, but she wouldn't even respond to me."

“Jeez,” Ryan muttered sympathetically.

“Yeah,” Jessie agreed, “It was really upsetting. But I couldn’t even stay with her because, for a while there I was helping with the manhunt. So I called Dr. Lemmon. She checked them both into a luxury suite in Santa Monica under an assumed name so that Pierce couldn’t track them down if that was her goal. But I got a text from Lemmon about twenty minutes ago. She gave Kat a powerful sedative to calm her. She’s asleep and probably will be until around noon tomorrow.”

Ryan nodded.

“So I guess with Pierce in Mexico, we can relax our home security measures a little too.”

“I’ll tell the patrol car outside that they can go, but I think we’ll keep all the other measures in place for the foreseeable future, if that’s okay with you.”

“Of course, “Ryan said. “It’s not paranoia if they’re really after you.”

Jessie smiled wanly at the attempt to lighten the mood, even a little. She noticed he didn’t smile back.

“What is it?” she asked.

“You didn’t tell me much about how your underground sex club case wrapped up, other than that you caught the guy.”

“There’s not really much to tell,” she lied.

She wasn’t in the mood right now to admit that she’d nearly plunged a letter opener through the brain of the man she was tasked with bringing to justice. But she knew Ryan wouldn’t accept such a vague answer, so before he could push harder, she changed subjects, even if that meant bringing up a sore point.

“I’m sorry about the adoption counselor thing,” she said. “Maybe we can reschedule in a couple of weeks when things settle down a little bit.”

He was quiet.

“What?” she asked, feeling a small knot develop in her stomach.

He shrugged.

“I think we should put the whole adoption idea on hold for now,” he said softly. “And maybe kids in general.”

“Why?”

He paused briefly before replying.

“Our lives are just too crazy.”

She could feel him holding back.

“Is that the only reason?” she pressed.

He sighed.

“To be honest, I’m also worried about your—for lack of a better word—bloodlust. Until you find a way to get it under control, I’m not sure that it’s responsible for us to pursue parenthood. I know I’m the one who said I wanted kids, who relentlessly kept on you about it. But now I’m not so sure.”

“What does that mean?’

“It just means I’m not sure it’s going to happen for us,” he said, before adding firmly, “I am sure that this isn’t the best time to make that decision. Everything’s so volatile right now. Can we just press pause on the discussion?”

“For how long?” Jessie wanted to know.

He looked down at his hands before looking up and meeting her eyes.

“Indefinitely.”

EPILOGUE

Jessie almost didn’t answer the call.

Ryan was snoring softly in bed, and she had just changed into her sleep clothes. But it was from a contact number she knew well, and she felt she had to.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hi, Ms. Hunt,” the gravelly-voiced man replied.

“You know,” she said wearily, “in my experience, it’s never great to get a call from the administrator of the Twin Towers Correctional Facility after 11 P.M.”

“Sorry to call so late, but this felt important.”

“Go ahead,” she told him.

“I’m still at the jail,” Administrator Moore said. “With everything that happened today, we’re reviewing our security procedures. But that’s not why I’m calling. I just got word regarding Mark Haddonfield’s personal effects.”

“Okay,” Jessie said, not sure where this was going.

“When a prisoner turns in their box of effects for the length of their stay with us, they have to include someone those items will go to in the event of their death. With Mr. Haddonfield’s passing today, our folks checked on his wishes.”

“You’re not going to ask me to take his stuff to his mom, are you?” Jessie groaned. “For one thing, she lives in the Bay Area. And more importantly, I’m not interested.”

“He didn’t select his mother, Ms. Hunt,” the man said. “He selected you.”

“What?” she asked incredulously. Why?”

“I don’t know,” he said, “But he made it very clear—in writing—that only you were to be given his personal effects.”

Jessie sighed. Mark Haddonfield had murdered multiple people to get back at her for a perceived wrong that existed only in his head. He’d later tried to kill her while she lay in a hospital bed. He was responsible for the death of Kat’s fiancé, Mitch. She owed him nothing.

