by Blake Pierce
“How?”
“Give us permission to look at your GPS data without a court order,” Jessie said. “If the location information on your phone and car reinforces what you’re saying, it would go a long way to helping clear you.”
Court didn’t hesitate.
“How do I do that?”
“Just sign a release,” Jessie told her.
“Bring it to me now,” the woman insisted, “the sooner the better.”
Jessie walked out without another word. By the time she got into the observation room, Reid was holding the release in his hand.
“What do you think?” Jessie asked both him and Kat.
“Hard to say,” Reid replied. “There’s no telling if this cash skimming operation played out the way she describes. How do we know Claire or Jax wasn’t the first one to notice and told Amanda Nelson? Court could be fuzzying up the timeline to protect herself.”
“All the more reason to get this GPS data,” Kat said. “At least then we can get a sense of her movements.”
“True,” Reid said, “but she could always manipulate that too—leave her phone at home, take a cab to these people’s homes.”
“Agreed,” Jessie said, feeling the post-interrogation exhaustion settle in on her. “But we have to start somewhere.”
“We’ll start with the release,” Reid said. “Why don’t you take a breather, have a seat? I’ll get her to sign it.”
Jessie nodded and plopped down in one of the chairs facing the observation mirror. Kat sat next to her. They both stared at the wedding planner, who seemed to be studying her nails.
“What are you thinking?” Kat asked. “You like her for this?”
Jessie closed her eyes, trying to clear out the mental clutter.
“I wish I could say,” she muttered. “The GPS data will help. But Reid is right. If this is her and she conceived it well in advance, she’d have anticipated us pursuing this stuff. And she’d have crafted a diversionary explanation like this money skimming thing. She could be playing games with us. And the fact that she has zero witnesses for her whereabouts on three consecutive nights bothers me.”
“But…” Kat said leadingly.
Jessie opened her eyes and studied the woman on the other side of the mirror.
“On paper, she’s a solid suspect. She’s smart, meticulous and clearly resents planning perfect days for these people when she hasn’t gotten one of her own. But in my gut, I think we may have the wrong person. I’m worried that while we’re spinning our wheels with her, someone is out there, planning to do evil tonight.”
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
This would be her big night, so she checked her makeup one last time in the mirror.
It was a delicate balance, looking nice for a wedding but not wanting to show up the bride. In recent years, she’d become a master of it. She liked to think it was because she had developed a sense of these things, but she knew there was another reason: no matter how much she did herself up, people didn’t really notice her.
She’d come to that realization quite recently and accepting it had brought another epiphany: because she was a blandly pleasant looking person—a little plump, a little short, and a little mousy—she was almost invisible. That could be a curse, but it also meant that she had total freedom.
She could walk among the glamorous people without drawing attention to herself. Often their gaze seemed to skip over her completely. Sometimes she felt like a wraith, passing among the living but not really of them.
Maybe that’s why Hardy had left her weeks before their wedding. Maybe that’s why he’d taken up with her closest friend. Maybe that’s why she’d been oblivious as the two of them engaged in the perfect deceit right under her nose for six months before suddenly moving back to Philadelphia a month ago. She just wasn’t a very interesting person. Or at least, she hadn’t been until three days ago. That’s when everything changed.
She’d admittedly been nervous before the first Rebalancing. But she told herself to be brave and found an unexpected reserve of strength. She went to Claire’s home, where she’d been previously, and did the deed. The pressure wasn’t as intense as she’d feared once she determined that Claire’s husband, Jack, wasn’t home. Once it was done, as she listened to the woman’s anguished moans, she knew she’d made the right choice. Every pained grunt gave her an erotic tingle.
Doing Jax had been even more satisfying. She wasn’t sure if she got greater pleasure from listening to the woman’s agony or knowing that her death would be all over the news the following day. Ultimately, the buzz she got from immersing herself in the subsequent media frenzy and public grieving was almost, but not quite as delicious as the murder itself.
