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

by Blake Pierce

  “You think she would have had any shot at getting that scumbag away from the kids if he hadn’t attacked her?” he asked.

  “I don’t know, Ryan,” she said, taking another sip. “If being a disinterested, mediocre parent was enough to take away a kid, well, you get the idea. But since he’s now an attempted murderer too, I guess it’s moot. The saddest part is that now two families are completely destroyed. And I doubt those little boys, who were friends, will ever see each other again.”

  “Yeah,” Ryan agreed quietly before livening up. “Well, despite all that, I’m proud of you. Months away from the action and you come back and solve the case in less than two days. Not bad at all.”

  “I had a lot of help,” Jessie insisted. “Without Karen and Jamil, I’m not sure it goes the same way. Not everyone is as sharp as those two. A little Hernandez help would have come in handy on this one.”

  He was just opening his mouth to respond when her phone rang. It was Kimberly Miner.

  “Do you mind if I get this?” Jessie asked.

  He shook his head so she did.

  “Is everything okay, Kimberly?” she asked.

  “Yes, I’m fine,” Kimberly replied. “Sorry for calling so late.”

  “That’s all right,” Jessie said, unable to quite place the odd tone in the other woman’s voice. “What’s up?”

  “I just…” she started to say before pausing for so long that Jessie thought the call might have dropped. “I just wanted to tell you that I’m sorry.”

  “For what?” Jessie asked. All things considered, Kimberly Miner had come out of this whole thing pretty clean.

  “For the way things went down between us when we were neighbors. You were trying to help me and I lashed out at you. I even gaslighted you when you told me about Morgan’s cheating. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. And I should have done more for you when you miscarried.”

  Jessie felt like she’d been punched in the gut. She hadn’t expected such directness.

  “You helped a lot that night,” she managed to croak.

  “I mean afterwards. I always felt bad about how we left things.”

  “It’s okay,” Jessie assured her, desperately hoping to move on, “really.”

  Neither of them spoke for a few seconds.

  “Anyway,” Kimberly said, forcing a chipperness into her tone, “I also wanted to thank you.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ve inspired me,” she said. “Morgan doesn’t know this yet but I’m seeing a divorce lawyer this week. I put up with his infidelities for years. Then I had a few of my own to punish him. There are so many scars in our marriage, it’s not really salvageable. And I don’t want to salvage it.”

  “Are you sure?” Jessie asked. “Wounds can heal. I have the scars to prove it.”

  She didn’t feel comfortable being the inspiration for Kimberly’s life choices, especially when she was constantly second-guessing her own.

  “Yeah,” Kimberly said confidently. “I’m going to kick him out. He likes the bachelor life so much? He can live in a bachelor’s apartment for a while. And I’m going back to school. I’m going to start next semester.”

  “That’s great news,” Jessie said, hoping it was. “I’m sure you’ll do great.”

  “Thanks. Listen, I’m going to let you go now. I’m sure you’re exhausted. I just needed to get that stuff off my chest, you know?”

  “I do,” Jessie told her. “Good luck, Kimberly.”

  After hanging up, she returned her attention to Ryan.

  “So where were we?” she asked, pointedly not lingering on the prior conversation.

  He seemed to sense that she wanted to move on and obliged.

  “You were saying how I might have come in handy on this case.”

  “Oh yeah,” she remembered, “Hernandez help.”

  “It was actually kind of funny that you said that,” he murmured shyly.

  “Is this the part where you share your news?” she asked, unable to hide her interest.

  “This is the part,” he said, “though I’m a little nervous to tell you.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not sure you’ll think it’s a good idea,” he said. “Hell, I’m not a hundred percent sure that I think it’s a good idea.”

  “Enough stalling—spill!”

  “Okay, okay,” he said, holding up in his hands in surrender. “Captain Decker came by earlier this afternoon and made a proposal. He’s concerned that HSS is in danger of being eliminated because of staff and credibility losses. He wants me to consult for the unit as an investigator, kind of like you’ve been doing as a profiler.”

  “He wants you out there pursuing cases?” Jessie asked incredulously, feeling her temperature rise at the idea of the captain putting Ryan at risk.

  “No,” he said quickly. “He was very clear about that—no field work. He wants me to find cases that will generate positive buzz for the unit, involving big names, serial killers, that kind of thing. He wants me to aggressively seek them out rather than just wait for them to come to us. He wants me to review cases that might have breakthrough potential but were overlooked for whatever reason.”

  Jessie chose her words carefully.

  “It almost sounds like he wants you to generate these cases out of thin air. Are you sure you want to be put in that situation?”

  “I don’t think that’s it,” Ryan insisted. “It’s more like he wants me on high alert, ready to look for any case with potential, vet it for worthiness, and snap it up if it meets the HSS criteria. And to answer your question, I do want to be put in that situation. This feels like a way back in. And I could really use that right now.”