And yet, some part of her knew that collecting those items was the right thing to do. Before his mind had gotten so twisted, back when he was just a college kid hoping to become a profiler too, he’d viewed her as a role model, as his idol. And apparently, even after he was thrown in jail, he still considered her important enough to leave all his remaining earthly possessions to her.

Collecting them tonight would be the honorable thing. But at this moment, she was too tired to be honorable.

“I’ll come by to get them tomorrow,” she said. “Good night.”

She hung up and headed for the bedroom with only the slightest twinge of guilt. But then she let it go. Haddonfield was dead. There was no rush.

It’s not like there was anything important in that box.

NOW AVAILABLE!

THE PERFECT BETRAYAL

(A Jessie Hunt Psychological Suspense Thriller—Book Thirty-Eight)

When LA's yacht-set elite begin dying in a potential pattern, profiler Jessie Hunt must navigate through their world of luxury and lies. Unearthing links to forgotten crimes on open waters, Jessie soon realizes that catching this killer may just put her directly in his crosshairs...

“A masterpiece of thriller and mystery.”

—Books and Movie Reviews, Roberto Mattos (re Once Gone)

THE PERFECT BETRAYAL is book #38 in a new psychological suspense series by bestselling author Blake Pierce, which begins with The Perfect Wife, a #1 bestseller (and free download) with over 5,000 five-star ratings and 1,000 five-star reviews.

A fast-paced psychological suspense thriller with unforgettable characters and heart-pounding suspense, the JESSIE HUNT series is a riveting new series that will leave you turning pages late into the night.

Future books in the series are also available.

“An edge of your seat thriller in a new series that keeps you turning pages! ...So many twists, turns and red herrings… I can't wait to see what happens next.”

—Reader review (Her Last Wish)

“A strong, complex story about two FBI agents trying to stop a serial killer. If you want an author to capture your attention and have you guessing, yet trying to put the pieces together, Pierce is your author!”

—Reader review (Her Last Wish)

“A typical Blake Pierce twisting, turning, roller coaster ride suspense thriller. Will have you turning the pages to the last sentence of the last chapter!!!”

—Reader review (City of Prey)

“Right from the start we have an unusual protagonist that I haven't seen done in this genre before. The action is nonstop… A very atmospheric novel that will keep you turning pages well into the wee hours.”

—Reader review (City of Prey)

“Everything that I look for in a book… a great plot, interesting characters, and grabs your interest right away. The book moves along at a breakneck pace and stays that way until the end. Now on go I to book two!”

—Reader review (Girl, Alone)

“Exciting, heart pounding, edge of your seat book… a must read for mystery and suspense readers!”

—Reader review (Girl, Alone)

THE PERFECT BETRAYAL

(A Jessie Hunt Psychological Suspense Thriller—Book Thirty-Eight)

Did you know that I've written multiple novels in the mystery genre? If you haven't read all my series, click the image below to download a series starter!

Blake Pierce

Blake Pierce is the USA Today bestselling author of the RILEY PAGE mystery series, which includes twenty-three books. Blake Pierce is also the author of the MACKENZIE WHITE mystery series, comprising fourteen books; of the AVERY BLACK mystery series, comprising six books; of the KERI LOCKE mystery series, comprising five books; of the MAKING OF RILEY PAIGE mystery series, comprising six books; of the KATE WISE mystery series, comprising thirteen books; of the CHLOE FINE psychological suspense mystery, comprising six books; of the JESSIE HUNT psychological suspense thriller series, comprising forty-three books (and counting); of the AU PAIR psychological suspense thriller series, comprising three books; of the ZOE PRIME mystery series, comprising six books; of the ADELE SHARP mystery series, comprising sixteen books, of the EUROPEAN VOYAGE cozy mystery series, comprising six books; of the LAURA FROST FBI suspense thriller, comprising eleven books; of the ELLA DARK FBI suspense thriller, comprising thirty-one books (and counting); of the A YEAR IN EUROPE cozy mystery series, comprising nine books, of the AVA GOLD mystery series, comprising six books; of the RACHEL GIFT mystery series, comprising twenty-three books; of the VALERIE LAW mystery series, comprising nine books; of the PAIGE KING mystery series, comprising eight books; of the MAY MOORE mystery series, comprising eleven books; of the CORA SHIELDS mystery series, comprising eight books; of the NICKY LYONS mystery series, comprising eight books, of the CAMI LARK mystery series, comprising ten books; of the AMBER YOUNG mystery series, comprising eight books; of the DAISY FORTUNE mystery series, comprising five books; of the FIONA RED mystery series, comprising thirteen books; of the FAITH BOLD mystery series, comprising twenty books (and counting); of the JULIETTE HART mystery series, comprising five books; of the MORGAN CROSS mystery series, comprising eighteen books; of the FINN WRIGHT mystery series, comprising eleven books (and counting); of the SHEILA STONE suspense thriller series, comprising fourteen books; of the RACHEL BLACKWOOD suspense thriller series, comprising eight books; of the THE GOVERNESS psychological suspense thriller series, comprising nine books (and counting); and of the new JENNA GRAVES mystery series, comprising ten books (and counting).

