CHAPTER SIX

For a second, Jessie thought Michaela’s roommate was dead too.

Despite the EMTs’ assurances to the contrary, she was unresponsive when they opened the ambulance door and tried to get her attention. Even after they called her by what the EMT said was her preferred name, Lizzie, she didn’t stir. It was only when Ryan pulled off the thermal blanket she was wrapped in that she gave them the time of day.

“What?” she demanded in a tired, surly voice.

The girl looked to be in her late teens. Even if she hadn’t seen Lizzie’s room, Jessie would have guessed she was a more restrained personality than her roommate. Her brown hair was tied back tight and her makeup was subdued to the point of unnoticeable. She was dressed conservatively in a zippered CSUN sweatshirt and pants. She wore a crucifix necklace.

Jessie frowned at Ryan, not pleased with his tactics. But he shrugged as if to say he was done being patient.

“Lizzie,” Jessie began, using her most sympathetic voice, “we’re investigating what happened and we need to ask you a few questions.”

“They gave me something,” Lizzie said. “I’m feeling a little loopy.”

“We understand,” Jessie assured as she helped the girl up to a seated position. “And we’re going to have you go to the hospital to get checked out momentarily. But we need to get some basics from you first, okay?”

“I guess.”

“How did you know Michaela?” Jessie asked.

“We went to high school together,” Lizzie said, speaking slowly as she focused on each word. “She left early but we stayed in touch. When I graduated we decided to become roomies. She was a good roomie.”

Jessie glanced over at Ryan. The girl was really zonked out. Getting much out of her would be hard. He raised his eyebrows in frustration. Jessie tried again.

“Lizzie, did Michaela have family in the area?”

With much effort, Lizzie shook her head.

“What about a boyfriend or someone she recently broke up with?”

“No boyfriend,” Lizzie answered lazily.

“Maybe a co-worker she had problems with?”

Lizzie’s eyes, which had been glazed over, briefly focused.

“Mick was a waitress,” she said adamantly.

“Okay,” Jessie replied, surprised by the intensity of the response. “Did she have any issues with anyone at work?”

“She was a waitress,” Lizzie repeated vehemently.

Jessie gave up and turned back to Ryan.

“I think we’re going to have to wait to talk to her. This is pointless.”

“That would be my preference anyway,” said the EMT, who had been standing nearby. “After what she’s been through, and with the medication she’s on, I’d really like to get her looked at.”

“Go ahead,” Ryan told him. “We’ll come by to talk to her tomorrow.”

They watched as Lizzie was strapped into a stretcher and the ambulance doors closed. As the vehicle pulled away into the dark night, something occurred to Jessie.

“The Valley detective still hasn’t showed up.”

“I’m actually not sure we want to be here when he does,” Ryan noted. “I don’t want him peppering us with questions about the ‘investigation pattern’ we’re pursuing.”

“You don’t want to ask him why he showed up so late?” Jessie asked, surprised.

“I do. But I have a feeling we’d hit the same brick wall that we got with Costabile. We need to know more before we start coming at these guys.”

“I get that,” she said. “But just to be clear, we’re in agreement that something seriously shady is going on here, right? I mean, that Costabile guy seems more like a mob capo than a police sergeant. Or maybe he’s the Don Corleone of Valley Bureau.”

Ryan looked over at her, clearly uncomfortable with her words, though he didn’t try to argue. She decided to let him off the hook and continued speaking before he could answer.

“I don’t think we’re likely to get anything useful tonight.” She sighed.

“No. We may have to pick this up tomorrow morning. By then, Lizzie will be coherent. Caldwell might have something definitive on a potential sexual assault and we can see if someone tried to pawn Michaela’s laptop or phone.”

“Okay,” Jessie said reluctantly. “One thing we know for sure. Your Chatty Cathy was right. Something definitely isn’t right with this case.”

*

Hannah was awake when Jessie got home.

The girl barely looked up from the movie she was watching when she walked in. It was almost 1 a.m. and tomorrow was a school day but Jessie didn’t have the energy to fight.

“It’s been a long night,” she said. “I’m going to bed. Can you please turn the volume down and try to get some sleep soon so you can function tomorrow?”

Hannah turned the volume down a few notches but otherwise didn’t acknowledge her half-sister’s words. Jessie stood in her bedroom doorway for a moment, debating whether to try again. But ultimately she decided it wasn’t worth it and simply closed the door.