  He looked at her with trepidation and Jessie realized that he was hoping she’d give him something he rarely seemed to need from anyone: approval. In that moment, it became clear just how desperate he was to get back the part of himself that had been lying dormant for months. He was a detective. He solved crimes. He caught murderers. That had been taken away from him. This was a chance to start to reclaim that part of his identity. Who was she to object to that?

  “I think it’s a great idea,” she told him. “It does seem like they’re in dire straits over there and I can’t think of anyone better equipped to get them back on track.”

  He smiled with relief.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, his tone light again. “It’ll only be a few hours a day to start and I’ll make sure it doesn’t interfere with my rehab. I know I still have a long road ahead.”

  She smiled and gave him another kiss. Seeing how happy he was now revealed to her how much he’d been struggling before and how hard he must have been trying to hide it.

  “We’ll make the drive together,” she whispered.

  *

  Hannah turned off the police scanner app on her phone.

  It was clear there wouldn’t be any more information tonight. That was okay. She’d already heard enough to breathe easier.

  The cops had followed up on an “anonymous” tip and raided the home of James Poston, a convicted sex offender. Using detailed directions provided by the tipster, they found a hidden compartment in a bedroom ottoman, which was filled with child pornography. One officer mentioned that as Poston was being taken into custody, he claimed that a young woman had assaulted him during a home invasion. But under the circumstances, no one was taking his allegations seriously.

  She’d also read online that Mindy Stokes was doing well and had been released from the hospital without injuries. Apparently the girl had fallen for a nineteen-year-old she’d met at the movies and been seeing him secretly for months. None of her friends even knew about him.

  They’d decided to run away together to get married in Vegas. But his car broke down on the way. They didn’t have the money to fix it so they’d been holed up at a friend’s place in La Verne, where they were tracked down by a private detective named Katherine Gentry. The man was under arrest.

  Hannah stood up to
stretch and nearly screamed in pain. Her back was throbbing from the crowbar blow and the back of her head ached where it had slammed into Jimmy Poston’s bookshelf. She could hear voices in the kitchen and decided that she would have to brave an unwanted encounter if she was going to get any pain relief.

  When she left her room, she found Jessie and Ryan seated at the breakfast table, talking quietly. There was also kissing.

  “Teenager coming through,” she announced, hoping to short-circuit the PDA.

  “Hey, how’s it going?” Jessie asked, looking over at her with tired but happy eyes.

  “Okay,” Hannah said as she made her way to the medicine cabinet. “Solve the case?”

  “We did,” Jessie said. “The whole thing was pretty depressing so I won’t bore you with the minutiae. How was shopping on Melrose?”

  “I was mostly just looking around,” Hannah said, trying to sound casual about her made-up outing. “I didn’t find anything worth the money. The most exciting thing was almost getting paralyzed.”

  “Wait, what?” Jessie asked, her relaxed demeanor suddenly stiffening.

  “I’m exaggerating,” Hannah said. “I was in this one store when a woman came in with her dog, who was a little rambunctious. I backed up to get out of his way and stumbled over a basket. When I fell back, I slammed into a metal shelf and banged my upper back and head pretty hard. It’s still hurting so I was going to get some ibuprofen.”

  “Jeez,” Jessie said, standing up. “That sounds brutal. Do you mind if I take a look?”

  “I guess,” Hannah said, popping a couple of pills, “But be gentle. It’s tender.”

  She held still as Jessie pulled back the collar of her top.

  “It’s really bruised,” she said. “It looks like the shelf took a swing at you. Maybe we should get it checked out.”

  “Maybe,” Hannah said. “If I don’t feel better tomorrow, we could have someone look at it after school.”

  “You said you hit your head too,” Ryan reminded her. “How is that?”

  “I definitely have a bump,” Hannah said, touching the spot carefully. “But I don’t I have a concussion or anything. It’s not like I’ve been vomiting or dizzy.”

  “The symptoms aren’t always that pronounced,” Jessie said. “If you still have a headache tomorrow, we should definitely see the doctor. For now I’ll get an icepack.”

  As Jessie fished through the freezer for one, Hannah watched her silently. She knew that a normal person would feel bad for all the deception, for seeking sympathy for injuries resulting from her own reckless actions. But she didn’t feel bad. She wondered if simply knowing that she should was a sign of emotional progress.

  For half a second, she considered telling her sister the truth. After all, nearly getting attacked by a child rapist was a serious thing. Deliberately putting herself in his path was a whole other level of bananas.

  Maybe Jessie could help her find some way to understand why she felt the need to generate these intense moments of feeling. Maybe being honest and vulnerable would bring them closer together.

  Then again, it was far more likely to make her already hyper-vigilant sister go off the deep end. Learning that Hannah had been intentionally courting danger for an adrenaline rush might result in her being sent to a military academy or some home for troubled teens. It meant they might be separated. And that was unacceptable.

  There was another option. Kat Gentry already knew some of what Hannah had done, including actually observing her confront a drug dealer just for kicks. And she’d reluctantly agreed to keep it quiet if Hannah promised not to do anything like it again. That meant she was responsible, part of the cover-up.

