Page 13 of The Perfect Betrayal

“What?”

She pointed at the blood-stained deck again.

“Panicking and stabbing someone you’re scared of makes sense if there are a couple of wounds. But not upwards of a dozen, and all in the back. That feels intentional. It feels like payback.”

CHAPTER SIX

Kat Gentry did her best to ignore the soft crying going on only feet from her.

She needed to wait until the right time to say something and that wasn’t now. So she turned her attention to a different task: getting used to her new office.

The frustration she felt adjusting to the smaller space and less ideal location was still preferable to the alternative. After all, if she’d stayed at her old office, then she’d be leaving herself vulnerable to an unexpected visit from the hitwoman who’d tortured and nearly killed her.

As Kat spent this early afternoon moving the remaining hard copy files from the bankers box into the cabinet behind her desk, she pretended not to notice what was going on behind her. She took her time alphabetizing the files, while giving space and time to the client sitting across her desk, staring at the photos spread out before her. It might take a while for the woman to process what she was looking at.

In the meantime, Kat tried to put a positive spin on the situation. For example, Ash Pierce, the former government assassin who’d escaped from custody a week and a half ago, knew exactly where the old office was. But she was unaware of this one, and that was by very careful design. Kat didn’t want her showing up unexpectedly to pick up with the torture or worse.

That was why she had avoided using her name on the lease. With Jessie’s help, she’d created a shell company and anonymously hired a rental agent to get this space, which was located in a slightly grimier part of downtown than the old office. That was okay. Her detective agency didn’t deal in corporate espionage. She mostly handled insurance fraud and infidelitycases, the sort of stuff that didn’t require the investigator to work out of a gleaming tower.

The upside of this more gritty base of operations was that, because of the safety concerns, there were multiple layers of building security. They included chain link fencing with barbed wire at the top around the whole place, an armed security guard, and key pass entry requirements to access the facility, the elevators and stairs, as well as each unit. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than the polite doorman at her old office, who only occasionally required people to sign in.

She’d also bought a new car, which was actually quite old. A gray 2000 Mitsubishi Mirage, it was nothing special to look at, which was exactly what she was after. More importantly, it didn’t have a GPS locator that Pierce could hack. And since she’d used cash to make the purchase from a private seller, it was largely untraceable.

Of course, none of those precautions would have mattered if Kat was still living at her old apartment. Bus she wasn’t. While she hunted for a new place, she was currently staying at Jessie’s. That wasn’t a perfect solution either, as Pierce knew about it. But that didn’t mean she could get in.

Because Jessie had been stalked by her fair share of vengeful killers over the years, she'd turned her home into a suburban citadel. The house, on a tree-lined street in the Mid-Wilshire district, looked nondescript from the outside. But it had had multiple layers of security that included alarms, high-tech locking systems, and a safe room.

If that wasn’t enough, Jessie had added facial recognition cameras to the ones she already owned, which were situated at six different locations on the roof. She’d also requested that the LAPD add similar cameras at both ends of her residential street, which had been approved. All of them were tasked to providealerts any time a person was identified in the area who met even 75% of matching criteria to Ash Pierce.

Considering that the woman was a master of disguise, Kat had worried that even that bar of recognition was too high to generate an alert. But Jamil Winslow, HSS’s expert on such things, had assured her that unless Pierce underwent massive facial reconstructive surgery, which would take months of recovery, her bone structure was still distinctive enough to be flagged. Kat chose to trust him on that.

But her trust didn’t extend to her commute to work. Until she found a new apartment, she followed a complicated procedure each morning to get to the office. First, she would get a ride from either Jessie, Ryan or via a rideshare, which she had drop her off at seemingly random, but actually pre-determined locations—often busy farmers markets, malls, or metro stations.

She would have another rideshare waiting for her there, and after maneuvering through the crowds, she would get in that vehicle. If she wasn't confident that she'd been evasive enough while moving through the public location, she'd have that car take her to a second public place and do the same thing. Occasionally, she'd make a third stop. Whether she went to one, two, or three places, she'd eventually have that last car take her to the paid garage where she kept the junky old Mirage. Only then would she drive to the office to start her day.

The process often added a half hour to forty-five minutes to her morning commute, but it was well worth it for the peace of mind. And all the effort it required took her mind off losing Mitch, at least for a little while.

Though they never said it, it was clear that both Jessie and Ryan thought this whole precautionary routine might be overkill. Only one time since Pierce escaped did they mention that all border patrol locations knew to be on the lookout for her. Or that they all had dozens of pictures of her, showing what shemight look like with different disguises. Or that they all had the same facial recognition technology the LAPD was using.

Neither Jessie nor Ryan repeated any of that because they knew what she knew: that no system was foolproof. Ash Pierce had broken out of custody twice and escaped the country too. For her, breaking back in would be a comparative breeze.

But Kat would be waiting if she did. And as a former Army Ranger—with the IED scars on her face to prove it—she felt confident that she was prepared for the challenge. She was determined not to become Pierce’s victim again.

The thought reminded her of another victim of sorts, the one who was still poring over the photos on her desk. It had been long enough. She should probably check in with her.

“Hey Angela,” she gently said to the woman, “how are you doing?”

Her client, Angela McCumber, looked up at her. Her eyes were wet, but she wasn't crying anymore. In fact, she looked pissed. Kat couldn't blame her. She had just learned that what she suspected was true: her husband was having an affair with his secretary.

“How do you think I’m doing?” she asked bitterly. “The man I devoted the last twenty-six years of my life to is diddling some girl who’s the same age as our daughter. He’s disgusting.”

“I agree,” Kat said. “And to be frank with you, I haven’t even included the most egregious images. I didn’t think it was necessary to prove the point.”

Angela, a 48-year-old wife and mother of three who’d quit business school to support her husband while he got his advanced degree, stared back at her with damp, steely eyes.

“I want to see everything,” she said. “the more appalling the better. It’ll strengthen my position in the divorce. Calvin’s firm deals with a lot of faith-based corporations. If this stuff got out,he’d be ruined professionally. I’m going to squeeze that bastard for every penny I can get, and then some.”

“Okay then,” Kat said, glad to see the woman’s spine growing before her eyes, “I think you’re going to have all the ammunition you need.”

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