Valentine looked like she wanted to object but Jessie needed to get her point across. It was her most important one. So she kept going.

  “However, if we hold off on making any dramatic moves, the killer, assuming it’s not her, might get overconfident and make a mistake. For that matter, even if it is Morse, we might be better off letting her walk for now and seeing what she does next. We lose nothing by being patient. But we could lose a lot by jumping the gun.”

  Valentine didn’t respond at first. She seemed to be wrestling with how to mesh her certitude with Jessie’s doubts.

  “What about the flight risk issue I mentioned earlier?” she wondered. “Whoever the killer is, they could flee the country.”

  Now was Jessie’s opportunity to bring up what she’d thought to herself earlier but held back on sharing.

  “There’d be no reason to flee if they don’t think we suspect anything,” she pointed out before adding, “Besides, we can have everyone’s movements tracked. If one of them shows up at an airport, we can nab them then.”

  Valentine seemed more convinced now but it was obvious that she didn’t want to let go of her pet theory. Jessie tried to ease her away from dying on the Patricia Morse hill.

  “Look,” she said softly, “this a really challenging situation. None of our suspects, other than the pilots, have a real alibi. Most of them were drunk, high, or both, and don’t seem to have a clear recollection of the events on the flight. They were all in close proximity to the victim. Any one of them could have dropped something in Morse’s drink without being noticed. At Eddie’s insistence, there were no operating cameras on the jet. This is the rare situation where it may be impossible to clear anyone, where we have to maintain our full suspect list right up until the moment we catch the killer. It just seems like cuffing someone before we have any definitive proof of guilt actually handcuffs us.”

  Valentine was about to reply when they both got a call at the same time. Jessie looked at her phone. It was Decker. Valentine held up her phone to show hers was the same.

  “Go ahead and pick up,” Jessie suggested. “Put it on speaker. He clearly wants to speak to both of us.”

  Valentine nodded and answered.

  “Valentine here,” she said. “You’re on speaker with me and Jessie.”

  “Good,” Decker said. “I know you’re busy but I was hoping to get a progress check.”

  Jessie sensed immediately that something was wrong. Decker rarely checked in unless there was some kind of issue.

  “What’s wrong, Captain?” she asked.

  They both heard a sigh through the phone before he replied.

  “I got a call from Henry Hart, the Chief Deputy District Attorney. Apparently he’s golfing buddies with one of the people you’re interviewing there, a guy named Joe Baldwin. Whatever Baldwin told him has him riled.”

  “I thought we collected everyone’s cell phones,” Valentine said.

  “We were idiots,” Jessie said, shaking her head. “We should have assumed that a guy like Baldwin would have second one for business. He’s probably been on it all afternoon.”

  “Setting aside your screw-up for the moment,” Decker continued, “Chief Deputy DA Hart wants to know—let me make sure I quote him directly, ‘why my friend and multiple other contributors to our community’s prosperity are being held in an airplane hangar while your team is dithering about, taking their sweet time investigating a drug overdose.’ Hart said that unless my team has some bombshell, he wants those people released. So my question to you is: how are things going over there?”

  Jessie looked at Valentine, indicating that the detective could take the question.

  “Well, Captain,” she said carefully. “We may have a bombshell on our hands. It looks like Eddie Morse was poisoned with a massive amount of heroin and all the likely suspects were on that plane with him. But other than the killer, it’s possible that no one else knows about the poisoning. They all think he OD’d.”

  Decker was quiet for a moment. When he responded, his voice was low but clear.

  “This is your case,” he told them. “And as Hunt can attest, I don’t like anyone pushing our unit around. So I’m going to defer to you on this. If you want to keep them all there, that’s your call. All I ask is that you tell me how you want to proceed so I can run interference with Hart. What’s the plan?”

  Jessie looked at Valentine but said nothing. She had already made her case for erring on the side of caution. But the ultimate call wasn’t hers. It belonged to the detective who had been with the unit for about a month now. And what she decided could determine whether they ever solved this case. The woman looked torn.

  “Well?” Decker pressed.

  “We’re letting them go for now,” Valentine finally said. “But I’d like authorization to put surveillance teams on each suspect for the next twenty-four hours.”

  “Authorization granted,” he replied without hesitation. “I’ll get the wheels turning on that. What’s your next step?”

  Valentine turned to Jessie with her eyebrows raised in curiosity, clearly hoping she might have an answer. She did.

  “Our next step is to come at these people hard, really put the screws to them,” she said, using Valentine’s term as she winked at the detective. “Only this time, we’ll come at them when their guards are down. Let’s see how they react to that.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Andrea “Andy” Robinson was struggling.

  After more than a year of incarceration in the Female Forensic In-Patient Psychiatric Unit at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in downtown L.A., she was having trouble adjusting to her new digs. It wasn’t the location. Unlike Twin Towers, the Western Regional Women’s Psychiatric Detention Center in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles was a state of the art complex with well-regarded mental health professionals.