She slept restlessly that night. That wasn’t unusual. For the last few years, she could count on near-nightly nightmares centered on one of the men who had posed a threat to her very life. They were usually a mix of her ex-husband, her father, and Bolton Crutchfield.

But tonight, like so many recent nights, her dreams centered on Hannah. Her mind was filled with a swirl of disconnected images, some of the girl in peril at the hands of a masked assailant, others in which she walked nonchalantly into danger.

But the dream that troubled her the most was the last one, in which Hannah sat at a table, smiling casually as an unidentifiable waiter served her a plate filled with dismembered body parts. She was just lifting a forkful of human flesh to her mouth when Jessie startled awake, drenched in sweat and breathing heavily.

The first rays of morning sun streamed in through a crack in the curtains. She sat up, swung her legs over the side of the bed, and rested her head in her hands. Her skull was pounding and she felt vaguely nauseated. As she reached for ibuprofen and a bottle of Pepto-Bismol, she tried not to read too much into the dreams.

She knew from experience that they weren’t so much a predictor as a manifestation of her fears. She was having these dreams because she feared for Hannah’s future, not because of anything she was destined to become.

At least that’s what she told herself.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Despite her exhaustion, Jessie was excited to get to the station.

She managed to get Hannah out the door only ten minutes late this morning and figured that if she hit only light traffic, she could still arrive at work before it got too busy. She wanted some quiet time to focus on the Michaela Penn case, which felt more wrong every time she thought about it.

Why did the officers on scene want to wrap things up so fast? Why hadn’t the detective arrived more quickly—if he arrived at all? What made Chatty Cathy call Ryan in the first place? Jessie’s gut screamed that this was more than just a standard robbery gone wrong. Nine stab wounds felt very personal.

And yet, as she’d been reminded repeatedly at the ten-week FBI Academy training session she’d attended, her gut was no substitute for evidence. Just because a person or scenario seemed suspicious, that wasn’t proof of anything on its own. For Jessie, who had excelled at almost every test they threw at her at Quantico, taking that lesson to heart had been the most challenging.

When she arrived at her desk at 7:33 a.m., the station bullpen was still sparsely populated. She knew she had about a half hour until that changed so she dived right in. First she called the Valley Bureau Coroner’s Office to get any results they might have. Maggie Caldwell wasn’t in. But according to Jimmy, the guy on call, she’d instructed him to pass along any updates if someone from Central Station called. At least Caldwell didn’t seem to be part of whatever slow walk operation Sergeant Costabile was running.

According to Jimmy, Michaela had been sexually assaulted before she died. But apparently the assailant had used a condom and then doused her in some sort of disinfectant that prevented the collection of any usable DNA. They were waiting to see if more detailed testing might offer something but he wasn’t optimistic.

Her next call was to the hospital to check on Lizzie. As she waited on hold for an update, her thoughts drifted to back to Hannah. The similarities between her and Michaela Penn weren’t lost on her. Both girls were seventeen. Both had gone to private schools in the San Fernando Valley. It looked like both of them had to grow up faster than they should have. Jessie couldn’t help but wonder what other parallels they shared.

A nurse came on the line, snapping her out of her thoughts. Apparently Lizzie was still sedated. The nurse said she should be awake by mid-morning and suggested holding off on visiting until then.

After that she called Van Nuys Station and asked for Officer Burnside, who had been standing guard outside the apartment building. Out of all the cops she encountered last night, he was the one who seemed the least comfortable with the situation. She hoped she might be able to pry some details out of him. She was told his shift had just ended—it ran from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. With a little cajoling, she was able to convince the desk sergeant to give her his cell number. Her hope that he might be awake and still driving home was rewarded when he picked up on the second ring.

“Hello?” he said tentatively.

“Officer Burnside? This is Jessie Hunt. We met last night at the Penn murder scene.”

“I know who you are,” he said, caution in his voice.

Sensing his intense wariness, she debated whether to try to set him at ease or just accept that this was going to be an uncomfortable situation. She decided that being forthright was the smarter move.

“Look, Officer, I know you’re not psyched to be getting this call. And I don’t want to put you in a difficult situation, so I’ll keep it brief.”

She paused, but when she got no response, she continued.

“I’m wondering if you’ve gotten any updates on the status of Michaela’s phone or laptop. Any pings on the phone? Any attempts to pawn it or the computer that you’re aware of?”

After a period of silence, Burnside finally responded.

“I think you’d be better off going through official channels, Ms. Hunt.”