  It also meant she was the one person Hannah could confide in without fear of consequence. If Kat balked at the demand for secrecy and decided to tell Jessie what was going on, she’d have to admit that she’d known about this kind of behavior for months and said nothing. It could put her entire friendship with Jessie at risk. Hannah could use Kat’s vulnerability on the matter to share her secret and be sure it stayed secret. She could use Kat’s good intentions against her.

  It was the only way she felt safe reaching out for help. Sure, it was a crappy thing to do, especially to a good person. Some might even call it immoral. But Hannah had already crossed that line so often that it was just a blur to her now.

  Jessie found the cold pack in the freezer, wrapped it in a towel, and delicately pressed it against her head. Without thinking about it, Hannah reached out and wrapped her arms around her big sister, giving her a hug that surprised them both.

  Neither let go for a while. Hannah closed her eyes, clinging tight to the only family she had left. She knew in that moment that she’d do whatever it took to keep it. No one would get in the way of that. No one.

  EPILOGUE

  Ryan Hernandez’s eyes were getting blurry.

  It had been a while since he’d concentrated so hard on anything other than his physical recovery and he was out of practice.

  He set the file aside and allowed himself a brief break. He stood up carefully and stretched, trying to loosen up his stiff back. Looking at the clock, he saw that he’d been in this small office at Central Station for three hours without moving. Right around now, Jessie would be concluding a lecture at UCLA and Hannah would be on her lunch period at school.

  The workspace was actually a converted broom closet and had been Garland Moses’s office before his death. This was where Captain Decker had set him up, on the second floor away from everyone else, so that he could avoid distractions and have a little privacy.

  That was hard at first. The second he’d arrived at the station in the cop-chauffeured car that Decker had provided because he couldn’t yet drive himself, everyone had swarmed him to say hi and wish him well. But eventually they all returned to work and he was able to start to dig into some case files. So far, he hadn’t found much that shouted “Homicide Special Section.”

  There were a few weird cases involving celebrities, but no homicides, nothing that would enhance HSS’s stature within the department. And there were a few intriguing open murder cases in other divisions, but they were all pretty far along. Taking over any of them would not only look like a blatant, desperate power grab, it might actually be counterproductive to solving them.

  He sat back down, grabbed the next file, and skimmed the details. It was another unsolved murder, just two nights ago, of a young, single woman. This one had apparently been cut up, but unfortunately, in Los Angeles that was hardly anything out of the ordinary.

  He was about to move on when he noticed a one-page addendum stapled to the coroner’s report. It mentioned that after further review, the woman’s skin had not been removed with a paring knife, as had been initially thought, but rather with an X-Acto knife.

  That was unusual, even for L.A. He punched up the supplementary report in the department database and opened the photo file. It didn’t take long to see that the coroner’s report had seriously downplayed the depravity of the killing. The girl wasn’t just cut up. It looked like whole sections of her skin had been removed while others were left untouched, almost as if the murderer was using her body to create some kind of design or pattern.

  Ryan leaned in to study the images on the monitor more closely, trying to discern exactly what had been done to Jenavieve Holt and why. At some point he came to a conclusion. The carvings weren’t just a design. They seemed intended as some kind of puzzle.

  Now this was a case worth his time.

  NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER!

  THE PERFECT IMPRESSION

  (A Jessie Hunt Psychological Suspense Thriller—Book Thirteen)

  “A masterpiece of thriller and mystery. Blake Pierce did a magnificent job developing characters with a psychological side so well described that we feel inside their minds, follow their fears and cheer for their success. Full of twists, this book will keep you awake until the turn of the last page.”

  --Books and Movie Reviews,
Roberto Mattos (re Once Gone)

  THE PERFECT IMPRESSION is book #13 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 600 five-star reviews.

  When a group of couple friends leave their suburban lives to go away together on a vacation to an exclusive resort, their partying gets out of control—and someone ends up dead. As Jessie digs deep into their lives and begins to unearth their secrets, she quickly realizes that their perfect lives are not what they seem—and that a murderer may be amongst them.

  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.

  Books #14 (THE PERFECT DECEIT) and #15 (THE PERFECT MISTRESS) are now also available.

  THE PERFECT IMPRESSION

  (A Jessie Hunt Psychological Suspense Thriller—Book Thirteen)

  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 seventeen 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 seven books; of the CHLOE FINE psychological suspense mystery, comprising six books; of the JESSE HUNT psychological suspense thriller series, comprising fifteen 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 ten books (and counting); of the EUROPEAN VOYAGE cozy mystery series, comprising six books (and counting); of the new LAURA FROST FBI suspense thriller, comprising three books (and counting); of the new ELLA DARK FBI suspense thriller, comprising six books (and counting); of the new A YEAR IN EUROPE cozy mystery series, comprising three books (and counting); and of the new AVA GOLD mystery series, comprising three books (and counting).