The Perfect Look, page 18
Jessie did note the nickel-sized scar on the girl’s left shoulder, about the size of a cigar butt or a car cigarette lighter. The deep indentation suggested it hadn’t gotten there by accident.
And then there were the eyes—relentlessly clear and blue, sparkling like sapphires in the room’s dull light. They seemed to be lit from within and Jessie felt like she was undergoing an X-ray via the girl’s gaze.
Those eyes were shockingly tranquil, considering the situation. Alex didn’t look panicked by their arrival, or even all that surprised to see them. Jessie heard officers pouring into the apartment and glanced over at Ryan.
“You’ve got to hold the reinforcements back,” she said quietly to him. “I need a little quiet time in here.”
He nodded and took a step back so that he could see down the hallway and keep an eye on Alex.
“Stay back,” he yelled at the approaching officers. “The suspect is holding a weapon to the victim’s throat. Remain outside the room.”
After a moment of silence, Alex spoke.
“Of course you’d think he was the victim,” she muttered sharply.
Jessie looked at the girl and decided she needed to do something to change the dynamic. Knowing Ryan still had his gun trained on the young woman, she holstered hers and took a tiny step forward. She had to handle this delicately.
“We think he’s one of the victims,” she said softly. “But we know he isn’t the only one.”
“Sure,” Alex replied derisively. “You found the others. But I wouldn’t call them victims either.”
“No,” Jessie said, fully aware that her next words were crucial. “I was talking about you, Alex.”
The girl’s face remained unchanged but Jessie saw flash of surprise in her eyes.
“My name is Lexi,” she insisted.
“That may be your name now. But that’s not who you truly are. You’re Alexis Cutter, former volleyball player and Mathlete, daughter to Marlene and loving caretaker of Lola. That’s who you really are.”
“That person doesn’t exist anymore,” she nearly spat back, her hand pressing the glass closer to Andy’s neck.
As she said it, she pushed her mane of red hair out of her eyes. That gave Jessie an idea but she waited a moment before pursuing it. When she was sure the girl wasn’t going to push the glass any farther, she continued.
“I think she does,” Jessie insisted. “Steve Kupisch tried to erase her. So did Daniel Beane. But I think she’s still in there. I think that’s why you sleep with that little stuffed dog at night. I think that’s why you haven’t killed Andy yet—because Alex is still in there somewhere.”
“You’re wrong,” the girl said firmly, though with less vitriol than before.
“I don’t think I am. That’s why, if you took off that wig, I suspect we’d find that your real color is the same one you had back in high school, the same blonde hair you had in the volleyball games and math competitions. Am I right, Alex?”
The girl stared at her for several seconds. Then, without a word, she pulled off the red wig to reveal a shock of short, spiky blonde hair. She dropped the wig on the ground with a defiant glare. Jessie chose to interpret the action as a sign of hope.
“Listen, Alex,” she said gently. “I’ve been through some pretty terrible stuff in my life. But I can’t pretend to understand the horrors you’ve suffered. The people you were supposed to depend on betrayed and violated you. You were trapped by a system that assumed the worst about you. You had to do things to survive that I can barely comprehend.”
“You have no idea,” Alex said through gritted teeth.
“No, I don’t,” Jessie admitted. “But I know you’re a victim of a world that used and abused you. I get it. I understand that to get up every day, you had to find some way to move forward, to function in the hell that was your daily life. I get all that. And you know what, Alex? I think a jury will too.”
“What are you talking about?”
Jessie stopped inching forward, aware that she’d reached a sensitive, if inevitable moment. But Andy’s eyes were no longer fluttering. They hadn’t moved in several seconds. Jessie feared that unless they got him help soon, he wouldn’t make it.
“I think that when you go on trial and a jury hears about what you’ve been through the last three years, they will understand why you made some of the choices you made. That doesn’t mean it can all be washed away. But they might take pity on you…”
“I don’t want anyone’s pity,” Alex growled.
