Page 14 of The Perfect Crime

But it quickly became clear that these folks stole and lost huge clients all the time.No matter how things shook out, these people were still all doing unfathomably well.It was hard to imagine any of them getting irate to the point of violence when they were raking in so much.

That left clients who were unhappy with Whitaker’s work.Jessie and Ryan had focused on them.It was a slog.James Whitaker had been in this business for many years and had quite a record.There had been 29 formal complaints filed against him over the years, most of them over minor issues.Of the more substantial ones, the last was four years ago.And in every case, the client wasn’t upset that Whitaker had acted unethically, just that they’d lost money.

Eventually, Jessie had switched over to focus on clients who had lost large sums buthadn’tfiled a complaint.To her, that was more suspicious than people who had put their anger on the record in the via a formal complaint.She’d been at it for an hour when she came across something that made her sit up straighter.

Last November, Whitaker had made some investments on behalf of a man named Ethan Blackwell.But just three weeks ago, they’d gone bad.One company in the portfolio had gone bankrupt.Another’s stock cratered.According to the angry e-mail that Blackwell sent Whitaker two weeks ago, he’d lost over $3 million as a result.

They’d had a spirited back and forth in subsequent e-mails, which no one else was cc’d on, in which James Whitaker seemed more nonchalant about the losses than his client.He urged patience, and when that didn’t satisfy Blackwell, he suggested that the man could take his business elsewhere.

There were no physical threats, but the tone of Blackwell’s final response, from last Thursday, had some menace to it.It read:Your blasé attitude toward my significant losses is reprehensible.You need to be held responsible for your inadequate expertise and your cavalier manner.

Under normal circumstances, that might not be enough to raise Jessie’s eyebrows, but there was one additional detail that did.Blackwell was actually Dr.Ethan Blackwell, an anesthesiologist.

Jessie looked up.Ryan must have sensed her eyes on him because he looked up too.

“What?”he asked.

“I think we’ve got a suspect,” she said.

CHAPTER NINE

Kat sat anxiously in her seat, unable to keep her feet from tapping on the floor.

If Hannah could see her now, she’d say that she wasn’t acting very meditative.But there was a good reason for that.While Hannah was currently sitting in the car, conducting solo surveillance of suspected adulterer Rex Stiller so that Kat could go to her meditation appointment, her mentor was in fact seated in a federal courtroom.

Kat had lied to her young protege.There was no meditation appointment.She was here for a hearing involving Ash Pierce.It was the third of these that she’d attended in the lead up to Pierce’s murder trial.

There was no official reason that Kat couldn’t be here.In fact, had she made a request to the prosecutors’ office, they would have likely ensured that she got a seat in the courtroom.But she preferred to go the unofficial route.

She was friendly with one of the courthouse security guards, a squat, charming woman named Glenda, who had been giving her access through a side entrance and saving her a spot in the back corner of the courtroom.Each time Kat attended a proceeding, she would try to make herself invisible, wearing a big jacket with a high collar and even a cap, which she had to remove before entering court.

As she waited for both Pierce and the judge to arrive, she slumped in her seat, trying to fight off the guilt she felt at lying to Hannah.She was doing the exact opposite of what the young woman had suggested this morning: move on.Instead, she was borderline obsessing over each twist and turn in the case.

Today, it was an evidentiary hearing over admissible evidence.The prosecution intended to get testimony from a fellow prisoner at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, where Pierce had been held prior to escaping from a transport truck on her way back to L.A.The prisoner, a six-foot-tall, 250-pound woman named Cally Mae Carlson, claimed that Pierce assaulted her outside the cafeteria.Pierce's lawyers were trying to have the testimony thrown out.

Truthfully, it wasn't a make-or-break issue.The incident had left Cally Mae with a fractured skull, and its inclusion was intended to offer additional proof of Pierce's callous, violent nature.But her cold-blooded murder of over a half dozen people, including the four transport truck guards, was proof enough.And that had been caught on video.

Still, Kat felt as if she had to be here, almost as if her attendance was some kind of good luck charm that would make the judge’s rulings go against Pierce.Of course, there was another reason that Kat was here, and it had little to do with the minutiae of the case.She was scoping the place out.

Kat had come to a decision.If the prosecution didn't go as planned if Pierce's conviction wasn't a clear slam dunk by the end of the trial.Kat would have to take matters into her own hands to ensure that the killer faced justice.And if it came to that, she needed to understand the ins and outs of the courtroom mechanics.

That meant: noting when Pierce was brought in and removed, determining how much security there was around her, the means of transport throughout the courthouse, and where the weaknesses were in those procedures.Only once she was familiar with all those details, could she formulate the best strategy to get to Pierce and make her finally pay, once and for all.

Her fingers twitched slightly at the thought.She could still recall last summer, when Pierce had tricked and kidnapped her, taking her to a remote spot in the desert.That was where she tortured her mercilessly before planning to murder her on a livestream.It was all part of Pierce’s assignment.

She’d been hired to torture and kill those closest to Jessie Hunt by a zealot named Zoe Bradway, who had attempted to kill hundreds of innocent Angelenos, only to be thwarted by Jessie.Going after Jessie’s loved ones was her payback and Ash Pierce was her tool.Only Hannah’s discovery of the desert location and unexpected physical takedown of the killer had saved Kat’s life.

After her escape from custody, rather than flee to a country without extradition, Pierce had hunted down Hannah, seeking revenge.That effort had culminated in a brutal knockdown, drag-out fight between Pierce and both Hannah and Kat, in which Pierce was stabbed in the neck with her own knife.

In a decision that she still regretted, Kat had given the assassin CPR, saving her life.Pierce spent months in a coma.When she awoke, she claimed not to remember any of her prior acts.Nonetheless, she was charged with multiple counts of murder and, after recovering enough, she was taken to Twin Towers Correctional Facility to await trial.

But that hadn't stopped Kat's nightmares, the ones in which she was still being tortured.That's what she was really after.Knowing that Ash Pierce would spend the rest of her life behind bars might ease her suffering.Then again, Pierce had already escaped once.What was to prevent her from doing it again?After all, she wasn't just a hitwoman for hire.

Prior to entering the private sector, Pierce was a Marines Special Operations element leader and later, a CIA asset who conducted covert assassinations for the Agency.She was smart, and she was relentless.If she ever got out, she might try to disappear.But she could also do what she did the last time she escaped and decide to finish the job she started.Kat needed to beat her to the punch.

Just then, the side door to the courtroom opened and two guards stepped in, followed by Pierce, who wore blue prison scrubs and was shackled at the wrists and ankles.To the average person, Pierce might not look like a deadly hitwoman.Her tiny frame, short black hair, arched nose, and pale skin all suggested someone fragile.But Kat knew better and apparently so did the authorities because she was trailed by two additional, nervous-looking guards.Kat took mental notes.

Pierce scanned the gallery, and her eyes quickly fell on Kat.Neither looked away.Kat studied her, looking for any proof that the woman was faking her amnesia.Despite multiple people that Kat trusted insisting that Pierce’s assertion was credible, including Dr.Lemmon, Kat just didn’t buy it.

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