He sounded embarrassed to say it and she decided to use that to her advantage.

“I think we both know how well that would go, Officer. I’d be running in circles for hours. Look, I’m not asking you to tell me why that crime scene was handled so unprofessionally. I’m not asking you to explain why almost every cop there was acting like they were guilty of something. All I’m asking is if either the phone or laptop has turned up.”

She waited and could almost hear Burnside’s brain working in the intervening silence.

“You didn’t get this from me, okay?” he insisted.

“Of course not.”

“Nothing’s turned up on the laptop yet. We’re still waiting. The phone is still missing too. But we traced it to its last known location, a few blocks away. We found the SIM card in an alley, or at least what was left of it. It had been crushed, and from the look of it, burned.”

“That seems unusually thorough for a thief, don’t you think?” Jessie noted. “Almost like the robber was more interested in keeping Michaela’s call data hidden than in keeping her phone.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Ms. Hunt,” Burnside replied.

“No, of course you don’t. As long as this conversation isn’t officially happening, is there anything else you want to tell me about what occurred last night?”

More silence as Burnside weighed his response.

“I don’t have anything more to share about last night,” he finally said. “But I will say this. Going forward you might want to let this one go, Ms. Hunt. I can tell you don’t want to. And I know from your reputation that letting things go isn’t really what you do. But in this instance, you might want to reconsider.”

“Why?”

“I have to go, Ms. Hunt. But I wish you all the best. Take care of yourself.”

Before she could reply, he had hung up. She was pondering whether to call him back when she saw Garland Moses walk into the bullpen and make his way to the stairs leading to his tiny second-floor office. As usual, the legendary profiler projected the image of a rumpled, absent-minded professor, with his gray hair a mess, his glasses in danger of sliding off his nose, and his sport jacket dwarfing his wizened frame. She stood up and chased after him.

“Hey, Garland,” she said, reaching him at the bottom of the stairs and walking up with him. “You’ll never guess who I ran into yesterday.”

“You shouldn’t challenge me like that, Ms. Hunt,” he replied, winking. “I guess stuff for a living, you know.”

“Okay, then have at it,” she teased.

“I’m going to say Dr. Janice Lemmon,” he mused casually.

“How could you possibly know that?”

“That’s easy. You know I know her and seemed delighted by that information when you found that out. Also, your current gossipy, schoolgirl tone suggests that whoever it is has what you believe to be some sort of personal connection to me. That limits the options pretty dramatically. Therefore, Dr. Lemmon.”

“That’s pretty impressive,” she admitted.

“Also, she called me and warned me you were fishing for info,” he said with a wink in his voice.

“I see,” Jessie said, giddy at the thought. “Do the two of you chat on the phone often?”

“I feel like I’ve been transported into a Jane Austen novel and you’re the scheming protagonist. Please tell me that you didn’t accost me merely to hone your matchmaking skills, Ms. Hunt.”

“That’s not the only reason, Garland. I do have a favor to ask.”

“What’s that?” he said, as they reached the top of the stairs.

“I was hoping to introduce you to my half-sister, Hannah.”

“Ah yes, the girl you saved from the serial killer.”

“The girl you helped me save,” Jessie corrected. “If not for your suggestion, I never would have found her.”

“How is she?” he asked, brushing off the compliment.

“I was hoping you could tell me. I thought we could manufacture some sort of casual encounter and you could judge for yourself.”

Garland looked at her disapprovingly as they approached his office door.

“So you want to introduce me to her under false pretenses so I can profile her because you’re worried she might be a little serial killer-ish?”

“I wouldn’t put it quite that way,” Jessie protested. But…yes.”

“I’m not totally comfortable with that,” he told her as he opened the door. “I don’t think it’s fair to the girl and I worry that it might further erode the trust the two of you already sorely lack.”

“How do you know tha…”

“However, I have to admit I’m curious to meet this girl. She sounds like a real pistol. I’d be willing to do that. To go through what she’s suffered and still be even moderately functional? It’s quite incredible. I can’t guarantee anything beyond a chat. If you’ll accept those terms, I’ll agree to it.”

“I’ll take what I can get,” Jessie said.

“Very well then. We can talk later to set something up,” he said, then slammed the door in her face.

Under normal circumstances, Jessie would have been offended. But she decided to take the win. Garland had agreed to meet with Hannah. And once he did, Jessie was sure that he would be able to help. Even subconsciously, he’d end up profiling her. It was in his blood, just like it was in hers.

It was what they did.