“Maybe not out here,” Jessie replied. “But in that courtroom, you will. You’ll want them to give you a reduced sentence or put you in a facility where you can get therapy. They might even cut you loose. Have you ever heard of jury nullification?”
Alex shook her head.
“It means that the jury refuses to convict someone, even if they think they’re guilty of the crime. Like a father who kills the man who murdered his child. I’m not saying they’d do that with you. But it’s not impossible, unless you make it impossible.”
Despite her best efforts to hide it, Alex was clearly curious.
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“It means that no jury is going to have much sympathy for you if you kill Andy. He didn’t abuse you. He didn’t assault you. He didn’t even solicit you for prostitution. According to his friends at the bar, he didn’t even know you’re an escort. He’s just a regular guy who’s way too into Harry Houdini. He doesn’t deserve this.”
“He deserves a Reckoning,” Alex whispered, her hand now digging the glass harder into Andy’s neck.
Jessie saw a trickle of blood snake down his neck and forced herself to look back at the penetrating eyes of the girl who’d done that.
“No, Alex, he doesn’t. Killing him won’t make up for what happened to you. It doesn’t give you more power to harm an innocent person. You know who it gives power to? Your stepfather. If you kill this boy, then Steve wins. He will have corrupted you and made you like him. I know you think you’re meting out justice. But vengeance and justice are not the same thing.”
“I don’t see the difference anymore,” Alex sobbed.
“I don’t believe that,” Jessie said adamantly. “You want justice. Your stepfather is sitting in prison right now, awaiting trial for assaulting a girl like you. You know that. Surrender now. Agree to testify against him, to tell the world what he did to you. He’s planning to argue that he’s not capable of hurting some young girl. But we both know that’s not true. You can tell the truth, Alex, You can speak for her. But if you do this tonight, no one will listen.”
Alex’s beautiful eyes were brimming with tears. She looked down at Andy, now deathly pale, and back up at Jessie. Then, without a word, she tossed the glass away.
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
Andy barely made it.
The EMTs swarmed in as soon as Alex was in custody and gave him a dose of flumazenil. Within a minute he was conscious. But they stayed put for several minutes after that, watching him closely for signs of seizures, a dangerous potential side effect of the antidote medication. When they were sure he was in the clear on that score, they wheeled him out of the apartment. Jessie heard him clumsily trying to speak, which she considered a good sign.
She waited until Alex had been handcuffed and read her rights, then walked her outside. The girl seemed to be in a state of shock, alternately crying and going silent, her blue eyes blank. Jessie whispered to her that they would get her help, that they would find her a therapist, and that she would get a chance to testify against her stepfather.
And when she was sure they were out of earshot of Ryan, whom she doubted would approve, Jessie whispered one more thing. She told Alex not to speak to anyone about anything until she’d gotten an attorney.
The girl looked over at her, surprised. For the first time, Jessie could tell she’d truly won the girl’s trust. Alex nodded her understanding as the officers escorting her eased her into the back of a squad car. And then, in a cascade of sirens and lights, they sped away, leaving Jessie alone beside Ryan.
“You told her not to talk, didn’t you?” he asked.
“I just reminded her of her rights,” Jessie said, not looking at him. “My job was to catch her, not convict her.”
“You know it’s not as simple as that, right?” he replied, sounding less angry than frustrated.
“We caught her in the act, Ryan. Her most recent victim will be able to testify against her. She’s not going free. But this girl can be rehabilitated. She needs help, not to be thrown into a hole.”
“Are you sure she’s not going free? What about that whole jury nullification thing you mentioned to her?”
“We both know that’s not going to happen,” she said.
“Do we?” Ryan challenged. “I’ve seen it happen before. But this isn’t some grieving parent avenging their murdered child. She’s a serial killer, Jessie.”
“That’s why we need to do our part to ensure she ends up in a secure facility that can help her.”