ONCE GONE (a Riley Paige Mystery--Book #1), BEFORE HE KILLS (A Mackenzie White Mystery—Book 1), CAUSE TO KILL (An Avery Black Mystery—Book 1), A TRACE OF DEATH (A Keri Locke Mystery—Book 1), WATCHING (The Making of Riley Paige—Book 1), NEXT DOOR (A Chloe Fine Psychological Suspense Mystery—Book 1), THE PERFECT WIFE (A Jessie Hunt Psychological Suspense Thriller—Book One), IF SHE KNEW (A Kate Wise Mystery—Book 1), MURDER (AND BAKLAVA) (A European Voyage Cozy Mystery—Book 1), LEFT TO DIE (An Adele Sharp Mystery—Book One), A MURDER IN PARIS (A Year in Europe—Book 1), CITY OF PREY (An Ava Gold Mystery—Book One), and HER LAST WISH (A Rachel Gift FBI Suspense Thriller—Book One) are each available as a free download on Kobo!

An avid reader and lifelong fan of the mystery and thriller genres, Blake loves to hear from you, so please feel free to visit www.blakepierceauthor.com to learn more and stay in touch.

BOOKS BY BLAKE PIERCE

JENNA GRAVES SUSPENSE THRILLER

IN HER SIGHTS (Book #1)

IN HER MIND (Book #2)

IN HER GRASP (Book #3)

IN HER SHADOW (Book #4)

IN HER PRAYERS (Book #5)

IN HER BED (Book #6)

IN HER DREAMS (Book #7)

IN HER FEARS (Book #8)

IN HER WAKE (Book #9)

IN HER BLOOD (Book #10)

THE GOVERNESS PSYCHOLOGICAL SUSPENSE

ONE LAST LIE (Book #1)

ONE LAST SMILE (Book #2)

ONE LAST BREATH (Book #3)

ONE LAST GOODBYE (Book #4)

ONE LAST SECRET (Book #5)

ONE LAST WHISPER (Book #6)

ONE LAST REGRET (Book #7)

ONE LAST NIGHT (Book #8)

ONE LAST STEP (Book #9)

RACHEL BLACKWOOD SUSPENSE THRILLER

NOT THIS WAY (Book #1)

NOT THIS TIME (Book #2)

NOT THIS CLOSE (Book #3)

NOT THIS ROAD (Book #4)

NOT THIS LATE (Book #5)

NOT THIS NIGHT (Book #6)

NOT THIS PLACE (Book #7)

NOT THIS SOON (Book #8)

SHEILA STONE SUSPENSE THRILLER

SILENT GIRL (Book #1)

SILENT TRAIL (Book #2)

SILENT NIGHT (Book #3)

SILENT HOUSE (Book #4)

SILENT SCREAM (Book #5)

SILENT PREY (Book #6)

SILENT RITUAL (Book #7)

SILENT PRAYER (Book #8)

SILENT NEIGHBOR (Book #9)

SILENT SMILE (Book #10)

SILENT ROAD (Book #11)

