Page 39 of The Perfect Poise

Jessie was just starting to move in their direction when Ryan, still pinned against the wall, extended his arms outward and then forcefully brought them together, boxing both of Crest's ears. The trainer released his grip and stumbled backward, stunned.

Ryan looked over at Jessie and shook his head to indicate that she shouldn’t intervene. Then he took a step forward so that he was within striking distance of the other man. Crest, having mostly regrouped, lashed out, swinging hard with his right fist. Ryan, no longer taking anything for granted, blocked it easily with his left forearm, then gave the trainer a swift punch to his formidable solar plexus.

Crest gasped and doubled over, grabbing at his stomach as Ryan darted behind him and kicked him in the back of his left leg. The man dropped to his knees. Almost too quickly for Jessie to process, Ryan had removed his handcuffs, yanked Crest’s left arm behind his back, and snapped a cuff on his wrist. The trainer started to struggle, but before he knew it, his right wrist was cuffed to the left one. Ryan grabbed the man’s shoulders and tugged him upright.

“You weren’t much help,” he told Jessie.

“You didn’t seem to need any,” she replied.

“I know my rights,” Crest managed to huff now that he’d gotten some of his breath back. “This is entrapment.”

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Jessie told him. “I would have thought that your experience with the legal system during that whole statutory rape thing would have been a decent primer on how things work but apparently not.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” he demanded, before he seemed to grasp what Ryan had told him earlier. “Wait, did you say suspicion of murder before?”

“Yeah,” Ryan told him as he guided him through the glass doors of the studio into the lobby, “you didn’t seem all that surprised in the moment.”

“I wasn’t really listening, man,” he objected. “You can’t be serious.”

“You’re cuffed, Mr. Crest, so I’m pretty serious.”

“That’s some crap,” the man objected before turning his attention to the baffled receptionist. “Carla, call my lawyer.”

“I don’t know who your lawyer is,” she said.

“Then call my mother,” he told her. “She’ll get ahold of him. Where are you taking me?”

“Central Station,” Ryan said.

“Where’s that?” he demanded, “like Central West Hollywood?”

“No, Julian,” Jessie said as she held open the gym’s front door so Ryan could guide him through. “West Hollywood is like Kansas compared to where you’re going. And we’re not in Kansas anymore. We’re going downtown.”

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

An hour later, Jessie stared at Julian Crest across the interrogation table at Central Station, trying to hide her frustration.

Despite his demand that Carla the receptionist call his lawyer or his mother, the man hadn’t invoked his right to remain silent after he had his rights read to him. In fact, he’d been as combative as ever once they started questioning him. And yet, Jessie didn’t feel any closer to solving this case than before.

She understood now why Beth had stopped subscribing to the guy’s YouTube channel. Despite his good looks and his intermittent ability to charm, Julian Crest was an egotistical blowhard who couldn’t be counted on to speak coherently for any extended period of time. He was a himbo with anger management issues who had been coasting on his dazzling face and body for years.

In fact, midway through their interrogation, they’d received a text from Jamil which showed that Crest’s business had been set up by his mother, a CPA who was apparently very involved in his life. That made sense to Jessie, as she couldn’t imagine Crest running a lemonade stand, much less a multi-million-dollar business.

Of course, that gave her pause on another front. If this guy was as thick-headed as he seemed to be, could he really have murdered two women without leaving any trace? That’s what she intended to get at now.

“Julian,” she said. “We’ve been going around in circles here. You keep saying you’re an innocent man being railroaded, but you’re not offering us anything to support what you say.”

“Because this a corrupt investigation,” he bellowed before pointing at Ryan, who was standing against the far wall of the room with an incredulous look on his face. “You and your beefcake buddy there are like, the enemy of the peop—.”

“Julian,” Jessie interrupted, holding up her hand, “I want you to focus on the question that I’m asking you, not the one you want to answer. If you’re innocent, then you shouldn’t have a problem with that.”

“Unless you’re trying to entrap me!”

"Even if I was," she told him, "that won't work if the evidence doesn't support it. Now, after we found Isabella Moreno's body—."

“I still think that photo of her you showed me could have been a deep fake,” he protested.

Crest was referring to when they initially confronted him with Moreno’s murder and how he had refused to accept it. At the time, Jessie couldn’t tell if that was an act to throw off suspicion or a legitimate refusal to accept the truth. Her additional questions had her leaning toward the latter.

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