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

by Blake Pierce

  Karen seemed reassured to hear it.

  “So how do you want to play this?”

  Jessie smiled, happy to get back to the task at hand.

  “If she’s anything like the Kimberly I remember, we can’t go at her like we did with Lauren. She’s not a mean-spirited gossip. But she’ll engage, just in more of a concern-trolling way, worrying about the well-being of the neighbor who drinks too much or hoping the husband who’s cheating doesn’t bring home a venereal disease. If we can appeal to her sense of righteous neighborliness, we can get her chatting.”

  “Sounds good,” Karen said, as they approached the door. “I assume you want to steer clear of the nanny thing?”

  “At first, sure,” Jessie agreed. “But if she tries to roll us, I don’t have a problem busting it out. I’ll use whatever tool is at my disposal to get at the truth, even if it means reminding her of the night my pregnancy ended. Claudia Wender deserves everything I have. I won’t be holding back.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Morgan Miner almost dropped his beer.

  Kimberly’s husband, the man who liked to carouse around naked with nannies, clearly never expected to encounter Jessie Hunt again. When he saw her, he fumbled with the bottle and barely caught it before it hit the porch step. His sheepish face was as red as his hair.

  “May I help you?” he muttered, failing horribly at pretending he didn’t know who was in front of him.

  “Hi, Morgan,” Jessie said with extra pep, happy to keep him off-balance. “We’re here to see Kimberly.”

  His eyes widened briefly before he recovered.

  “Um, is she expecting you?” he mumbled.

  “No, she’s not. But I’m confident she’ll make herself available.”

  “Um—”

  She cut him off.

  “Morgan, I’m being courteous because of our warm history together,” she said, still chipper but with more of an edge. “But this isn’t really a request. This nice lady with me is Detective Karen Bray of the LAPD. You can either invite us in to have a friendly chat with your wife or we can formalize things. I don’t think Kimberly would appreciate you escalating the situation like that. But it’s your call.”

  Morgan squirmed for a few seconds before opening the door and calling out to his wife.

  “Kimberly, we’ve got visitors!”

  As they stepped inside, Jessie leaned in close to him.

  “That’s the best you can do to warn her?” she muttered under her breath. “Seems like you’re leaving her kind of naked, no?”

  She kept walking so she couldn’t see his expression but she did hear a satisfyingly ill-at-ease grunt. The house looked much as she remembered it as she led the way down the hall. It was just as huge and ostentatious as her own had been, though with two kids, it had an understandably more lived-in feel.

  She noticed a few crayon marks on the walls and small stains on the carpet. It wasn’t the chaotic mess that Lauren’s place had been but it didn’t have the “don’t touch anything” energy that Jessie remembered from her own mega-house. They reached the large living room, where a girl of six and a boy, about four, were both playing games on iPads, with headphones over their ears.

  Kimberly was in the kitchen, facing away from them, washing dishes. As they approached Jessie saw that she had ear buds of her own in and was quietly singling along to a tune. She had no idea they were there. She stepped into the woman’s line of sight and gave a wave.

  “What the—” Kimberly yelped in shock as she dropped a plate in the sink, shattered the dish. Trying to ignore that, she wiped her hands and removed the buds.

  “Hi, Kimberly,” Jessie said in her non-interrogatory voice. “I guess you couldn’t hear Morgan announce us.”

  Kimberly looked over at Morgan, whose face had either gotten red again or never changed back in the first place.

  “No,” she said, recovering quickly. “I missed that. I assume you’re here for the obvious reason?”

  “We are,” Jessie confirmed. “We need a few minutes of your time.”

  “Okay. If you’ll just give me a minute to clean this up,” she said, motioning to the sink, “I’ll be right with you. Why don’t you wait over there in the dining room?”

  “Take all the time you need,” Jessie said.

  As they walked off, Kimberly called out to her husband.

  “Morgan, I need to you to take the kids to the park for a half hour.”

  “But the game’s on,” he whined.

  Jessie couldn’t help but turn back around to see how this would play out. Kimberly was staring frozen daggers at him. Very slowly, she responded.

  “I need you to take our children to the park. I’ll text you when you can come home.”

  Morgan, appropriately chastened, averted his eyes, put down his beer, and began to collect the kids. Jessie and Karen continued on to the dining room and sat down.

  “Looks like he’s still doing penance,” Karen noted.

  “Not very well though,” Jessie replied.

  Within a few minutes he and the kids were gone and the house got deathly quiet.

  “Can I offer you tea?” Kimberly called out after cleaning up the remaining shards of porcelain.

  “Sure,” Jessie said, happy to let her hostess do something that made her feel comfortable before her bubble of security was punctured.

  Kimberly moved about the kitchen, first boiling water in a hot pot and then getting out mugs.

  “The kids have gotten a lot bigger,” Jessie called out, starting things off innocuously.

  “Yeah,” Kimberly agreed, as she got out the teabags, “and a lot rowdier. I can’t just toss them in playpens and be done with it.”

