The Perfect Facade (A Jessie Hunt Psychological Suspense Thriller—Book Twelve)

by Blake Pierce

  “I’m going to my room for a bit,” Hannah said. “I have some homework I’ve been procrastinating on and I want to knock it out.”

  “On a Saturday night?” Jessie asked, stunned. “Who are you and what have you done with my sister?”

  “Don’t get used to it,” Hannah replied, smiling. “This is almost certainly a black swan event.”

  Only when she closed the door to her room did Ryan turn to Jessie.

  “Okay, spill,” he demanded.

  “What?”

  “I know you want to hash out your ideas on the case. I’m giving you carte blanche for the next five minutes. But then we set it aside and watch a movie. Deal?”

  Jessie chuckled at his transparency.

  “Don’t act like you’re doing me some favor,” she chided playfully as she put the last plate in the dishwasher. “I know you’re dying to hear all the details.”

  He shook his head with dramatic vehemence.

  “I’m just trying to be a supportive boyfriend,” he insisted unconvincingly.

  Jessie saw right through him. Walking over, she glanced down at him with her eyebrows raised in amusement.

  “I will tell you about the case, but only if you admit that you’re desperately curious.”

  He stared at her for a good five seconds before finally replying.

  “Fine, I’m curious,” he admitted.

  “Desperately curious?”

  “Don’t push it,” he growled.

  She let him off the hook. After helping him over to the couch, she settled in next to him and filled him in on the particulars. When she was done, he sat quietly for a few moments before speaking.

  “So no one could access the floor that their suite was on without a keycard, right?” he finally asked.

  “In theory, no,” she agreed. “In fact, as a security measure, this hotel assigns specific keycards to individual guests, although I suppose someone could have taken the elevator up with folks staying on the floor. I’m not sure anyone would have even noticed.”

  “Too bad that one elevator camera doesn’t work,” he said. “It sounds like someone could have taken it up and back down without anybody ever knowing.”

  “But,” she reminded him, “even if they took that elevator and got access to the twentieth floor via another guest, they’d need a keycard to access the party girls’ suite.”

  “Only if it was a stranger who did this,” he countered. “If Claudia or one of the other women knew the killer, they might have just invited the familiar face in.”

  Jessie couldn’t disagree.

  “To be honest,” she said, “they were all so drunk that even if it was a stranger, they might have let the person in. Or they could have just accidentally left the door open. They were in and out of there so often they could have easily forgotten to close it. The whole thing is a cluster.”

  “You know,” he suggested in a tone that hinted she wasn’t going to like what he had to say, “it could be a lot less complicated than that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If these women really were that wasted, it’s not inconceivable that while the other two were passed out, one of them had an argument with Claudia, got angry, hit her in the head, and passed out herself, then forgot the whole thing.”

  Jessie was skeptical.

  “It’s hard to imagine someone completely forgetting something like that.”

  “I’ve seen it before,” Ryan said, “more than once.”

  A troubled expression passed across his face and Jessie decided not to press him on it.

  “I’m not dismissing the possibility,” she said. “But none of their prints were found on the clock that was used as the murder weapon.”

  “It was wiped clean?”

  “No. There were lots of other prints, just not from any of these women, which suggests that either it wasn’t one of them, or if it was, that they had the mental wherewithal to wear gloves, which makes it premeditated.”

  Ryan looked especially troubled by that suggestion.

  “If it’s the latter, you’re dealing with a whole other level of evil. To spend all night celebrating with this woman, drinking with her, and then later that night put on gloves, bludgeon her to death, and go back to sleep just one room away afterward—that requires a level of heartlessness you don’t see often.”

  Jessie thought about it. He was right. She almost hoped it was a crime of passion. The alternative was much more disturbing. With a shiver, Jessie realized she had no idea what she was getting into tomorrow morning, but she was determined to find out.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Hannah wasn’t doing her homework.

  Instead, she was researching the disappearance of Mindy Stokes. She’d spent the last hour poring over the documents she’d copied from Kat’s office. They included basics like her address, school schedule, a list of friends, and several photos, which showed a girl with brown, shoulder-length hair, glasses, and a crooked, disarming smile.

  There was also the police missing persons report, as well as interviews with friends and family, GPS and call data pulled from her phone, and summarized notes from her pediatrician and her therapist. Most of it was of little use.

  Mindy’s phone had been found in some bushes halfway along the fifteen-minute route she walked home from school. The cops had checked camera footage from nearby homes but they proved fruitless. She hadn’t made any unusual calls or gone anywhere out of the ordinary in the days prior to going missing. Her home life seemed stable. She was physically healthy. The therapist visits were because her parents worried she might struggle after her best friend moved out of town. But according to the session notes, she’d adapted well and the visits were more just periodic check-ins.

  Hannah saw that the police interviews had included several men on the sex offender registry who lived nearby. Though those complete notes weren’t available, the report included their names and whether officers felt that any of them deserved follow-up questioning. Apparently none did.

