Jessie sat quietly at the table for a minute, giving Vicky a chance to settle down. She got the impression that Bob wasn’t the only one in the family who liked things orderly. When she thought Vicky had calmed down a bit, she replied.

  “Is it possible that something happened that he might not be comfortable telling you about?”

  “Like what?” Vicky asked sharply.

  “If he got demoted or lost his job, maybe he was embarrassed and wasn’t sure how to tell you. Maybe he’s staying away to avoid sharing the news?”

  Vicky’s head was shaking before Jessie even finished the question.

  “First of all, he’s great at his job. He’s been there over a decade and they love him. They offered him promotions twice and he turned them down because he likes the nitty-gritty of programming. Second, if he was fired, he wouldn’t avoid my calls. He’d be mad. I work in HR and I know how to deal with that sort of thing. He’d want my help navigating the bureaucracy right away.”

  Okay,” Jessie conceded. “Is there another reason he might be out of touch? Maybe he went out for drinks with friends, got drunk, and slept it off at someone’s house?”

  Vicky looked at her like she’d suggested that her husband had gone to the moon. She responded slowly and with certitude.

  “Bob doesn’t get drunk with friends. He isn’t that kind of guy.”

  “What kind of guy is he?” Jessie asked carefully.

  “He’s the kind of guy who tithes ten percent to the church and works at the soup kitchen twice a week. He’s the kind of guy who volunteers at the Boys and Girls Clubs almost every weekend, teaching them how to code. He’s a good man.”

  Jessie nodded. She didn’t say so but for the first time since Garland Moses had suggested she check out this lead, her interest was piqued. Maybe it wasn’t fair but anytime a wife said her husband was a good man, it gave her pause.

  “Okay,” she said, standing up. “I may have other questions for you later. But for now, I’m going to go the police department and see if I can get them to put some more resources into looking for Bob.”

  “Thank you,” Vicky said. “But remember, I’m the only one who calls him Bob. They’ll know him by his full name, Robert.”

  “Right,” Jessie said, looking down at her notes. “I’ve got it. Robert Wilford Rylance.”

  *

  Jessie tried not to make assumptions in her line of work.

  But even before talking to Redlands Police Chief Dwayne Stoller, she knew he wasn’t going to be much help.

  He seemed interested when he first saw her, giving her a less than covert once-over as he introduced himself. But once they sat down in his office and she explained why she was there, his eyes glazed over right in front of her as she spoke. When he replied, he sounded annoyed that he had to offer any explanation at all.

  “I told that woman she could file a missing person report at exactly six twenty-two p.m., twenty-four hours after she first called about him. She took the paperwork with her and has already filled it out. I fully expect to see her here at six tonight if her husband hasn’t shown up by then, which I’m confident he will.”

  “Why is that?” she asked.

  Chief Stoller adjusted his considerable weight in his creaky chair, pushed a strand of greasy black hair out his eye, and answered, his voice dripping with condescension.

  “Look, Profiler Hunt,” he said, nearly spitting out her title, “this sort of thing happens all the time.”

  “What sort of thing?” Jessie asked, forcing her own tone to stay detached and professional.

  “We’re not L.A. people. There are no Hollywood stars walking into our local Starbucks. There are no ‘sweet’ waves to surf. People get bored. Husbands especially get bored. Sometimes they pound a few brews and pass out. Sometimes they go the local casino and spend that week’s salary at the blackjack table. Morongo Casino is only a half hour west of here. Maybe he was driving home, thought about spending the evening with Mrs. Rylance, and just kept going.”

  “Mrs. Rylance suggested that would be very out of character for her husband,” Jessie said tightly.

  “Who’s to say what a person’s real character is? Maybe that sort of thing isn’t truly revealed until you’re stuck in a traffic jam eastbound on the I-10. But I guess that’s more your area of expertise, right, Profiler Hunt, understanding people’s secret character? Speaking of, this seems like an awful small case for a big-time LAPD lady to be looking into. Is there something you’re not telling me? Because if you say there’s a credible reason I should move this ‘case’ to the front of the line when I have a huge backlog waiting for my attention, I’ll gladly do it. Is there?”

