Page 2 of The Perfect Accomplice

“Somewhere more important to be?” Dr. Janice Lemmon asked sharply. “I thought you had significant stuff to share with me today.”

The psychiatrist, who was nearly seventy, might have seemed harmless, with her diminutive frame, thick glasses, and tight, little gray ringlets of hair, but she made up for her appearance with her forceful demeanor.

“I do,” Jessie said. “Sorry. I just promised Ryan and Captain Parker that I’d be in before 9:30 today and I’m getting anxious.”

“It’s barely after nine,” Lemmon noted, “and you’ve already told me about Hannah and Kat, so we’re well along. I think you’ll get there on time.”

It was true. In the half-hour that they'd been talking, Jessie had already updated her psychiatrist on the status of her relationships with her younger half-sister, Hannah Dorsey, and with her best friend, Katherine "Kat" Gentry. Luckily, in both of those instances, things were going reasonably well. In fact, she was throwing a long-delayed engagement party for Kat and her fiancé', Mitch, this weekend.

Hannah, with whom she shared a father—the now dead serial killer Xander Thurman—was finishing up her first semester as a freshman at UC Irvine. Considering everything she’d been through, the fact that she was attending college at all, much less at such a prestigious institution, was remarkable.

What was less remarkable was Hannah’s level of communication since starting school. Jessie, who was also Hannah’s guardian until she turned eighteen earlier this year, had been expecting a drop off in calls and texts. But even though Irvine was less than an hour away from Jessie’s Mid-Wilshire-area Los Angeles home, it was as if her sister was at a college across the country for as often as she saw or heard from her.

Still, Hannah's grades were good, and when Jessie could get her on the phone, her sister sounded happy and healthy. In light of the horrors she’d experienced in the last three years, that was about all Jessie could realistically hope for.

And Kat, despite her own recent challenges, seemed to be thriving. Less than six months ago, she had been tortured within an inch of her life by a paid assassin named Ash Pierce. But now she was seemingly physically and (mostly) emotionally recovered. It was obvious that she was still working through some PTSD, but as a former Army Ranger injured in Afghanistan, it wasn't always clear which trauma she was dealing with.

Luckily Kat had turned much of her focus to her upcoming spring wedding to her fiancé, Mitch Connor. She’d asked Jessie to be her maid of honor, a responsibility she was happy to take on if it lightened her friend’s load.

The one significant relationship that Dr. Lemmon hadn’t pressed her on yet, the most complicated right now, was with Jessie’s husband, Ryan. Detective Ryan Hernandez wasn’t just her spouse of seven months, he was also her co-worker. Ryan ran Homicide Special Section, or HSS, the specialized unit of the LAPD that focused on cases with high profiles or intense media scrutiny—typically involving multiple victims or serial killers. Jessie was the unit’s criminal profiler.

But to her surprise, Lemmon went in a different direction. “What’s the deal with Costabile? You haven’t brought him up recently.”

“That’s because there’s not much to tell,” Jessie said, relieved at her own words.

“That’s not what you said two weeks ago,” Lemmon reminded her.

The doctor was right. When Jessie had learned that former LAPD sergeant Hank Costabile had been released from prison on a technicality, it was all she could do not to lose it. After all, this was a corrupt cop who, eighteen months ago, tried to impede her investigation of his former boss, Commander Mike Butters, who was paying an underage porn actress for sex. When that didn't work, he tried to have her killed. That effort failed as well, and he was convicted for the attempt. But a complication involving inadmissible evidence had led to him being freed on the day before Thanksgiving.

"I'll admit that I was in a bad place when I first heard the news," Jessie acknowledged, "But Chief Decker has been great. Remember that he used to run Central Station and oversaw HSS back when all this first happened. Now that he runs all of LAPD, he has the resources to keep tabs on Costabile, and that's exactly what he's been doing. He has units tailing the guy 24/7."

“And that has set your mind at ease?” Lemmon asked.

"Somewhat," Jessie said. "It helps that Costabile hasn't done anything out of the ordinary since his release, although admittedly, he could just be biding his time. More reassuring is what everyone in the know has been telling me: that the man was originally set to twenty years to life behind bars. He got a literal get-out-of-jail card. He'd have to be a complete idiot to risk that to get back at me. And whatever else Hank Costabile is, he's not an idiot."

“Well, then I guess we can cross that concern off the list,” Lemmon said, looking unconvinced. “It seems like everyone you consider a risk is turning over a new leaf these days.”

Jessie knew who the therapist was sarcastically referencing: Ash Pierce. The assassin who’d tortured and tried to kill Kat had, until recently, been in a coma after injuries she sustained in a second, subsequent attempt on both Kat and Hannah’s lives. But she had woken up suddenly two weeks ago, claiming no memory of her past crimes.

Pierce said that she remembered her old career, working for the military in a clandestine unit known for taking out enemy operatives, but that everything after that was hazy. The memory loss conveniently included her entire life of crime as a hitwoman. Jessie, like Kat, was dubious about the woman’s transformation. And from her tone, it was clear that Lemmon was equally skeptical.

“I think we both know that the person you’re referencing has some serious credibility issues,” Jessie noted. “Luckily, the California Department of Corrections agrees. She’s still at Cedars-Sinai hospital, recovering from her coma under strict guard. But no one seems to be buying what she’s selling. She’s supposed to be transferred to the prison hospital at Twin Towers next week.”

“You don’t think there’s any chance that she’s telling the truth?” Lemmon asked.

“I don’t, and neither does Kat, but we’re not the experts that you are,” Jessie replied. “Maybe you should have a session with her.”

“You think she’d go for that?” Lemmon wondered.

“Not if she’s smart,” Jessie mused. “Besides, my concern is with the other incarcerated killer who’s been in the news lately.”

“You’re referring to Mr. Haddonfield, I gather?”

“I am,” Jessie confirmed. “I have to say, he’s been causing me more sleepless nights than Costabile and Pierce put together.”

“Because of the manifesto?”

Jessie nodded. Lemmon was referencing Mark Haddonfield and what the media had dubbed The Manifesto. Haddonfield was a former UCLA student and Jessie Hunt uberfan/obsessive whose enthusiasm for her curdled when he couldn't get into a seminar she taught on profiling at the school. Somehow, that setback, combined with an already borderline personality, set him off.

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