She’d changed things up a little last night. Caroline Ryan had always been nice to her, in a distant, mildly condescending way. Had it not been for the fact that she couldn’t remember her name—she kept calling her Joan—she might have escaped judgment.
But after getting it wrong multiple times, the indignity became too much to ignore. She decided not to punish Caroline directly. Instead that Rebalancing would be achieved via her perfectly charming fiancé, Brian, who had always treated her well and did get her name right. But that wasn’t the point. Caroline needed to be taught a lesson.
Now the woman would live in grief and fear, knowing an unseen threat was out there, always ready to strike at her more directly. And if the cops ever caught her, she felt confident that Caroline would remember her name from then on. Whatever remorse she felt at making Brian suffer was more than mitigated by the suffering his beloved would experience going forward.
That was the reason she had to keep going. The Brian Clark Rebalancing had left a bit of a bad taste in her mouth. She needed a palate cleanser and tonight offered the perfect opportunity.
Nicholas and Janet Goodsen were celebrating their tenth anniversary at a gorgeous venue in Palos Verdes, on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It was a converted Spanish mission, now a historic landmark, with a restored bell tower and the mission’s original walls, which were over two hundred years old. In addition to being beautiful, it had many dark, narrow halls. That would make a surprise, sneak attack easier to carry out. It would also allow for the perpetrator to escape unseen.
The Goodsens had been selected partly because they were next in line on her schedule. She didn’t have another worthwhile event to attend until next weekend. But the choice was made easier by the couple’s arrogance. They had insisted that all their friends journey out to a hard-to-access area on a chilly weekday evening rather than delaying it until the weekend because “Tuesday was their anniversary, dammit,” as Nicholas Goodsen had bellowed.
They were also a good choice because of Janet Goodsen’s demand that the party have a ball theme and that everyone dress as if they were attending some celebration at a 18th century French palace. The pretention and narcissism were unmatched. She couldn’t wait to watch as Janet’s flesh melted onto her fancy ball gown. Maybe she’d finally learn a little humility, however briefly. The thought of it made her heart beat a little faster.
Satisfied that she looked presentable but not noticeable, she started to turn away from the mirror when something caught her eye and she glanced back. Some aspect in her manner was more vibrant that unusual. She would never delude herself into thinking she was actually pretty, but there was a healthy glow to her cheeks and a sparkle in her eyes. She just seemed more vital than usual. It was exhilarating.
She turned off the bathroom light, walked over to her bed, and sat down. She knew she had to leave but she couldn’t help taking one more glimpse at the framed photos on the bedside table. There were three of them. All were of happy couples, smiling warmly for the camera. Or at least they had been smiling before she had scratched out the faces of the victims, mutilating them just as she had with their real faces. She planned to add another photo to her collection tonight.
With a kick of anticipation and a sense of purpose, Sloane Baker grabbe
d her camera equipment and headed out. The happy couple expected their photographer to be at the venue early. But it was what they didn’t expect that had her grinning from ear to ear.
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
Jessie could barely keep her eyes open.
Unlike Jamil Winslow, her usual go-to guy for all things technological, the tech who was gathering Jeanie Court’s GPS data wasn’t especially gifted at making the search compelling to observers. At a certain point, she decided there was no point in her, Reid, and Kat hovering over his shoulder.
“Joel, “she said to the clearly anxious tech, “We’re going to let you do your thing. Please let us know the second you have something worth sharing.”
Both Kat and Reid seemed relieved that she’d made the call and followed her out into the hall. Standing up in a bustling corridor seemed to give her a small jolt of energy.
“I’m not optimistic,” she said, immediately voicing the same thought the other two had. “It’s almost 5 p.m. and it’s starting to get dark out. We’re only about five hours from the time window for the other murders. And there’s no guarantee that timing will continue. We need to be pursuing other leads in case Jeanie Court falls through.”
