Page 47 of The Perfect Prey

“He said he didn’t see any advantage to himself until now.And he was worried that Pierce might find a way to kill him if he squealed.But he thinks that with his jury verdict likely coming down today, she might want to use the chaos around that to make her move.”

“Did he sound believable to you?”Jessie asked.

“You never know with that guy,” her sister conceded.“But to be honest, the only reason I decided to tell you all this was because what he said makes sense, knowing what I know about Pierce.She probablywouldconsider this the perfect time to make a move.”

“Did he ask for anything in return?”

“He said he hoped that his assistance might lead to some perks wherever he ends up serving time,” Hannah said.“He sounded resigned to being convicted.”

“Okay,” Jessie said.“I’m glad you told me.I’ll pass the word along to the powers that be at Twin Towers so they can increase security on Pierce as a precaution.Did you tell Kat any of this?”

“Are you kidding?”Hannah said appalled.“She’s already attending every court proceeding involving Pierce as it is.If she knew about this, she might try to pre-emptively impose her own death penalty, just to be safe.”

“Smart move on your part, then,” Jessie said.“Like you said, this could all be some kind of scheme from Haddonfield.We don’t need Kat Gentry going on trial for murder because of a rumor.Thanks for telling me.I’ll take it from here.You can go back to getting straight “A”s.Deal?”

“I’ll do my best,” Hannah said.“But keep me posted.Until this is resolved, I’m going to be a little distracted.”

“I promise to keep you updated,” Jessie said, “but put it out of your head for now.I’m sure it will amount to nothing.”

Part of her wouldn’t put it past Mark Haddonfield to create chaos just to improve his post-conviction situation.But of late, he’d been more of an asset than a liability.He had tried to warn her about an attempt on her life by a rogue cop.He had provided insight on one of her cases that helped lead to the apprehension of a killer.

So when she hung up, her next call was to the Twin Towers administrator to warn him that she’d heard talk that Pierce might attempt an escape and advise that he increase her guard contingent.With that done, she turned to Susannah, who’d been patiently waiting for her to finish her calls.

“So, did Jamil have anything helpful to share?”she asked hopefully.“Do we know our killer’s name yet?”

She didn’t need to wait for an answer.The expression on the detective’s face told her they weren’t out of this thing yet.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

Jessie was playing the waiting game now, and she wasn’t happy about it.

“Anything yet?”she asked for the third time in the last few minutes.

The young woman seated across from her in the research department at Central Station shook her head.Still nothing.

Jessie sighed, trying not to let her frustration get the better of her.She reminded herself that it wasn’t all bad.At least she was out of that tiny black dress and back in normal clothes.To take her mind off her helplessness, she mentally reviewed what they knew so far.

Jamil had gotten access to all the back alley camera footage behind Elite Spa.Using that, the team had been able to narrow down the attendees to sixteen potential suspects based on their general appearance.They were assuming for now that their killer was a male member of the underground sex club that Gregory Lambert had told them was called “Special Friends Events.”

They narrowed the pool down a bit more by only including men who looked to be between the ages of 18 and 65 and were in decent shape.They also assumed that their killer was wealthy and had some technical or electronic expertise, but neither of those things could be definitely determined just by looking at the video.

Unfortunately, while sixteen suspects was a much smaller group than what they had started out with, it was still far too large, considering their time constraints.The victims had been murdered on each of the last two nights.Jessie feared that the man might be planning another attack right now, one that might take place as early as this evening.

The facial recognition system was going through each attendee, trying to identify them.But searching the LAPD’s entire database of possible matches was a time-consuming process, one that Jessie feared would offer results too late to help them.

Once the system eventually ID’d the men from the party, the HSS team could go through the GPS location data for each of them to see if any had been to the Hartley or Channing residences.But getting approval to run each man’s data through the system was another hurdle to leap.Each of those obstacles added time to the process—time they might not have.

And even once they managed to do all of that, there was another concern that they all shared: there was no guarantee that the killer had even attended the “Afternoon Delight” party.It had been announced on short notice.What if he had to work today and couldn’t get away?Or what if he happened to be out of town?Then all of these machinations would be for naught.

That was why Jessie had suggested a shortcut.The shortcut’s name was Valentina Russo, the young event planner currently seated at a computer screen across from her.She was in that spot because Jessie had decided it was time to shake things up.They had to bring in the organizers of these Special Friends Events.

She had Valentina come into the station and write an e-mail to the “draft” folder of the shared account.It basically said the truth—that she’d been co-opted by the LAPD in their investigation into the murders of three of the club’s party attendees, all of whom were found wearing their masquerade ball masks.

The e-mail continued as follows:The police say they don’t care about shutting down the events.They care about catching a killer.They want the real names of all male club members between the ages of 18-65 who attended at least one party at Elite Spa with Richard and Cynthia Hartley and at least one with Evelyn Channing.They believe another murder attempt is imminent and need a response ASAP.

Russo had added the e-mail to the draft folder a half hour ago.Since then, as the team tried every other avenue to unearth the killer, they’d all waited restlessly while Russo refreshed her e-mail every sixty seconds.Even though it had only been about half a minute since the last attempt, Jessie was about to instruct the woman to refresh again.But before she could, Russo’s phone rang.

The woman nearly jumped out of her seat.Once she recovered, she picked it up and held out the screen to Jessie.It read “unknown caller.”

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