  Rather, it was adapting to the new rules, the new schedule, the new people, and the new security procedures. She knew there would be an uncomfortable period as she settled in. And as she’d only been here a day, that period was far from over.

  But that didn’t make it any easier. Last night, while in her comfortable bed, in a secure room where she didn’t have to worry about another inmate sneaking in and shivving her, she barely slept at all.

  Today, she wandered the expansive recreation room, painted in warm yellows and soft blues, and replete with board games without missing pieces and books without missing pages. As she moved around, trying to understand the patterns of the guards and attendants, she’d briefly panicked, wondering if she’d made a mistake in asking for a transfer.

  She shouldn’t have worried so much. After all, she’d known that when she offered Jessie Hunt the deal, there would be complications. She was the one who had proposed helping Jessie by providing intelligence on crimes that some of her former fellow inmates were planning. In exchange, Jessie reluctantly agreed to have her moved to a better prison hospital, one where feces weren’t smeared on the walls regularly; and when it did happen, the mess was cleaned up more than once a week.

  The primary complication was that, along with a more thorough hygiene regimen, this place came with additional layers of security, additional surveillance, and much more attention to the details of patients’ comings and goings. It was that last bit that was going to prove challenging.

  That was because Andy wasn’t trying to break out of the Western Regional Women’s Psychiatric Detention Center, or the PDC as the staff and residents called it. She was using it for recruitment. She needed a new group of acolytes to indoctrinate in the ways of the Principles. But gathering them would require some freedom of movement, which she didn’t yet have. It would also require time, preparation, and patience, which is why she hadn’t spoken to another prisoner since she’d arrived. She needed to be a mystery to these women. She needed them to come to her.

  Just as important, she needed to be far away from Twin Towers when her previous set of minions began to put her plans into action. She couldn’t be tied to the horrors they would soon be committing at her behest. She needed Jessie to believe she was trying to help stop these monstrous acts, not that she had instigated them. She needed her once and future best friend to feel indebted to her for her assistance. She needed Jessie to start to have faith in her again, to believe that she could be rehabilitated, and eventually allowed to re-enter society.

  That was another reason that Andy wanted the transfer to this new place. It was imperative that a fresh group of respected medical professionals, ones whose judgment Jessie wouldn’t question, give her a clean bill of mental health. If she could convince the doctors, therapists, and security personnel here that she had turned over a new leaf, that she was making progress, they would invariably pass that information along to Jessie. Winning her friend back over was going to be a laborious process, but Andy was up to it. She was willing to put in the work.

  What gave her such confidence was one simple fact: her motives were sincere. She wasn’t planning anything nefarious when it came to Jessie Hunt. She just wanted her friend back, the girl who laughed at her jokes and appreciated that a rich socialite could also be a self-deprecating regular gal. Andy longed to recapture the growing intimacy between them that had been so suddenly, cruelly stripped away.

  Admittedly, spiking Jessie’s mojito with peanut oil after she had uncovered Andy’s crime—that she had murdered her lover’s wife and framed an innocent maid for it—didn’t scream friendship. Yes, she had used her knowledge of Jessie’s allergy to try to kill her. But it was a desperate move in a desperate moment. Everyone makes bad choices under stress.

  Hopefully, Jessie would come to see that one mistake doesn’t define a person. And as Andy continued to help her “solve” the very murders she was secretly organizing, Jessie would see that redemption was possible. Once that happened, it wasn’t a long road to reconciliation.

  Eventually Jessie would understand that the two of them should never have been kept apart. Andy would help her see the light in whatever way necessary, even if that meant that those in the way of their imminent reunion—friends, fiancés, sisters—would need to step aside, or be made to do so.

  But that was a concern for another time. Right now she needed to figure out how to make a very important call later today, and how to do it without raising alarm bells.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Jessie watched as the last of the passengers and crew filed out of the hangar.

  Once she was alone in the massive space with Valentine, she asked the question she’d avoided with others around.

  “What changed your mind?”

  Valentine looked at her, perplexed.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “You were so gung ho on arresting Patricia Morse,” Jessie reminded her. “What made you let her go?”

  Valentine paused for several seconds before answering.

  “Other than not wanting to put Captain Decker in a tough position?” she asked, before adding. “I started to have doubts too, maybe based in part on what you said.”

  Jessie nodded but didn’t reply. She worried that anything she said might come across as rubbing it in. Valentine quickly continued.

  “I still think she could be our killer. But two points you made are unquestionably true: First, we don’t have enough to hold her, so there’s no point in arresting her yet. And if we did arrest her, we would lose the advantage that comes from having everyone on board that jet think Eddie Morse died of an overdose. At this point, that’s more valuable than pressuring his widow.”

  This was the first time Jessie could recall Susannah Valentine conceding any point to her, much less several. She sensed that the detective was aware of that too because she was deliberately hiding her face behind her lustrous black hair. Though a small part of Jessie liked seeing the woman squirm, she didn’t want to actively make things more awkward after the admission, so she moved on.