She heard the anxiety in her own voice as she spoke. The way Callum Reid looked at her, she knew he’d noticed it too.
“We’ve got Court in custody until at least tomorrow, no matter what her lawyer does,” he said, doing his clumsy best to sound comforting. “The forensic accountant is going through her financials. I’ll go back in and work with Joel on the GPS data. Two sets of eyes are better than one. After that it gets a little crowded. Why don’t you too take a little mental break and then you can dive into whatever other leads we have.”
“We have other leads?” Kat asked sarcastically.
“I don’t know,” he said, sounding defeated. “Maybe there’s some connection among the victims we haven’t noticed yet. Maybe reviewing the crime scene photos again will spark something. It can’t hurt.”
He went to rejoin the tech, leaving Jessie and Kat alone. Feeling a sudden awkwardness between them, Jessie spoke quickly.
“I’m going to check in on Ryan,” she said. “I’ll catch up with you in a few.”
“Okay,” Kat said, not pushing, “I’m going on a bathroom break. Reconvene in five?”
Jessie nodded and walked down the hall to the research room. She could hear furious tapping on a keyboard and was not surprised to find Jamil sitting before a bank of three monitors, his eyes darting around almost as fast as his fingers.
Jamil Winslow didn’t look like much. The twenty-four-year-old was short and appeared so frail that Jessie often worried what a strong gust of wind might do to him. But she’d learned from her first interaction with him that the young researcher was brilliant. If Jamil told her something, she knew she it was accurate, vetted several times over. He was also relentless and seemingly impervious to fatigue.
Ryan, however, apparently was not. He was lying on the couch along the back wall, snoring softly. Jessie tiptoed over to Jamil and waved to get his attention.
“Hey Jamil,” she whispered. “How’s it going?”
“Hi, Ms. Hunt,” he said, looking up at her ever so briefly, still typing. “Not great to be honest. We still don’t have any more leads than this morning. The Night Hunter parked much further down the street from the victim’s location this time, away from any surveillance cameras. We don’t have any idea what kind of car he used.”
“There’s nothing useful from the crime scene?”
“Not really. He seemed to be wearing prosthetics and a wig during the murder. Ryan said he looked much different than when he saw him outside the hostel on Sunday night. In addition, he wore gloves the whole time; there were no fingerprints. He even sprayed the room down with some kind of industrial antiseptic. CSU thinks it was to degrade any possible DNA that might have been left behind. If so, it worked. They found none. But that’s not the worst part.”
Jessie tensed up at those words.
“Tell me,” she said though she didn’t really want to know.
“We saw the whole killing on the family’s interior security cameras. He appeared to be…performing for us, knowing we’d see it later. He moved her into a room with a camera and turned on all the lights. Detective Hernandez thought that was so everything would look clear and bright. He wanted us to see him at work. And he took his time, like hours. The girl was immobilized but her eyes were moving, and she would twitch slightly when he used the exacto knife to remove a fresh layer of flesh. Eventually her movements stopped so he gave her an injection of something to wake her up. After a while, even that didn’t work. But he kept going. He got there around nine at night, but the coroner’s estimated time of death was between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. That means he was skinning this girl alive for at least six hours.”
Neither of them spoke for several seconds, processing the horror of what the girl had suffered. When Jessie finally replied, it was to change subjects.
“How’s he doing?” she asked, nodding at Ryan.
“He’s pushing himself pretty hard,” Jamil said. “I told him to take a break since all I’m doing right now is searching through city cameras for old clunkers spotted in the area of the crime. It’s a long shot and he couldn’t help. I told him I’d wake him if I found anything.”
Jessie looked at her boyfriend, his right arm splayed out, nearly grazing the floor, his body bent at an unnatural angle.
“Change of plans,” she said. “When he wakes up, tell him I came by and insisted that he go home. There’s no reason for him to be here unless you find something useful.”