  Though Jessie pretended to be casually watching Kimberly prep the tea, she actually studied her like a hawk. She’d twice been drugged by suspects dropping something into her drink. Admittedly, the first time was impossible to predict. But the second incident was a result of her own arrogance and lack of focus. She was intent on making sure there wouldn’t be a third time.

  “So, it seems like you’ve come a long way since we last saw each other,” Kimberly said, addressing one of the many elephants in the room as she got out sugar and cream. “It feels like just a couple of years ago, you were just a student. I think I called you an aspiring Clarice Starling. Now you’re the real thing, a big-time profiler. I think you’re more famous than some of the celebrities we were hoping to see up there in Hollywood.”

  “Your friend Lauren didn’t seem to recognize her,” Karen noted, speaking for the first time since entering the house.

  Kimberly gave an amused snort, almost spilling the water as she poured it into the mugs for them.

  “If it doesn’t involve juice cleanses or the Kardashians, Lauren’s not interested. In fact, it was the latter that got her into that argument at the club.”

  She brought the mugs over on a tray, along with the cream and sugar, and sat down across from them. She didn’t seem to notice that she was still wearing an apron. Jessie didn’t mention it.

  “It seems like you’ve made a few personal changes too,” she said.

  “What do you mean?” Kimberly asked, grabbing her mug to take a sip with her left hand while she brushed the hair out of her eyes with her right.

  “It’s pretty clear that you’ve taken a bit more control of your life,” Jessie told her. “Lauren suggested as much when we spoke to her and what I saw earlier seems to reinforce that.”

  “Ah, I can guess what Lauren said,” Kimberly said, with a hint of bitterness.

  “She just gave the impression that you don’t wait around for what you want anymore, that you’re more apt to go after it.”

  “That’s a nice euphemism,” Kimberly said tartly.

  “I’m just trying to be polite,” Jessie countered with equal bite.

  Kimberly offered a tight smile.

  “I think we’re well past that,” she said. “We’ve both seen each other in some pretty rough m
oments. There’s no need to tiptoe around. Why don’t you ask me your questions and I’ll try to answer them as best I can.”

  The abruptness of her response took Jessie by surprise. She could feel the power dynamic shifting in the room and she didn’t like it. So she decided to get it back.

  Slowly and with great deliberation, she dropped two sugar cubes in her tea. Then she poured in some cream. After that, she took the teaspoon on her saucer and swirled it around, letting the metal clang repeatedly against the inside of the mug. It was the only sound in the room. The whole process took a good twenty seconds. Eventually, she saw Kimberly gulp hard as she shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Her moment had passed. Jessie was in control again. After placing the spoon back on the saucer, she finally replied.

  “Okay, why don’t you start, Detective Bray,” she said, deferring to her partner.

  Karen nodded and took her notebook out of her purse. Kimberly used the pause to take another sip of tea. Her face looked calm but Jessie noticed the slightest shake in her left hand as she brought the mug to her lips. She was nervous.

  “Before we review the actual events of the evening a little more,” Karen began, “I wanted to address something I found a little odd. Why such a big suite? Was it just part of the whole birthday blowout? Because according to the hotel, that suite could have easily held another two to four people. It seemed a little excessive.”

  Kimberly offered a wry smile.

  “It’s funny that you say that,” she said. “There were actually supposed to be more of us, but two people bailed at the last second. We couldn’t switch suites without incurring a penalty, which would have almost equaled the cost of the one we had, so we just stayed put.”

  “Who bailed?” Karen asked.

  “Two other friends in our circle, Breanne and Markie,” she told them. “It’s probably better that Breanne didn’t make it.”

  “Why do you say that?” Jessie asked, doing her best not to sound frustrated that this was the first time anyone had mentioned other possible attendees.

  “She’s as wild as Lauren. We call them the Barbie Bimbos—not to their faces, of course.”

  “How come?” Karen pressed.

  Kimberly shrugged, only slightly embarrassed to reveal the origin.

  “They’re both blonde. They both have big boobs. They both like to party. Hell, if Breanne had been at Fête with us, we might have all ended up arrested.” She paused briefly before adding far more somberly, “Maybe that would have been a good thing. Claudia might be alive right now if we’d gotten hauled in earlier in the night.”

  Jessie said nothing, but Karen didn’t wait long before pushing the issue.

  “Why didn’t she come?”

  “She got sick at the last minute. She thought it might be food poisoning. She almost came anyway but Veronica told her a night of drinking and dancing would only make things worse. She was really disappointed but she knew it was true. Still, she was a sweetie about it. She at least paid her portion of the hotel bill, which is more than I can say for Markie.”

  “Who’s Markie?” Jessie asked.

  “Markie Trevor—she was Claudia’s oldest friend. They’ve known each other since middle school. She’s not the most pleasant person I’ve ever encountered—pretty sour actually. But Claudia was loyal to her, always tried to involve her in girls’ nights out. Anyway, she called literally an hour before we were going to pick Claudia up and said she couldn’t come. Her husband didn’t like the idea of her cavorting at Hollywood clubs with a bunch of bad influences like us.”

  “She said that?” Karen asked, surprised.

  “Not in so many words,” Kimberly admitted. “But it was pretty obvious what she meant. I was actually half-glad she backed out until she said he was refusing to pay since she wasn’t going. She didn’t sound all that sorry about it either.”