SILENT GRAVE (Book #12)

SILENT HOME (Book #13)

SILENT PAST (Book #14)

FINN WRIGHT MYSTERY SERIES

WHEN YOU’RE MINE (Book #1)

WHEN YOU’RE SAFE (Book #2)

WHEN YOU’RE CLOSE (Book #3)

WHEN YOU’RE SLEEPING (Book #4)

WHEN YOU’RE SANE (Book #5)

WHEN YOU’RE SILENT (Book #6)

WHEN YOU’RE GONE (Book #7)

WHEN YOU’RE ALONE (Book #8)

WHEN YOU’RE LOST (Book #9)

WHEN YOU’RE FORGOTTEN (Book #10)

WHEN YOU’RE BROKEN (Book #11)

MORGAN CROSS MYSTERY SERIES

FOR YOU (Book #1)

FOR RAGE (Book #2)

FOR LUST (Book #3)

FOR WRATH (Book #4)

FOREVER (Book #5)

FOR US (Book #6)

FOR NOW (Book #7)

FOR ONCE (Book #8)

FOR ETERNITY (Book #9)

FORLORN (Book #10)

FOR SILENCE (Book #11)

FORBIDDEN (Book #12)

FOR FEAR (Book #13)

FORSAKEN (Book #14)

FOR BLOOD (Book #15)

JULIETTE HART MYSTERY SERIES

NOTHING TO FEAR (Book #1)

NOTHING THERE (Book #2)

NOTHING WATCHING (Book #3)

NOTHING HIDING (Book #4)

NOTHING LEFT (Book #5)

FAITH BOLD MYSTERY SERIES

SO LONG (Book #1)

SO COLD (Book #2)

SO SCARED (Book #3)

SO NORMAL (Book #4)

SO FAR GONE (Book #5)

SO LOST (Book #6)

SO ALONE (Book #7)

SO FORGOTTEN (Book #8)

SO INSANE (Book #9)

SO SMITTEN (Book #10)

SO SIMPLE (Book #11)

SO BROKEN (Book #12)

SO CRUEL (Book #13)

SO HAUNTED (Book #14)

SO SILENT (Book #15)

SO BLEAK (Book #16)

SO HOLLOW (Book #17)

SO DARK (Book #18)

SO TWISTED (Book #19)

SO WICKED (Book #20)

FIONA RED MYSTERY SERIES

LET HER GO (Book #1)

LET HER BE (Book #2)

LET HER HOPE (Book #3)

LET HER WISH (Book #4)

LET HER LIVE (Book #5)

LET HER RUN (Book #6)

LET HER HIDE (Book #7)

LET HER BELIEVE (Book #8)

LET HER FORGET (Book #9)

LET HER TRY (Book #10)

LET HER PLAY (Book #11)

LET HER VANISH (Book #12)

LET HER FADE (Book #13)

DAISY FORTUNE MYSTERY SERIES

NEED YOU (Book #1)

CLAIM YOU (Book #2)

CRAVE YOU (Book #3)

CHOOSE YOU (Book #4)

CHASE YOU (Book #5)

AMBER YOUNG MYSTERY SERIES

ABSENT PITY (Book #1)

ABSENT REMORSE (Book #2)

ABSENT FEELING (Book #3)

ABSENT MERCY (Book #4)

ABSENT REASON (Book #5)

ABSENT SANITY (Book #6)

ABSENT LIFE (Book #7)

ABSENT HUMANITY (Book #8)

CAMI LARK MYSTERY SERIES

JUST ME (Book #1)

JUST OUTSIDE (Book #2)

JUST RIGHT (Book #3)

JUST FORGET (Book #4)

JUST ONCE (Book #5)

JUST HIDE (Book #6)

JUST NOW (Book #7)

JUST HOPE (Book #8)

JUST LEAVE (Book #9)

JUST TONIGHT (Book #10)

NICKY LYONS MYSTERY SERIES

ALL MINE (Book #1)

ALL HIS (Book #2)

ALL HE SEES (Book #3)

ALL ALONE (Book #4)