  Hannah figured that was as good a place as any to start. She knew from unpleasant personal experience that some predatory-minded men were especially adept at hiding their true intentions. She suspected that her own ability to see through them was at least as strong as that of the authorities who had hurriedly questioned them.

  She punched up the sex offender registry on her laptop and set up a search for anyone within a two-mile radius of either Mindy’s home or school, using the working assumption that a possible abductor would have likely seen her on a regular basis. The number that came back stunned even her: sixty-eight.

  That included five women and sixty-three men, twenty-nine of whom were “in violation” of some kind of registration requirement. Though the list was daunting, Hannah dived in, cross-referencing the people on the list with those who had been interviewed. That total came to sixteen people, all men. It took Hannah a few seconds to realize that everyone questioned lived within a mile of both Mindy’s home and school, meaning they likely saw her walking that route every day.

  She pulled up the past offenses of each person on the list. In many cases, the offender’s last conviction was decades old. That didn’t automatically eliminate them. But she decided to focus on the guys who had been released back into the community more recently, within the last five years. That knocked the number of candidates down to six.

  She reviewed each of their records closely. Three had been convicted of possessing obscene matter, which she assumed was a euphemism for getting caught with child porn. Two had engaged in lewd or lascivious acts with a child and one was convicted of rape of a child. She focused on him.

  The man’s name was James “Jimmy” Poston. He was thirty-seven years old and according to his arrest sheet, was five-foot-nine and 170 pounds. His mug shot showed a pale, blemish-ridden face and thinning, unruly blond hair.

  He had served several stretches in prison. Most recently, he’d completed nine years for sexually assaulting an eleven-year-
old girl. He was released eight months ago and had lived at his current address for the last three. That address was in a rented house on one of the streets Mindy walked along every day.

  The note next to his name in the police report said simply “alibi verified via GPS data.” Hannah assumed that meant his phone confirmed the story he gave them. But she knew that just because your phone was at home during a certain time, that didn’t mean you were too. She’d seen Jessie solve enough cases in which a suspect intentionally left their phone somewhere while committing a crime elsewhere to know it wasn’t uncommon.

  She did an additional search and found that his home was a thirteen-minute drive away. All it would take was one quick rideshare to get there. She closed the laptop and looked at the time: 7:42. If she spent the rest of the night in here, especially on a Saturday, her sister might get suspicious. She put everything away, washed her face, changed into sweats, and headed out to the living room.

  Tonight she’d watch TV with Jessie and Ryan. Tomorrow, she’d visit a rapist at his home.

  *

  Jenavieve Holt was bummed.

  Her boyfriend, Chad, was supposed to come over for a night of Netflix, Chinese takeout, and red wine. But because of a bus accident on the I-10 freeway, he’d been called back in to the hospital. He told her they were short-staffed for the night and that he’d probably be there until morning.

  Jenavieve didn’t complain. She couldn’t very well tell an ICU nurse that watching a mediocre romantic comedy with her was more important than attending to critically injured patients without sounding like a bitch. So now she was stuck with way too much vegetable fried rice as she popped the cork on the wine and turned on the TV.

  She was just getting settled in when the doorbell rang. Excited that Chad might have gotten a reprieve, she popped up and dashed to the door. But when she opened it, she was disappointed to find an elderly man wearing a gray windbreaker and holding a small, brown, beaten-up travel bag.

  “Can I help you?” she asked, irked.

  He looked at her apologetically, almost pathetically. His gray hair was neatly parted to the side and looked to be held down by a thick hair cream. His face was wrinkled and his back was hunched. He was shivering violently in the cold and looked like he might collapse at any moment.

  “I’m so terribly sorry to bother you, miss,” he said. “I’m visiting my grandson for the week. He lives nearby. I decided to go out for a walk to give him a break from entertaining an old man. But I seem to have turned myself around a bit. I was going to call him but I can’t seem to find my phone. I think I may have left it at his place. In any case, I have his phone number in my wallet. I saw your light on and hoped I might give him a call and see if he could come collect me. He can’t be more than a minute or two from here.”

  Jenavieve looked him over. After half a decade as a yoga instructor, she knew better than to assume that just because a man was older, he couldn’t be a threat. That’s why she took self-defense classes every month. This guy didn’t look capable of doing her harm but she wasn’t taking any chances.

  “Sure,” she said, keeping her foot on back of the door so it was only partly open as she pulled her phone out of her pocket. “Give me the number and I’ll call him.”

  “Thank you so much,” he replied with a wan smile as he fished out his wallet and handed her a slip of paper.

  She dialed the number and immediately got a message. She handed him the phone.

  “It went straight to voicemail,” she said. “Better let him know what’s up.”

  He took the phone and spoke into it in a soft, embarrassed voice.

  “Garland, it’s Grandpa,” he said. “I’m afraid I got a little lost on my walk and I don’t have my phone. I’m at the home of a nice young lady who let me borrow hers to call you. We’re at…what’s the address here?”

  “224 Currant Lane,” she told him. “I’m Jen Holt.”