“I don’t know if he’ll go for that,” Jamil warned.
“Then please remind him that my sister is at home with a detective who deserves to be relieved of duty after watching her all day. Until this guy is caught, Hannah isn’t safe, and I’d feel better with Ryan protecting her, even at half strength, than just about anyone else. If he has a problem with that, he should call me or find me. Tell him I sounded…unyielding. That should get his imagination going.”
“I’ll tell him,” Jamil said. “How’s your case going? I know Decker’s on the warpath about it.”
“Not much better than yours,” she said, avoiding details. “But I’m about to dive back in. Wish me luck.”
“Good luck,” he said sincerely. Jamil was almost always sincere.
She returned to the hall just in time to see Kat push open the door to the station’s interior courtyard. With a sense of trepidation, she followed. Once outside, it took a second for her eyes to adjust from the fluorescent indoor lighting to the last, fading rays of the evening sun. Kat was sitting alone on a bench in the middle of the courtyard, under a large tree. It was the same spot where Jessie had engaged in so many conversations with Garland. She walked over and sat down beside her.
“How’s it going?” she asked.
Kat looked over at her apprehensively, clearly unsure exactly which topic she was being asked about. Jessie saw her decide to play it safe.
“I think I agree with what you said back in the observation room. My gut tells me Jeanie Court didn’t do this. I think our killer is still out there.”
Jessie closed her eyes and exhaled slowly. She knew that there would never be a more opportune moment to address the episode that had them so at odds. Kat had apologized and wouldn’t bring it up again on her own for fear of making things worse. It was up to Jessie to open the door to any reconciliation.
“Me too,” she said quietly. “But that’s not what I meant. How’s it going with you?”
Kat looked straight ahead, afraid to make eye contact. When she responded, her voice was almost too quiet to hear.
“I know I failed you, Jessie. I kept secrets from you and secrets leave stains on relationships, ones that often can’t be undone. And I so want to undo what I did; to make things right. But I don’t know how. I don’t know what I can do to earn your trust back. And I’m terri
fied that I’ve lost the best friend I’ve ever had. I feel helpless.”
Jessie sat there stiffly, unsure how to respond. All of Kat’s fears were well-founded. She wasn’t certain there was any way her friend could fully win back her confidence. And without that, how could their friendship ever truly be repaired?
Jessie didn’t know. But in this moment, she did recognize one thing: despite the fracture between them, she longed to have Kat back. Selfishly, she missed her as a sounding board, as her emotional backstop. But mostly, she just missed her sister-in-arms.
“Listen,” she finally said. “I can’t tell you that I didn’t feel betrayed by what you did. You allowed my sister to continue engaging in behavior that put her at grave risk and you kept me in the dark. I can’t excuse it. But I understand it.”
Kat looked over at her, surprise on her face. Jessie went on.
“I know you thought you were helping Hannah, trying to get her to work through her thrill-seeking. I know you didn’t want to create any more tension between the two of us when there was already so much. And I get that once you made the decision to keep the truth from me, you were trapped: tell me the truth and lose Hannah’s trust. Don’t tell me and risk her putting herself in danger. You made the wrong choice, and it was a long, slippery slope from there.”
Kat nodded, not daring to speak. Jessie continued.
“And I’m not blameless in this,” she said. “My sister, who I am ultimately responsible for, was doing these things while she lived in my house and I never had a clue. I get that she’s an incredibly smart, extremely convincing girl. But I’m a frickin’ criminal profiler and I was oblivious. Maybe it was because I was focused on Ryan’s recovery or my new job or the parade of killers I was hunting, but I missed what was going on. So I can’t be too high and mighty.”
“You couldn’t have know—,” Kat started to say but Jessie interrupted her.
“Don’t do that,” she said more harshly than she intended. “Don’t try to comfort me. We’re not there yet. Just because I understand you, that doesn’t mean that I absolve you. It just means that I want to… find a way to get there.”