ALL FOR ONE (Book #5)

ALL HE TAKES (Book #6)

ALL FOR ME (Book #7)

ALL IN (Book #8)

CORA SHIELDS MYSTERY SERIES

UNDONE (Book #1)

UNWANTED (Book #2)

UNHINGED (Book #3)

UNSAID (Book #4)

UNGLUED (Book #5)

UNSTABLE (Book #6)

UNKNOWN (Book #7)

UNAWARE (Book #8)

MAY MOORE SUSPENSE THRILLER

NEVER RUN (Book #1)

NEVER TELL (Book #2)

NEVER LIVE (Book #3)

NEVER HIDE (Book #4)

NEVER FORGIVE (Book #5)

NEVER AGAIN (Book #6)

NEVER LOOK BACK (Book #7)

NEVER FORGET (Book #8)

NEVER LET GO (Book #9)

NEVER PRETEND (Book #10)

NEVER HESITATE (Book #11)

PAIGE KING MYSTERY SERIES

THE GIRL HE PINED (Book #1)

THE GIRL HE CHOSE (Book #2)

THE GIRL HE TOOK (Book #3)

THE GIRL HE WISHED (Book #4)

THE GIRL HE CROWNED (Book #5)

THE GIRL HE WATCHED (Book #6)

THE GIRL HE WANTED (Book #7)

THE GIRL HE CLAIMED (Book #8)

VALERIE LAW MYSTERY SERIES

NO MERCY (Book #1)

NO PITY (Book #2)

NO FEAR (Book #3)

NO SLEEP (Book #4)

NO QUARTER (Book #5)

NO CHANCE (Book #6)

NO REFUGE (Book #7)

NO GRACE (Book #8)

NO ESCAPE (Book #9)

RACHEL GIFT MYSTERY SERIES

HER LAST WISH (Book #1)

HER LAST CHANCE (Book #2)

HER LAST HOPE (Book #3)

HER LAST FEAR (Book #4)

HER LAST CHOICE (Book #5)

HER LAST BREATH (Book #6)

HER LAST MISTAKE (Book #7)

HER LAST DESIRE (Book #8)

HER LAST REGRET (Book #9)

HER LAST HOUR (Book #10)

HER LAST SHOT (Book #11)

HER LAST PRAYER (Book #12)

HER LAST LIE (Book #13)

HER LAST WHISPER (Book #14)

HER LAST SECRET (Book #15)

HER LAST MERCY (Book #16)

HER LAST CONFESSION (Book #17)

HER LAST FAREWELL (Book #18)

HER LAST PROMISE (Book #19)

HER LAST ESCAPE (Book #20)

HER LAST WARNING (Book #21)

HER LAST MOMENT (Book #22)

HER LAST STAND (Book #23)

AVA GOLD MYSTERY SERIES

CITY OF PREY (Book #1)

CITY OF FEAR (Book #2)

CITY OF BONES (Book #3)

CITY OF GHOSTS (Book #4)

CITY OF DEATH (Book #5)

CITY OF VICE (Book #6)

A YEAR IN EUROPE

A MURDER IN PARIS (Book #1)

DEATH IN FLORENCE (Book #2)

VENGEANCE IN VIENNA (Book #3)

A FATALITY IN SPAIN (Book #4)

ELLA DARK FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER

GIRL, ALONE (Book #1)

GIRL, TAKEN (Book #2)

GIRL, HUNTED (Book #3)

GIRL, SILENCED (Book #4)

GIRL, VANISHED (Book 5)

GIRL ERASED (Book #6)

GIRL, FORSAKEN (Book #7)

GIRL, TRAPPED (Book #8)

GIRL, EXPENDABLE (Book #9)

GIRL, ESCAPED (Book #10)

GIRL, HIS (Book #11)

GIRL, LURED (Book #12)

GIRL, MISSING (Book #13)

GIRL, UNKNOWN (Book #14)

GIRL, DECEIVED (Book #15)

GIRL, FORLORN (Book #16)

GIRL, REMADE (Book #17)

GIRL, BETRAYED (Book #18)

