Page 1 of The Perfect Prey

PROLOGUE

Cynthia Hartley settled in under the covers, watching her husband with a sly smile.

As Richard walked into the closet to put away the two ornate masquerade ball masks in their special hiding place, she readjusted herself in her negligee.The party had been everything she’d hoped for, but she intended to keep the festivities going a little longer.

She was exhausted and knew Richard was too, but thought there might be just enough time for a little fun before they both sank into a deep slumber.He returned moments later and turned off the light.She glanced at the clock on her bedside table.It was 11:42 p.m.She calculated that if she used her time effectively, she could give him a late-night surprise and still be asleep before midnight.

***

Cynthia woke with a start.She groggily looked over at the clock.It read 1:14 a.m.She was confused.Had she heard something that woke her up, or was the sound only in her dream?Too tired to care, she settled her head back into her pillow.She was just drifting off when she thought she saw movement in the corner of the room behind the chaise lounge chair.

She blinked several times, trying to determine if what she saw was real or just a trick of the shadows.But then the shadow moved, and she knew this was not just her imagination.She reached out for Richard as the beginning of a scream started to escape her mouth.But before she could make a sound, the shadow was on her.

CHAPTER ONE

Jessie Hunt tried to hide her concern.

It had been just over two weeks since her husband and investigative partner, Detective Ryan Hernandez, was poisoned by a disturbed killer.She’d managed to catch the man and get Ryan help in time to save him, but he still hadn’t returned to full strength.

He had hoped to return to work tomorrow—Monday—but it was clear that he’d need at least a little longer.As she sat beside him on their living room couch, she stroked the back of his neck.He was drifting in and out of sleep, which was fine.It was a lazy Sunday morning, and he could use all the rest he could get.

In the sixteen days since he’d nearly died, his psychological state seemed stable despite everything he’d been through, both physically and emotionally.It was possible that under his “raring to go” mentality, there might be a flicker of depression at how long the journey back was.But if it was there, she had yet to see it.

And he still had the warm brown eyes and sweet smile, highlighted by impressive dimples.Having said that, he’d lost over ten pounds and lots of strength and stamina.He would need a little time to get back to his normal, well-muscled, two-hundred-pound, six-foot-tall body.

Jessie had taken personal time of her own to care for him.She would be starting back at work tomorrow, where she was an LAPD profiler.When Ryan eventually got the all-clear to return, he’d be on desk duty for a while, no matter how much he hated the idea.

In the kitchen, Jessie’s younger sister, Hannah Dorsey, was making them all breakfast.Hannah was in her freshman year at UC Irvine, about an hour away from them, but she’d come back to the house on each of the last two weekends to help care for Ryan until he felt strong enough to be on his own.It helped that she was a great cook.

Jessie glanced over her shoulder to see how everything was going.Hannah was diligently focused on the task at hand, moving among different pans and slicing and dicing a variety of items on the butcher block.Jessie knew that a frittata was on the menu, though she wasn’t sure of the ingredients.It didn’t matter.If Hannah was making it, the dish would be good.

It was fun to watch her sister in her element.The nineteen-year-old was the picture of organized freneticism, with her ponytailed blonde hair bobbing furiously as she moved about.Her green eyes, the same shade as Jessie’s, flashed with excitement as she darted from one station to another.

Jessie felt a little guilty that she couldn’t help, but she worried that getting up might wake Ryan, and that wasn’t a risk she was willing to take.So she sat next to him, quietly running her fingers along his neck, and allowed her mind to drift.

There had been a lot of time for that lately.Everything had been on hold for the last two weeks, so she’d been trapped with her own thoughts more than she would have liked.Despite their downtime together, she and Ryan had pointedly avoided discussing the potential of adopting a child, an idea they’d been circling for a few months now.

Jessie preferred that route to parenthood, as opposed to putting her already battered body through a pregnancy.In fact, during her confrontation with the killer who’d poisoned Ryan, she suffered several new injuries, including to her lower back, her ribs, her neck and trachea and her face, which had met the backside of a shovel.She was feeling better now, but for a week there, she’d really been dragging.

In the past, Ryan had expressed a desire to have children of their own, though he’d told her he was willing to go the adoption route instead.Regardless of where they each stood, it was just too fraught a topic to address under the current circumstances.

Jessie allowed herself a silent, bitter little chuckle at her own use of the euphemism “circumstances.”That was a polite term for the other major issue she was dealing with.In addition to both her and Ryan’s physical recoveries and their potential future as parents, there was the little matter of her mental health.

In recent months, she’d been dealing with a return to a psychological place she thought she’d moved beyond.She was 31 years old now, but back when she was younger, as a teen and in college, she’d often felt an intense desire to mete out punishment to those she considered worthy of it.The problem was that she didn’t just want to make them pay by arresting them or getting them convicted.She wanted to make them suffer physically too.Sometimes the desire was so strong that she could picture herself committing the violent act that would put the perpetrator in their place, preferably forever.

It had taken years of therapy with the then-and-still-now psychiatrist, Dr.Janice Lemmon, to understand the roots of this bloodlust.Part of the explanation was straightforward.Her birth father, whom she’d only known until she was six years old, was named Xander Thurman.But he was better known by his nickname, the Ozarks Executioner.That was because her father had been a prolific serial killer.

It was clear to Jessie that some part of his sickness had infected her, though she’d never felt the urge to kill anyone for the thrill of it, at least not yet.With Dr.Lemmon’s help, she’d learned to channel those feelings into a pursuit of justice.She managed to satisfy her jones for making bad guys pay by understanding them, catching them, and putting them behind bars.

It was why she’d studied Forensic Psychology and eventually became a criminal profiler.She wasn’t a cop.She was a consultant who helped the cops catch killers.For a decade now, she managed to keep a lid on the darker side of those urges, even after Hannah came into her life.

Jessie had only discovered that she had a half-sister two years ago, when they both learned that the man who had killed Hannah’s adoptive parents was the serial killer father they shared.Jessie took in the sister she’d never known existed, becoming her guardian.It was only then that she found out that Hannah shared her bloodthirsty need to deliver retribution to those she considered wrongdoers.

In Hannah’s case, that desire had gone a step further, when she’d actually killed a man.Yes, he was a serial killer as well, one who’d been threatening Jessie, Hannah, and Ryan.But when she shot him, he was in handcuffs, no longer a threat.

That act hadn’t chastened Hannah.In fact it had exacerbated the compulsion to be an avenging angel.Ultimately, Hannah had asked for help from Jessie and Dr.Lemmon.She got it in the form of self-admission to a psychiatric rehabilitation center, where she spent months learning how to control and redirect her urges.

It seemed to have worked, as Hannah was doing incredibly well now.She was getting great grades in college and had even become a bit of an amateur sleuth herself, helping out other students at school with problems they didn’t want to take to the campus police.

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