  Jessie thought fast. There really was no believable reason she could offer for him to take this case more seriously than he was. Despite Garland Moses’s suggestion, there was nothing that seemed to even remotely link Robert Rylance to her hotel murders. And she doubted Chief Stoller was inclined to go out of his way for anyone based on a hunch.

  “No, Chief,” she finally said. “But I would appreciate it if you could locate his phone once his wife turns in that missing person report, maybe check his credit card purchases in the last day, even if that means moving his case ahead in line. Maybe you’re right and they’ll show him at the casino, in which case you can get Victoria Rylance off your back. And if it turns out that you find something unusual, I sure would appreciate a call. Consider it a favor, one that I’ll gladly return when you’re in need.”

  “You’re offering me the fancy services of a big-time LA profiler lady? Be still my fat-clogged heart.”

  “I am,” she said, refusing to say all the things that were currently popping into her head as she got up and extended her hand. “Thanks for your time, Chief.”

  She made sure to douse her hands in Purell once back in the car, refusing to imagine where Chief Stoller’s had recently been. Once back on the road, she was tempted to call up Garland and ream him out for what seemed like an enormous, unproductive time suck. But she erred on the side of restraint. Maybe there was something she was missing. It wouldn’t be the first time.

  Still, it made no sense. Why would Lexi, in the middle of her downtown LA murder spree, take the time to drive out to nowhere to kidnap a guy who didn’t fit her victim profile?

  Robert Rylance wasn’t rich or powerful. Based on the photos his wife showed her, he was just a pale, mildly schlubby computer programmer. He looked more like the kind of guy who got off playing video games than hiring a prostitute.

  Then again, maybe Chief Stoller was right. Who knew how Rylance got his jollies? Maybe he was at a casino. Maybe he was at one of the strip clubs she kept seeing signs for as she drove down the freeway. Was he a Pink Lady Club type? Maybe he preferred Cock/Tails. Or maybe he went in for the sophisticated stylings of Bare Essence. The options were limitless.

  But time wasn’t. She looked at the clock. It was 10:47 a.m., less than forty-five minutes until she and Ryan were supposed to brief the Vegas FBI agents and hand over the case to them. She doubted she’d even get back to the station before they arrived. And the way things were going, she had no reason to argue that they should keep it. This whole trip had been a waste of time.

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  Hannah sat on the floor of the basement, staring at the dead body of Robert Wilford Rylance.

  For reasons she didn’t understand, Bolton Crutchfield had left the man’s body in the room with her. The two of them had shared the space all night and this morning too. Bolton had unchained her so she could at least move about. But because she didn’t want to get close to the body, half of the space was essentially unusable for her.

  The blood from his stab wounds, after initially spewing everywhere, had formed a large puddle, now mostly congealed, at the base of the stairs, making even the prospect of trying to climb them to escape unthinkable. Even though she’s heard Bolton drive off earlier, she was sure that he would have prepared for that possibility.

  She looked back over at Rylance and wondered if what Bolton had said about him was true. Was he really a pedophile or was that just some made up story to make her consider his murder somehow acceptable? And why did Bolton want her to kill him? It was like he was playing games with her, testing her, doing some weird mental experiment with her as the subject.

  Another question circled her brain, one she tried to push away, which only made its pull stronger. What was this secret that Bolton kept promising to tell her, the one he hinted would change everything for her? What secret could have that kind of impact? He had said it was her secret. What did that mean? Was there even a secret at all or was that also part of whatever game he was playing?

  Hannah physically shook her head, trying to force the thought out. She felt an anger rising in her, resentment at being manipulated. She was getting tired of being the victim. She’d been helpless when her foster parents were murdered. She was tied up while her adoptive parents had been tortured and murdered. She watched as the same thing was almost done to that Jessie Hunt woman.