GIRL, BOUND (Book #19)

GIRL, REFORMED (Book #20)

GIRL, REBORN (Book #21)

GIRL, HAUNTED (Book #22)

GIRL, UNSEEN (Book #23)

GIRL, SOUGHT (Book #24)

GIRL, ACCUSED (Book #25)

GIRL, FRACTURED (Book #26)

GIRL, EMPTY (Book #27)

GIRL, UNMASKED (Book #28)

GIRL, UNDONE (Book #29)

GIRL, ENSNARED (Book #30)

GIRL, RESURRECTED (Book #31)

LAURA FROST FBI SUSPENSE THRILLER

ALREADY GONE (Book #1)

ALREADY SEEN (Book #2)

ALREADY TRAPPED (Book #3)

ALREADY MISSING (Book #4)

ALREADY DEAD (Book #5)

ALREADY TAKEN (Book #6)

ALREADY CHOSEN (Book #7)

ALREADY LOST (Book #8)

ALREADY HIS (Book #9)

ALREADY LURED (Book #10)

ALREADY COLD (Book #11)

EUROPEAN VOYAGE COZY MYSTERY SERIES

MURDER (AND BAKLAVA) (Book #1)

DEATH (AND APPLE STRUDEL) (Book #2)

CRIME (AND LAGER) (Book #3)

MISFORTUNE (AND GOUDA) (Book #4)

CALAMITY (AND A DANISH) (Book #5)

MAYHEM (AND HERRING) (Book #6)

ADELE SHARP MYSTERY SERIES

LEFT TO DIE (Book #1)

LEFT TO RUN (Book #2)

LEFT TO HIDE (Book #3)

LEFT TO KILL (Book #4)

LEFT TO MURDER (Book #5)

LEFT TO ENVY (Book #6)

LEFT TO LAPSE (Book #7)

LEFT TO VANISH (Book #8)

LEFT TO HUNT (Book #9)

LEFT TO FEAR (Book #10)

LEFT TO PREY (Book #11)

LEFT TO LURE (Book #12)

LEFT TO CRAVE (Book #13)

LEFT TO LOATHE (Book #14)

LEFT TO HARM (Book #15)

LEFT TO RUIN (Book #16)

THE AU PAIR SERIES

ALMOST GONE (Book#1)

ALMOST LOST (Book #2)

ALMOST DEAD (Book #3)

ZOE PRIME MYSTERY SERIES

FACE OF DEATH (Book#1)

FACE OF MURDER (Book #2)

FACE OF FEAR (Book #3)

FACE OF MADNESS (Book #4)

FACE OF FURY (Book #5)

FACE OF DARKNESS (Book #6)

A JESSIE HUNT PSYCHOLOGICAL SUSPENSE SERIES

THE PERFECT WIFE (Book #1)

THE PERFECT BLOCK (Book #2)

THE PERFECT HOUSE (Book #3)

THE PERFECT SMILE (Book #4)

THE PERFECT LIE (Book #5)

THE PERFECT LOOK (Book #6)

THE PERFECT AFFAIR (Book #7)

THE PERFECT ALIBI (Book #8)

THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR (Book #9)

THE PERFECT DISGUISE (Book #10)

THE PERFECT SECRET (Book #11)

THE PERFECT FAÇADE (Book #12)

THE PERFECT IMPRESSION (Book #13)

THE PERFECT DECEIT (Book #14)

THE PERFECT MISTRESS (Book #15)

THE PERFECT IMAGE (Book #16)

THE PERFECT VEIL (Book #17)

THE PERFECT INDISCRETION (Book #18)

THE PERFECT RUMOR (Book #19)

THE PERFECT COUPLE (Book #20)

THE PERFECT MURDER (Book #21)

THE PERFECT HUSBAND (Book #22)

THE PERFECT SCANDAL (Book #23)

THE PERFECT MASK (Book #24)

THE PERFECT RUSE (Book #25)

THE PERFECT VENEER (Book #26)

THE PERFECT PEOPLE (Book #27)

THE PERFECT WITNESS (Book #28)

THE PERFECT APPEARANCE (Book #29)