  “I guess our next move is to determine who among the people on the jet has the most to gain from Eddie Morse’s death. It’ll be challenging but we can have Jamil and Beth Ryerson poke around to try to see what he left Patricia in the will. Beyond that, I think it makes sense to go to his office, see what the records there show. That might also give us more insight into the nature of his business and personal relationship with Joe Baldwin.”

  “Sounds good,” Valentine said.

  They started to leave the hangar when Jessie’s phone rang. It echoed loudly in the cavernous space. She looked at the caller ID. It was Dr. Janice Lemmon. Glancing at the time, she saw that it was 2:45. Her session with Hannah should still be going on. If she was calling in the middle of it, something was wrong. Jessie picked up immediately.

  “Hi,” she said, trying not to sound concerned in order to avoid piquing the interest of the detective walking beside her, “Everything okay?”

  “Hello Jessie,” Lemmon said, her voice betraying nothing. “I can tell from your tone that you’re in a work environment so I’ll keep this brief. Hannah didn’t show up for our 2 p.m. session. As you know, sometimes she switches to a video session at the last minute. She has cancelled a few times in the past, but always tells me in advance. I called and texted her, with no reply, so I wanted to make you aware. I’m not overly concerned but thought you should know what’s up. Maybe she’ll be more responsive if you reach out.”

  “Thanks very much,” Jessie said casually. “Please let me know if you get any updates.”

  “I will,” Lemmon assured her. “You please do the same.”

  After hanging up, Jessie turned to Valentine, who had a curious look on her face. Despite her best efforts to hide her apprehension from the detective, apparently some of it had bled through.

  “Do you mind if we make a pit stop on the way to Eddie Records?” she asked. “I need to check on something.”

  “Sure,” Valentine said, “Anything wrong?”

  “I hope not.”

  *

  By the time they got to her house, Jessie’s apprehension had escalated to something approaching dread. Hannah wasn’t responding to her calls or texts and she’d somehow managed to turn off the location status on her phone, despite parental controls.

  They pulled up in front of the house and got out. As she hurried up the path to the front door, Jessie noticed Valentine hanging back a bit. She wondered if it was because the detective didn’t want to insert herself into a family situation or if there was a more uncomfortable reason.

  After all, Valentine hadn’t been shy about expressing her interest in everything Ryan said and did. There wasn’t a joke he told that she didn’t laugh at, a story he shared that didn’t fascinate her, or an opportunity wasted to touch his forearm or toss her hair back elegantly in his presence. Maybe the idea of doing that in the home he shared with his fiancée was too much even for her.

  Ryan opened the door as they approached.

  “Anything new?” he asked. He was leaning on the doorframe for support. His ankle was wrapped tight.

  “Nothing,” Jessie said, stopping at the entryway to wait for her uncertain partner. Even under the circumstances, she couldn’t help but poke a little. “Ryan, you remember Detective Valentine, don’t you?”

  “Good to see you, Susannah,” he said, not playing along. He looked as awkward about the situation as Valentine.

  Seeing him like that made Jessie wonder just how strongly Valentine had come on to him when she wasn’t around. It had to be pretty overt for him to be so ill at ease. For the briefest of seconds, Jessie wondered if he might be acting that way out of guilt, but then dismissed it and chided herself for allowing the thought.

  “Hey, Ryan,” Valentine replied modestly. “Sorry you guys have to deal with this.”

  “We’re used to it,” he said before turning his attention to Jessie. “I know you’re dealing with this case. I can drive around Hannah’s standard haunts to see if I can find her.”

  “That’s okay,” Jessie replied. “I want you to stay off that ankle as much as possible. Besides, it’d just be a wild goose chase. If she doesn’t want us to find her, we probably won’t. Better you stay here in case she shows up. I just want to check her room to see if there’s anything out of the ordinary.”

  She walked back to Hannah’s room and made a cursory search, but found nothing unusual. Just to be sure, she called her again and listened for the sound of her sister’s phone ringing somewhere in the house. She heard nothing.

  For half a second, she considered handing off the case completely to Valentine so she could focus all her attention on locating Hannah. But that idea was quickly, and angrily, replaced by another one: she wasn’t going to do anything about her sister. Instead she would return to work and hope for the best.

  The days of her dropping everything any time Hannah dropped off the radar had to end. The Night Hunter was no longer a threat. The girl could move about the city safely. She would be eighteen in a little over a month. She was essentially an adult now, even if she didn’t act like it.

  It was time accept that there was only so much she could do to help her sister and she’d already done most of it. At this point, the rest was up to Hannah. She had to choose to keep her appointments with Dr. Lemmon. She had to choose to stay in contact with the people who loved her. Jessie and Ryan couldn’t live their entire lives on pins and needles, waiting breathlessly for her call. The only person who could really make a difference in Hannah’s life right now was Hannah. Jessie walked out the room and closed the door firmly behind her.

  Returning back to the front, she found that Ryan and Valentine were engaged in a relatively stilted conversation about the case.

 

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