  Suddenly, something stirred in her memory. It took a moment for her to recognize it. When she finally did, she realized it was pride. She was proud of how she had helped Hunt fight back against Xander Thurman. Even though her role had been small, there was something affirming about taking an active part in saving her own life. She wanted that feeling back.

  There had to be a way to get it. There had to be something she could do to improve her chances of survival. Every moment that she was trapped down here increased the likelihood that she might never get out. If she wanted to see the light again from anything other than the tiny window in the corner, she needed to set aside her fears and take charge of her destiny.

  How do I do that?

  Instinctually, she knew the answer. Somehow she sensed that Bolton had left Rylance’s body down here to toy with her. He wanted her to beg him to remove it, to be dependent on him. But if she could master her fear, then she wouldn’t need to beg for anything.

  So, despite the thumping of her heart in her chest, she walked over to the slumped, broken body of Robert Rylance, sitting forlornly tied to an old wooden chair, lifted her leg, and kicked him in the chest. Rylance teetered back in the chair, pausing briefly in midair, before collapsing back onto the floor.

  His body landed hard. Then she heard another, smaller, more familiar thump. She recognized it immediately. It was the sound of a phone hitting the ground.

  Hannah dashed over to find it. After several seconds, she saw it lying in the corner. She picked it up and hit the home button. Nothing happened.

  Is it dead?

  She pushed the button on the side and, after three seconds that felt like forever, it turned on. She immediately tried to call 911, but it didn’t go through. She looked at the screen and noticed the words “no signal” in the corner. The basement walls must be interfering with it. She looked at the pool of blood at the base of the stairs again.

  Screw it.

  She hurried over and leapt onto the first step, then scurried up until she got to the second to last step near the door. She decided not to go any higher for fear of booby traps. She looked at the phone again. Still, it said “no signal.”

  She punched multiple buttons and got a message saying the phone needed face recognition to open. Then an alert popped up: 3% battery remaining.

  Think, Hannah, think.

  She forced herself to slow her breathing. She could do this. She’d done it before, with Jessie Hunt. She could survive this.

  An idea shot into her head. Quickly, she darted back down the stairs. She tried to leap over the pooled blood. But this time she landed short and her right foot splashed in the liquid. She slipped and landed face down in the muck.

  She gasped as she wrenched herself upward, trying not to breathe in the rust-scented substance. Then she heard it—the hum of an engine as Bolton returned.

  Dammit!

  Hannah got up. She knew from experience that the first thing Bolton always did upon returning from an errand was come down to check on her. That meant she had a minute, maybe ninety seconds to make this work.

  She scrambled over to Rylance and held the phone to his face. It worked. The phone unlocked, his screen brightened, and all his apps appeared. She scrolled quickly through them until she found the one she hoped, prayed, he had. There it was: LinkedIn. All old people used it these days.

  She clicked on the app and it opened up. Quickly she searched for a name: Jessie Hunt. There were a half dozen but only two were female. And only one, the account without a photo, listed the person’s title as Criminal Forensic Profiler, Los Angeles Police Department. That was her.

  Hannah thought for a second, then typed in a message as quickly as she could, ignoring the blood that smeared the screen as she moved her fingers. She was briefly interrupted by an alert that read: 2% battery remaining.

  She was almost done when she heard the front door of the house creak open. She finished, reviewed the words one last time, and hit send. She wasn’t surprised when she got a notification that the message could not be sent due to lack of a signal.

  She quickly wiped the phone screen on a clean portion of her pants and shoved it back in Rylance’s pocket. The door to the basement opened and she darted back the center of the room, where she stood, hugging the pole.