“You mean like NRD?” he asked. “That place was supposed to be secure and Bolton Crutchfield got out, along with a bunch of other killers. And we both know the consequences of that.”
“You’re not really comparing Alex Cutter to Bolton Crutchfield, are you?” she asked angrily.
But Ryan didn’t back down.
“How do we know what Bolton was like at eighteen? He was abused, right? Maybe he started out like her, just fighting to survive. But once he got a taste for killing, there was no going back. Can you honestly say she’s not the same?”
Jessie looked at him. It was clear that this wasn’t a philosophical debate for him. He’d seen too many murderers skate on technicalities or clever lawyering, only to kill again, to have faith in the power of rehabilitation.
The truth was she wasn’t much more confident. But she needed to believe that people could rise above their circumstances. It wasn’t just theory to her either. Right now, her half-sister was in the clutches of a serial killer trying to mold her in his image. If Jessie was able to find and rescue her, Hannah would likely need an entire team to deprogram her and make her a functional member of society. Was that a lost cause? She had to believe it wasn’t.
“This is raw right now,” she finally said. “Let’s leave it for tonight. There will be lots of time to argue about this in the weeks ahead. I don’t have the energy to do it now. Truce?”
He looked at her and she watched his face soften, despite his best efforts to prevent it.
“Truce,” he said. “Let’s go back to the station and finish the paperwork. Then we can sleep in a bit tomorrow.”
“Deal,” she said getting in the passenger seat and strapping in.
As Ryan drove, Jessie checked her messages, hoping for a message from Garland Moses. But there was nothing from him. In fact, she found nothing at all in the way of messages other than a LinkedIn invitation.
More as a way to keep her anxiety at bay than out of genuine curiosity, she clicked on it. When the message opened, she nearly dropped her phone.
“What is it?” Ryan asked when he heard her gasp.
“It’s a LinkedIn invite from Robert Rylance,” she said, trying to calm her quickly palpitating heart.
“Isn’t that the guy from Redlands that Moses suggested you look into as a possible victim?”
“Yes,” she confirmed, her mind racing.
“But I thought that ended up being a dead end.”
“I did too,” she admitted. “But I think there might be something to it.”
“You’ve lost me,” he said.
Jessie looked over at him and realized the time had arrived to come clean or cut him out completely.
“Ryan,” she said, carefully calibrating each word, “I can clear things up. But I’m not sure you want me to.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“You’ve got a choice to make,” she said, ignoring his comment. “We can go to the station where I’ll drop you off to do the case paperwork and, no questions asked, I’ll go on my way to deal with a situation that’s come up. Or we can skip the station entirely and you can join me on my errand while I fill you in on what I think is going on. But that could have career consequences you might not want. It’s a decision only you can make.”
“What is this?” he asked, trying to keep some levity in his voice. “It sounds like you’re asking if I want to take the red pill or the blue pill.”
“I kind of am,” she said, without a trace of humor.
He sat quietly for several seconds, the only sound the car tires on the darkened street. Then, without taking his eyes off the road, he replied.
“Give me the red pill.”
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
The freeway was nearly empty.
As they traveled down the I-10 eastward to Redlands, Ryan didn’t even need to turn on the siren. There were so few cars that the flashing lights he used might not even have been necessary. At the rate they were going, Jessie estimated they’d be to their destination in less than a half hour.
Before explaining everything else, Jessie read Ryan the LinkedIn message. It was short:
Hope to meet soon. We could discuss the Bare Essence, like Catcher in the Rye.
“Robert Rylance sent that to you?” Ryan asked, confused.
“I don’t think so,” she answered, still working out the theory in her own head, even as she shared it with him. “My suspicion is that the message is actually from Hannah.”
“But how is Hannah connected to a guy Moses thinks Alex Cutter tried to take out?”