THE PERFECT TRAP (Book #30)

THE PERFECT EXPRESSION (Book #31)

THE PERFECT ACCOMPLICE (Book #32)

THE PERFECT SHOW (Book #33)

THE PERFECT POISE (Book #34)

THE PERFECT CROWD (Book #35)

THE PERFECT CRIME (Book #36)

THE PERFECT PREY (Book #37)

THE PERFECT BETRAYAL (Book #38)

THE PERFECT ILLUSION (Book #39)

THE PERFECT DECEPTION (Book #40)

THE PERFECT REVENGE (Book #41)

THE PERFECT OBSESSION (Book #42)

THE PERFECT STRANGER (Book #43)

CHLOE FINE PSYCHOLOGICAL SUSPENSE SERIES

NEXT DOOR (Book #1)

A NEIGHBOR’S LIE (Book #2)

CUL DE SAC (Book #3)

SILENT NEIGHBOR (Book #4)

HOMECOMING (Book #5)

TINTED WINDOWS (Book #6)

KATE WISE MYSTERY SERIES

IF SHE KNEW (Book #1)

IF SHE SAW (Book #2)

IF SHE RAN (Book #3)

IF SHE HID (Book #4)

IF SHE FLED (Book #5)

IF SHE FEARED (Book #6)

IF SHE HEARD (Book #7)

IF SHE LIED (Book #8)

IF SHE LISTENED (Book #9)

IF SHE STAYED (Book #10)

IF SHE REMEMBERED (Book #11)

IF SHE DARED (Book #12)

IF SHE BELIEVED (Book #13)

THE MAKING OF RILEY PAIGE SERIES

WATCHING (Book #1)

WAITING (Book #2)

LURING (Book #3)

TAKING (Book #4)

STALKING (Book #5)

KILLING (Book #6)

RILEY PAIGE MYSTERY SERIES

ONCE GONE (Book #1)

ONCE TAKEN (Book #2)

ONCE CRAVED (Book #3)

ONCE LURED (Book #4)

ONCE HUNTED (Book #5)

ONCE PINED (Book #6)

ONCE FORSAKEN (Book #7)

ONCE COLD (Book #8)

ONCE STALKED (Book #9)

ONCE LOST (Book #10)

ONCE BURIED (Book #11)

ONCE BOUND (Book #12)

ONCE TRAPPED (Book #13)

ONCE DORMANT (Book #14)

ONCE SHUNNED (Book #15)

ONCE MISSED (Book #16)

ONCE CHOSEN (Book #17)

ONCE SILENCED (Book #18)

ONCE MARKED (Book #19)

ONCE BROKEN (Book #20)

ONCE FEARED (Book #21)

ONCE FORGOTTEN (Book #22)

ONCE VANISHED (Book #23)

MACKENZIE WHITE MYSTERY SERIES

BEFORE HE KILLS (Book #1)

BEFORE HE SEES (Book #2)

BEFORE HE COVETS (Book #3)

BEFORE HE TAKES (Book #4)

BEFORE HE NEEDS (Book #5)

BEFORE HE FEELS (Book #6)

BEFORE HE SINS (Book #7)

BEFORE HE HUNTS (Book #8)

BEFORE HE PREYS (Book #9)

BEFORE HE LONGS (Book #10)

BEFORE HE LAPSES (Book #11)

BEFORE HE ENVIES (Book #12)

BEFORE HE STALKS (Book #13)

BEFORE HE HARMS (Book #14)

AVERY BLACK MYSTERY SERIES

CAUSE TO KILL (Book #1)

CAUSE TO RUN (Book #2)

CAUSE TO HIDE (Book #3)

CAUSE TO FEAR (Book #4)

CAUSE TO SAVE (Book #5)

CAUSE TO DREAD (Book #6)

KERI LOCKE MYSTERY SERIES

A TRACE OF DEATH (Book #1)

A TRACE OF MURDER (Book #2)

A TRACE OF VICE (Book #3)

A TRACE OF CRIME (Book #4)

A TRACE OF HOPE (Book #5)