  “I’ll have your lunch in a few minutes, Miss Hann…”

  Bolton Crutchfield, who had been easing his way down the stairs, stopped cold at the sight below him. Hannah, covered in blood, clutching the wooden pole in the center of the room; Rylance, still in the chair but lying on his back; the pool of blood at the bottom of the stairs, now a Jackson Pollock painting.

  “What happened here?’ he asked slowly.

  Hannah launched in, hoping her legitimate anxiety would play as hysteria.

  “I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I felt like he was staring at me so I knocked him over. But I slipped in the blood. I think it was like his way of getting back at me. Please, just take him out of here. Please!”

  Bolton smiled sympathetically.

  “If I do that, what will you do for me?”

  “What do you want?” she demanded suspiciously.

  “Nothing like that,” he assured her. “I only want for you to let me tell you your secret and for you to really hear it and understand what it means. Are you willing to do that, Miss Hannah?”

  “Yes. That’s fine. Please, just take him out of here.”

  “As you wish, Miss Hannah. Please stand back against the far wall.”

  Hannah did as she was told and watched with genuine nervousness as Bolton slowly dragged Robert Rylance’s body up the stairs. With each thump as he bumped on a wooden stair, Hannah silently pleaded with the phone gods.

  Let that battery last.

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  It didn’t make any sense.

  Jessie listened as Ryan reviewed the Vegas doctor’s murder file while she drove back to the station. But no matter how many details he offered, Jessie couldn’t understand why Lexi was committing these crimes. It felt like there was a piece missing, one that, if she could locate it, would make the whole puzzle fit together.

  “There are no other cases in Las Vegas that fit the profile, with a john drugged and robbed, even if he wasn’t murdered?”

  She knew she had asked that before and that Ryan had already answered the question.

  “No,” he said, impressively managing not to sound irked.

  “I’m sorry to keep coming back to that. But I just don’t buy that her first try at this sort of thing was a perfectly executed murder plan in a fancy Las Vegas hotel. The first time is almost always messier than that.”

  “Vegas PD went back two years, Jessie,” he said. “There wasn’t a single case of a drugging and robbery in that time that matched this one. Of course, that doesn’t mean someone just didn’t report it. I could easily see some guy waking up naked and without his wallet and deciding it wasn’t worth it to say anything. Maybe he figured he didn’t want to risk surviving the robbery just to be killed by his wife later.”

  Something about the comment stirred an idea in Jessie. She let it percolate for a moment.

  “Jessie?” Ryan said. “Still there?”

  “Yeah,” she answered, realizing she’d gone completely silent. “I just thought of something. What if we’re looking for the wrong thing? Despite the organization and planning, these murders feel like acts of anger, vengeance even. Maybe we shouldn’t be looking for druggings and robberies of johns that didn’t end in death. Maybe we should be looking for murders of johns that didn’t involve drugging.”

  Jessie waited for a response, unsure whether Ryan would consider her theory crazy. After a few seconds, she got her answer.

  “Pulling up the Vegas database now,” he said. “Give me a second to put in the new parameters.”

  While he did, Jessie tried to picture how a “first murder” would take place. She suspected it might not start out as a murder at all. Maybe it was a date that got out of control. Maybe the john wanted too much or pushed too hard and she just lost it.

  “I’ve gone back three years,” Ryan said, interrupting her thoughts. “I find four confirmed dead johns that were definitively ruled homicides.”

  “How did they die?”

  “Three were shot. One was pushed out a window by a woman claiming she was fighting off a rape attempt.”

  “I don’t think Lexi is a shooting type of gal,” Jessie said. “What happened to the window woman?”

  “She’s…oh, never mind. She’s currently serving three to five at the Florence McClure Women’s Correctional Center.”

  “Okay,” Jessie said, rethinking on the fly. “What about unsolved murders of married or single men generally, not necessarily johns specifically, not using a gun, found in a hotel?”

  She could hear Ryan typing furiously.

  “I’ve got nothing,” he said, dejected.

  They were both quiet for several seconds.

 

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