  Though neither of the women who bailed on the evening sounded like credible suspects, Jessie made a mental note to have the Orange County folks look into their alibis. And after deciding that she and Karen had stirred up enough petty slights, she figured that they could get down to the important stuff.

  “So Kimberly,” she began, “we’re trying to lock down the timing of the evening. The stripper came at exactly midnight, according to Lauren. Does that sound right to you?”

  Kimberly’s forehead wrinkled as she tried to recall.

  “I was pretty far gone by then but it sounds about right.”

  “And Lauren had passed out by the time he left just after one a.m.?” she continued.

  “I think so,” she replied, before inhaling suddenly and quickly adding, “but I can’t be sure. Like I said, it was all pretty hazy at that point.”

  Jessie watched her backpedal and could almost see the gears grinding in her head. The woman had clearly realized that if Lauren was confirmed to be passed out, that left only two other major suspects still potentially conscious in the suite at the time Claudia was killed. At this point, there was no way to determine definitely if she was telling the truth or just covering her ass. Jessie let it go for now, pursuing another angle instead.

  “I know we covered this yesterday, but do you remember Claudia getting into any arguments or fights that night, either with others while you were out on the town or with Lauren or Veronica?”

  “No,” Kimberly said with certainty.

  “And nothing out of the ordinary happened back at the hotel prior to you all going to sleep?” she pressed.

  Kimberly studied the bottom of her mug for a second before looking up.

  “Uh-uh,” she said quietly.

  Jessie leaned back in her chair and took a long sip of her lukewarm tea.

  “Kimberly,” she said slowly. “It’s been a while since we saw each other, but not that long. I can tell you’re holding something back. I don’t know if it’s big or small, important or inconsequential. But you are hiding something. And I can’t help but hold that against you.”

  Kimberly swallowed hard before responding.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said unconvincingly.

  Jessie looked over at Karen.

  “Can I borrow those?” she asked, pointing at the detective’s notebook and pen.

  Karen pushed them over to her. She picked up the pen and tore out a sheet of paper, which she slid across the table to Kimberly. Then, without warning, she tossed the pen at her.

  Kimberly managed to snag the pen with her left hand just before it hit her in the face.

  “What the hell?” she demanded.

  Unfazed, Jessie explained.

  “I’m giving you the chance to write down your secrets in case you’re afraid to say them out loud.”

  Kimberly looked at the sheet of paper, then back up at Jessie.

  “I’ve got nothing for you,” she said. Her voice was full of conviction but her eyes were not.

  For the briefest of moments, Jessie was tempted to use either Morgan’s indiscretion or her own health emergency to induce a sense of responsibility in her former neighbor. But ultimately she chose not to, doubtful that it would work. Besides, taking the high road now would allow her to go low later if necessary. She looked over at Karen, who shrugged, and then back at Kimberly.

  “Then I guess we’re done here for now,” she said, standing up. The other women did the same.

  “I’ll walk you out,” Kimberly said softly.

  She led the way. Behind her, Karen gave Jessie an “are we really letting this slide?” look. Jessie smiled at her, hoping the gesture would let her partner know she hadn’t given up yet.

  “Thanks for your time, Mrs. Miner,” Karen said when they reached the door. “Here’s my card if you think of anything else.”

  Kimberly reluctantly took it.

  “Best of luck, Kimberly,” Jessie added sharply. “Information on Claudia’s funeral should be available soon. Of course it will have to be a closed casket, what with her skull being bashed in and all.”

  She tu
rned and walked off without another word. Karen had to jog to catch up.

  “What’s the plan, Jessie?” the detective muttered as they walked down the walkway away from the house, “Because I think she’s calling your bluff.”

  Jessie realized she’d been nervously holding her breath and released the air in her lungs before responding.

  “I had hoped to appeal to the better angels of her nature,” she replied quietly, her optimism fast fading. “But I guess that when it comes to how people act in this town, I’m still a little naïve. We’ll have to—”

  “Wait!” Kimberly called out from behind them.

  Before Jessie turned around to face her, she made sure she’d wiped the smile from her face.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Kimberly didn’t seem to notice that she was barefoot.

  As she ran up the walk toward them, Jessie wondered how long the woman would last in this cold in just her house clothes and apron. But not wanting to do anything to complicate the situation, she said nothing.

  “Yes?” Karen asked when the petite, short-legged redhead finally reached them.

  “There is one other thing you should know,” Kimberly whispered, though there was no one in sight on the neighborhood street. When she said nothing else, Jessie prodded her.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Everything I told you was true,” Kimberly insisted, before adding, “But I left something out.”

  Neither Jessie nor Karen spoke, choosing to let her get there in her own time. Finally she did.

  “The stripper we had that night, he didn’t just dance. At one point he went into the bathroom in the master bedroom with Claudia. We could hear them. There was definitely more than dancing going on.”

  Jessie stared hard at her.

  “This is no time to be coy, Kimberly,” she said sternly. “What exactly happened?”

  “They had sex,” she told them, wincing as she said the words.