“Okay,” Jessie began hesitantly. “Here’s the part where you might get pissed. I’ve been holding out on you. I couldn’t pursue the investigation into Hannah’s abduction. Captain Decker made that very clear. So I went to Garland Moses and asked if he could poke around. He’s not officially precluded from reviewing the case. And he’s friendly with several FBI agents working it. He agreed to look into it, though he warned me he’d have to be delicate about it.”
“And he found something?” Ryan asked, swerving across three lanes to avoid several eighteen-wheelers in a small convoy.
With each passing second, Jessie was increasingly confident that he had.
“I didn’t think so at first,” she said, trying to keep her voice even. “He gave me a lead. But he suggested it was related to the hotel murders. I think he said that in part to cover his own ass, but mostly so I could investigate without attracting attention, without even knowing I was looking into Hannah’s case.”
“So Rylance isn’t related to Alex at all?”
“I don’t think so,” Jessie said. “I think something about the details surrounding Rylance’s disappearance made Moses suspect a link to Crutchfield. I’m not sure what. But whatever it was, I think he used the hotel murders as an excuse to get me to look into what happened to him. Unfortunately, I never made the connection.”
“So what makes you think they’re related now?”
What does make me think that?
Of course she knew the answer. After all, that answer was the hopeful hypothesis making her stomach currently twist in a knot of excitement and anxiety. She was almost reluctant to say it out loud for fear that the words would lose credibility when exposed to the air. Nonetheless, she pressed on.
“When I was coming back from Redlands, I noticed lots of billboards for strip clubs,” she told him. “One of them was called Bare Essence. In the LinkedIn invitation, the reference to ‘Bare Essence’ is capitalized, which seems intentional. It struck me as too much of a coincidence to get that exact phrase from a guy who lives so close to a club with that name.”
“Okay,” Ryan said, nodding in understanding. “That makes sense. But I still don’t get why you think this is connected to Hannah. Couldn’t it just be Rylance sending you a coded message asking for help?”
Jessie took a deep breath. This was the leap of faith moment. She hoped he’d take it with her.
“I think it is a coded message, but not from Rylance. I’ve never met him. I had no idea who he was until yesterday and I doubt he knows of me. But Hannah does. And when I visited her at her foster home, she was lying in a hammock, reading. The book was Catcher in the Rye.”
Jessie saw Ryan’s whole body stiffen. He said nothing so she continued.
“I think Crutchfield abducted Rylance and was keeping him at the same location as her. I think she somehow got a hold of his phone and sent me this message in the only way she knew how. She didn’t have my phone number or e-mail or anything else. So she found the LinkedIn app on Rylance’s phone and searched for me. I have a profile on there. Decker made me create one, though I haven’t looked at it in weeks. I think she kept the message vague in case Crutchfield found it.”
“Why didn’t she just call nine-one-one?” Ryan asked.
“Who knows? Maybe Crutchfield was nearby and she didn’t want to risk having him hear voices. Maybe she was worried they wouldn’t believe her. Maybe she couldn’t get a good cell connection. Regardless, she’s the only person who would have known to reference that book and the strip club. It must be close enough to where he’s holding her that she can see it.”
“So just to be clear,” Ryan said, “based only on this message, you think that Hannah’s being held somewhere in the immediate vicinity of a Redlands strip club?”
“I’m sure of it.”
*
Bare Essence was located in an industrial section of Redlands, about a mile off the freeway. They passed two other strip clubs on the way there, along with a foundry, three other factories, and multiple abandoned warehouses.
The sign for the club itself was visible from a quarter mile away. It flashed the name “Bare Essence” in alternating pink and blue neon script that lit up the surrounding block like something out of a rural version of Blade Runner.
They pulled up into the massive lot, easily the size of a city block, which was surprisingly full for a Wednesday. An attendant tried to charge them $7 until Ryan flashed his badge. Once in the lot, they rolled over dirt and gravel to the far end, trying to avoid countless potholes along the way.
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