Page 13 of The Perfect Prey

She first been fooled by the woman when Pierce pretended to be Violet Sheridan, an abused wife who came to Kat’s detective agency for help in creating a new identity so she could escape her violent husband.But that wasn’t Pierce’s goal.Instead, her plan all along was to get Kat—and Hannah—to a secluded location.

It turned out that she was actually a professional hitwoman, who’d been paid to torture and kill Kat (all on a livestream) by an incarcerated client that Jessie had caught.The imprisoned woman wanted to exact revenge by making those close to Jessie suffer.That seemed to be a big thing with people that Jessie caught.

And it had almost worked.Pierce tricked her, then kidnapped her and took her out to the desert, where she completed the torture part of her plan.She was about to do the “murder on a livestream” part when Hannah was able to first find them, and then surprise and subdue Pierce.

Technically, everything seemed to be okay after that.Pierce was imprisoned, and everyone moved on.That is, except for Kat, who suffered from constant nightmares reliving the brutal horrors that Pierce had put her through.

And it took a lot to mess with Kat’s head.After all, she’d been an Army Ranger in Afghanistan, where she was injured in an IED explosion that left her with damage both internal and external, including multiple facial burn marks and a long scar that ran vertically down her left cheek from just below her eye.

That experience still haunted her, but not in the same visceral way that this had.She’d volunteered for the military and knew the risks going in.That had helped her come to terms with what happened to her there.But being tortured within an inch of her life by a psychotic assassin, especially when she was a highly trained soldier?That was harder to accept.

She’d been told repeatedly that she shouldn’t be too hard on herself.Ash Pierce was no normal enemy.After she’d been caught, they learned the truth about her.The woman was formerly a Marines Special Operations element leader and later, a CIA asset who conducted covert assassinations before becoming a hitwoman for hire.

One would never know it to look at her, though.Pierce, in her mid-thirties, had a tiny frame, short black hair, and pale skin, all of which together suggested someone fragile.Ash Pierce was not fragile.

Of course, the very reason that Kat supposedly shouldn’t have felt like a sucker for being outwitted by Pierce was why the authorities should have taken every precaution with her.And yet, somehow, they’d fallen short.

That lack of caution emerged when she was being transported from the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, California to the Twin Towers Correctional Facility just over a mile from where Kat now stood.Pierce had managed to escape the armored prison truck she was in, killing four guards in the process.

And did the assassin, who had multiple fake identities, make a run for it?No.Instead, she decided to hunt down Hannah, the one person who’d gotten the drop on her.It must have really stuck in the craw of the experienced killer that she’d been outmaneuvered by a then-high school girl.

Luckily, when Pierce found Hannah, Kat was with her, and together they brought the woman down in a fight that ultimately left Pierce in a coma.It looked like she might remain that way forever.But when she woke up a few months later, she conveniently claimed to have lost all memory of her time as a hired killer.That was what had Kat wandering the entirety of the courthouse complex now.She didn’t buy it.

Even though multiple experts claimed that the amnesia was likely legitimate (including Dr.Janice Lemmon, who shared her opinion with Kat but officially kept it off the record), Kat was sure the supposed memory loss was a ruse.She suspected that Pierce was faking it to either win the sympathy of potential jurors at trial or to get the security contingent guarding her to let down their guard so she could escape again.

Kat’s friends tried to reassure her that even if a jury bought the amnesia defense, it wouldn’t matter.Several of Pierce’s murders, including the cold-blooded slaughter of the four prison transport guards, were caught on video.That couldn’t be unseen.

But Kat wasn’t so sure.Ash Pierce had tricked her into thinking she was a fragile, abused wife.If she could do that, imagine what she could do to less cynical, more emotionally susceptible jurors.That was what kept Kat up at night and it was why she scoured every inch of the courthouse, looking for vulnerabilities.What if Pierce was set free or decided to go free on her own?

If Kat was being honest with herself, there was something else that kept her up at night, too.Sometimes she wondered if her fixation on Pierce might some way to compensate for what she’d lost.Mitch was dead, but the man ultimately responsible for it was virtually assured of spending the rest of his life behind bars.That was out of her hands.But if she could ensure that Ash Pierce was properly punished, maybe that could somehow honor Mitch’s memory.Intellectually, she knew that Pierce facing justice wouldn’t heal the wound that pained her each day.But maybe it could be a Band-Aid.

So even though she’d promised both Jessie and Hannah that she wouldn’t obsess, here she was.She’d made the decision that if the legal system failed in its obligation to punish Ash Pierce, Kat would be there to pick up the slack.

They could call it obsession if they wanted, but Kat was at peace with that.After all, that was merely the negative perspective.From her point of view, she was simply on another mission, one she intended to complete, regardless of the consequences.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Ash Pierce sat alone at a table in the middle of the rec room in the women’s unit of Twin Towers.The other inmates knew better than to bother her or even approach her.

Though she was staring at the TV on the wall as if she was fascinated by theGolden Girlsrerun on the screen, Ash was deep in thought.

She was focused on tomorrow, when she would have another in the seemingly endless series of preliminary hearings prior to her trial for murder, attempted murder, torture, and a variety of other crimes.If everything proceeded as planned, the trial was scheduled to start in a week.

Her concern was that if tomorrow’s hearing went like so many others had, she wouldn’t be happy with the outcome.Very few of them had gone well for her.

She could tell that the judge, an old-school type in his sixties, didn’t like her.She couldn’t point to any specific actions or words as proof of that.It was more of a vibe.

While she couldn’t claim that he was overtly biased against her, it was clear that he had little patience for many of the arguments her legal team had made.He heard everything out, but other than on a few technical issues, he regularly ruled against her.

Her bigger concern was that the jurors, who were to be selected next week, wouldn’t like her either.She’d done everything she could to make herself more appealing to them.She was already small, with a waifish frame.But she’d restricted her diet in recent weeks so that she looked even more fragile in her oversized blue prison scrubs.

Her skin was naturally pale, but she’d been careful to avoid spending any time in sunlight when they were allowed into the prison yard for exercise.Lastly, she had requested that her already shortish black hair be cut even tighter so that she had what amounted to the least stylish pixie cut ever.Her goal was to look as frail and harmless as possible.

Ash got up from the table and wandered slowly around the rec room, hoping that the movement might give a fresh perspective on how to handle things.As she walked, a heavyset woman in her twenties who was looking the other way inadvertently stepped into her path.The woman’s friend tapped her and pointed to Ash.

The heavyset woman, a panicky look on her face, immediately stepped aside, like a butler making way for the owner of the house.Ash gave her a half-nod of acknowledgement and continued on her way.It was nice to know that her reputation could still do some heavy lifting for her.In the courtroom, she needed to be frail and docile.But behind these walls, she had to project an air of ruthless intimidation.It was the only way to ensure her survival.

She returned to thoughts about the trial.She knew that when the jury saw the camera footage from the prison transport, it would show her dispatching the four guards in charge of her with casual precision.But she hoped that the images on the grainy video would be so at odds with the broken woman sitting before them that it might create some doubt in their minds.That, coupled with her memory loss, might have some impact.

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