Page 14 of The Perfect Betrayal

“Thanks to you, Kat,” Angela said. “And don’t think I don’t appreciate it. In fact, I’m going to double your fee, along with a 10% bonus kicker. How does that sound?”

“It sounds good,” Kat admitted.

She could use the money. Since Pierce’s escape, she’d been so focused on ensuring her security that she hadn’t been able to take on many cases. And certainly not ones like this, that involved detailed surveillance. Jessie had been floating her while she locked down a new office, car, and home. She’d finally be able to repay her.

And there was another benefit, too. With this bonus payment, she wouldn't have to scramble for a new case for a few weeks. That meant she could use the downtime for another job.

Rather than wait for the professional hitwoman to find her, she planned to take the hunt to Pierce.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Jessie stared at the screen and pretended not to look surprised.

They were in the security office of the South Bay Yacht Club, studying footage from yesterday. It didn’t take long to find what they were looking for.

At 4:49 P.M. on yesterday’s timestamp, which was about 23 hours ago, Daran Peterson parked his car in the club’s parking lot. With a bag in hand, he ambled his way along the dock in the direction of his boat. He made a return trip to his car for the last of his things and was walking across the lot when he bumped into a young woman.

It looked for all the world like a causal, unexpected encounter. But based on what had occurred on the boat, Jessie had her doubts. The woman, from what she could tell, was quite fetching. The video footage was a little grainy, but there was no denying the hourglass frame, or how her tan skin popped against her powder-blue teeny bikini.

She was blonde, but as Jessie had expected, not much else could be gleaned about her identity. She wore a cap with the brim down low, along with large sunglasses. She was barefoot and her only accessory was a large, beige canvas-looking beach bag with a rolled up blue towel sticking out of it. There was no distinguishing logo on the bag.

“I’ll have our research folks look at this footage,” she said, “but I’m not confident that they’ll be able to get anything close to an identifying hit on her.”

“It looks like she was coming back from a day at the beach,” Riddell noted.

“Or at least that’s what she wanted Peterson to think,” Jessie suggested. “She could have been waiting like that for hoursuntil he showed up. One thing seems clear: they didn’t appear to know each other before that meeting. Their slightly awkward interaction—especially his—suggests this was a first meeting.”

After talking to Peterson for a moment, the young woman walked off screen for a few minutes, then returned without the bag, but still wearing the cap and sunglasses. Then, the two of them fell into step together as they walked to his boat. At no point during the entire process did she remove the cap. It could have been a coincidence, but Jessie doubted it.

“Where would she have been walking when she left the screen?” Jessie asked Oliver Stanton, who was standing behind the security guard who was manning the security station panel.

“There’s a public parking lot just across the greenspace separating it from the club’s lot,” he said. “You can park there for up to six hours if you want.”

“Does it take payments with credit cards or phones?” Riddell asked.

“It does, but it also accepts coins,” Stanton said.

“How do you want to bet this girl paid?” Jessie said more than asked.

Riddell didn't respond to that. Instead, he focused on Stanton.

"I want to talk to the staff for the club," he said. "I know Peterson parked his own car, but maybe the valet noticed something about this girl when she was in the lot. And that security guard you have out front might have seen something without realizing it."

Jessie thought those were reasonable avenues to pursue, but she was more interested in going another way.

“While you do that,” she said, “I’m going to have Mr. Stanton here provide me with a list of Daran Peterson’s closest friends at the club. I want to learn a little more about the man than we canget from numbers and reports. What about this guy would make that young lady want to turn his back into ground beef?”

***

An hour later, Jessie and Riddell walked into the main clubhouse lounge, equipped with the basics on some of Peterson’s best buds.

Riddell had given up on the staff a while ago. Both the valet and the security guard had recalled the "blonde hottie in the blue bikini," but neither of them could describe her beyond that. And neither had been close enough to hear her conversation with Peterson. While he hit that dead end, Jessie was provided with a list of the man's friends by Stanton.

“Where is everyone?” she asked the club’s executive director as she took in the empty room. “I was hoping to talk to some of Peterson’s buddies here, where they’d be comfortable and more open.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Stanton said, his face turning red. “I thought it would be inappropriate to continue business as usual when one of our members had just passed away, especially under such violent circumstances. So I closed the club down for the rest of the day. Members can still access their vessels of course, but all club activities have been suspended until further notice.”

Jessie sighed and looked at the time. It was just after 5 P.M. Under normal circumstances, she'd just push through the evening. But without the friendly confines of the club to justify chatting up the members, the process would be much more challenging.

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