Page 61 of The Perfect Poise

A moment later it arrived and Jessie clicked on it. Her screen filled with the image of Lila Warwick, who was gagged and duct-taped to a chaise lounge chair. Her hair whipped violently across her face. It was hard to be sure, but it didn’t look like she was bleeding or had any obvious injuries. There was still time to save her.

“Jamil, where is this?” Ryan demanded.

“Working on it,” the researcher said.

Jessie heard someone off-camera off-camera talking, making no attempt to hide her voice. That was a concern. If Paulina was no longer trying to disguise her identity, it might mean she didn't care anymore whether she was caught. That made her not just dangerous, but unpredictable.

“You all came for an announcement,” she said, the camera shaking slightly in her hand. “Well, I’ve got one for you, and it’s a hell of a lot better than the release of some dumb perfume. What I’m here to tell is that after I list the crimes of Lila Warwick, I will pass judgment on her. And you, the viewing public, will get to bear witness to her live execution. Exciting stuff, huh!”

Jamil!” Ryan barked.

“I know, Detective,” Jamil said quickly. “There’s a little lag time in how long it takes for the GPS data to process. It’s definitely downtown. I should have an exact block for you in the next thirty seconds.”

That might be too late,” Ryan growled in frustration.

As Jessie listened and stared at the screen, she tried to glean any clues about their whereabouts from Lila’s surroundings. With the way her hair was flying everywhere, and with her constant shivering, it was clear that they were somewhere outside. The chaise lounge suggested they might be poolside. And then, a gaudy phantasmagoria of moving colors crossed over the girl’s face.

Jessie looked out the car window up at the sign for the Paradiso Hotel. It had the same unsightly, shifting visual palette. The two women were nearby, within range of the sign. And then it hit her.

“Beth,” she said quickly, ignoring Paulina’s monologue as she detailed a litany of Lila’s crimes, which mostly involved being too rich, “does Paulina’s apartment complex have a rooftop pool?”

“Hold on,” she said, “checking.”

She didn’t wait for her to answer, getting out of the car and jogging back to the building’s lobby, with Ryan right behind her. They were just entering when the researcher replied.

“Yes, it does.”

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

The door to the rooftop was barred shut. Jessie wanted to scream in frustration but worried that Paulina would hear her.

“I don’t want to try to smash it open or shoot it,” Ryan said to both Jessie and the building manager as they stood just inside. “That will warn her that we’re here. Is there another way to access the roof?”

“Yes,” said the manager, a smallish man in his fifties who looked like he was struggling valiantly not to become overwhelmed by the situation. “There’s a service entrance down the corridor. It opens up onto the other side of the roof.”

“Take us there,” Ryan instructed.

Forty-five seconds later, they were through the quickly unlocked door and on the roof. From this angle, neither Paulina nor Lila was visible. Jessie and Ryan put in their earbuds and listened to Beth, who was giving them a play-by-play of the livestream.

"You guys need to hurry," she told them urgently. "Paulina has listed off Lila's supposed crimes. Now she's put the phone somewhere nearby, and we can see her onscreen. She's right up next to Lila, holding the knife to her throat and saying that she's been found guilty. I think she's almost done talking."

They darted around a series of large mushroom-shaped turbine vents until they finally caught sight of the two women. Despite the situation, Paulina Fitzgerald—now Adrienne Shaw—had a statuesque bearing that made it easy to understand why people would trust her with their money. Even with a hunting knife to someone's throat, she had a self-possessed, unflappable bearing about her. Her own dark hair was tied back in a bun, and her angular, surgically altered features were unperturbed by the enormity of what was going on.

After processing all that, Jessie came to another grimmer determination. From the direction that she and Ryan were approaching, Paulina would see them easily. There was no way to sneak around the back of her.

“We’re not going to be able to surprise her,” Ryan whispered, “and she’s too close to Lila. The risk of hitting the victim is too great to try shooting her.”

“Then there’s only one option left,” Jessie replied.

“What?”

“We have to try to talk her down,” she said.

“In her state, there’s no way we’re going to be able to—.”

But before he'd finished the sentence, Jessie had stepped out into full view.

“Adrienne,” she called out from across the roof, “can I have a word with you?”

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