  “224 Currant Lane,” the old man repeated. “The angel is named Jen Holt. If you could stop by as soon as you get this, I’d appreciate it. So sorry for the hassle.”

  “Just have him call me back when he gets this and I’ll walk you over,” Jenavieve heard herself offer reluctantly. The sooner this got resolved, the sooner she could get back to her crappy movie.

  “Please hurry, Garland,” he whispered. “I’ve already put Ms. Holt out enough.”

  He hung up and handed back the phone. They stood there silently for a second. Despite the realization that she didn’t really have a choice, Jen was unenthusiastic about inviting him in. He seemed to sense it.

  “Ms. Holt, I will of course wait out here until we hear anything. But if it’s not too much of an imposition, I was wondering if I might borrow your lavatory briefly. It’s mortifying to say, but the years have made my bladder more restless than I care to admit.”

  Jen sighed. Not being a bitch was becoming a real pain in the ass. First she couldn’t tell off Chad. Now she had to be polite to this aged scarecrow. She moved her foot away and opened the door. He shuffled in as quickly as he could, which meant slowly. She closed the door behind him and waited for him to get to the end of the hall. It took painfully long.

  “The bathroom’s over there,” she said, pointing to the door in the corner of the room.

  “Thank you so much,” he said, heading in that direction, then stopping to ask, “May I put my bag down on the counter here?”

  “Of course,” she said.

  He put down the travel bag, which made a curious clinking sound as it hit the counter. She wondered why he even carried the bag on a neighborhood walk. It hardly seemed worth the effort.

  As he passed by the coffee table, he tried to return his wallet to the back pocket of his slacks. But his fingers fumbled and he couldn’t push it in. He lost his grip and the thing fell to the floor, sending several cards spilling onto the carpet. He bent over slowly, his knees creaking as he reached down for it. Jen couldn’t bear the sight of it. At this rate, he would pee his pants before he picked it all up.

  “I’ve got it,” she told him as she walked over and knelt down beside him.

  “Thank you dear. I do apologize,” he said as she scooped up the cards, slid them into the wallet, and started to stand up again.

  It was only as she returned to her feet and looked up that she saw the syringe. There was a glint as the needle caught the light just before she felt it plunge into the side of her neck. She reached up to grab at it even as she tried to push the man away with her other hand. But before she could do either, he’d taken a step back, with the empty syringe in his hand. She couldn’t help but notice that he was moving much quicker than before.

  “What did you do?” she demanded.

  She wanted to charge him but suddenly felt unsteady, as if she might lose her balance.

  “Let me help you off your feet,” he said soothingly, not answering her question.

  “Nooo!” she heard herself moan, noting that she had trouble getting the word out.

  Despite her objection he stepped forward. She tried to lift her hands to keep him away but they weren’t responding properly. Her legs felt heavy and distant. He was now right in front of her. She felt herself swaying and starting to fall backward. As she did, he reached out, wrapping his arms around her as if to hug her. But instead, he eased her down so that she was lying on her back on the coffee table.

  She felt pressure under her armpits as he dragged her back so that only her feet dangled off the edge of the table. Every part of her felt numb. She could breathe but it was labored. She could see but not blink. She could think but not act.

  “You probably have a lot of questions,” the old man said as he walked over to the counter, unzipped his travel bag, and took out what looked like a small toolbox. “I promise to answer them all in due course, Jenavieve.”

  As he approached her, she realized that she’d never told him her full name. The logical assumption most people made was that Jen was short for Jennifer. It was at that momen
t that her confused fear gave way to full-on terror. If he knew her full name, that meant he’d planned this in advance; that he’d chosen her.

  The old man placed the toolbox on the couch beside her and opened it. From her angle, Jen could see several items in the box. They looked more like surgical tools than hardware. The old man studied them, admiring them lovingly for a few seconds before selecting one. It was an X-Acto knife.

  Jen heard herself groan gutturally. It was the closest she could get to a scream.

  “I know, I know,” he said sweetly as he moved toward her. “I promised to answer your question and I will honor that promise. But we have some work to do first. It’s time to begin.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Her skull had been shattered.

  According to the medical examiner’s notes, the decorative clock that the killer had used to smash in Claudia Wender’s forehead had connected with such force that the skull had broken into multiple fragments, like a window splintered apart after being hit by a baseball.

  Jessie was flipping through the M.E.’s report on her phone as Karen drove them from L.A. south to Westport Beach. During normal rush hour traffic, the drive could take an hour and a half, but on this quiet Sunday morning, they’d reached the city limits in less than half that time. That was more than enough, as Jessie had seen her fill of photos, diagrams, and test results for a while.

  “All done?” Karen asked, seeing her put the phone up.

  “For now,” Jessie said. “The photos were already a challenge. Looking at those numbers and figures in a moving car is really making me nauseous.”

  Karen nodded in understanding.

  “Better to take a break anyway,” she noted. “I know Jamil’s going to have a lot of surveillance footage for us to review later on today.”

  “I can’t wait,” Jessie said acidly. “How much longer until we get to the Wender house?”