Page 5 of The Perfect Betrayal

“Stir craziness,” he reminded her.

“If you say so,” she teased. “I might actually have something that will help keep you busy.”

“What’s that?” he asked, with unexpected excitement.

“I just got assigned a potential murder case,” she said. “I was going to ask Jamil and Beth to gather some info on the victim. Maybe you could give them an assist.”

“Sure,” he said enthusiastically. “Who are you being paired with?”

"The crime seems to have occurred on a boat offshore, so it's the Sheriff's Department's jurisdiction," she explained. "Parker says that Chief Decker wants LAPD to make nice with them, so he's offering my services. My partner will be a detective named Aaron Riddell."

“Oh.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded.

“It’s just that I’m vaguely familiar with Riddell,” Ryan said. “He has a reputation for being—caustic.”

“Wonderful,” Jessie groaned. “I’m already going to be out of my comfort zone on this one. And now you’re telling me I’m going to be working with a jerk?”

“I’ve never actually met him,” Ryan said, backtracking slightly. “Maybe the chatter is off base. Or maybe he’s mellowed.”

“All the more reason to have all my ducks in a row by the time I meet up with him,” Jessie said. “Can you get Jamil and Beth to pull whatever they can on the victim, Daran Peterson? I don’t have much on him other than that he’s dead and had a sailboat based out of Redondo, so I assume he was doing pretty well.”

“I’ll talk to them as soon as we hang up.”

“Are they busy?”

“They’re always busy,” Ryan said.

It wasn’t an exaggeration. The HSS research department was a small operation, comprised exclusively of research director Jamil Winslow and Beth Ryerson. Unlike the detectives in the unit, they never seemed to get a break. Luckily they were both only twenty-five with seemingly inexhaustible energy.

“Well, I’ll take whatever info they can give me.”

“Don’t forget that they’ll be getting a little help on this one from yours truly,” Ryan said.

“I appreciate it.”

“One more thing before I forget,” he said. “I nearly tripped on that box in the garage when I left this morning. Are you planning to do something with it soon?”

Ryan was referring to a bankers box filled with the personal of effects of a young man named Mark Haddonfield.

“Yes,” she groaned. “I promise that I’ll go through it this weekend. I just haven’t had the urge to look at the personaleffects of a serial killer who first tried to murder me, and then after getting killed, gifted his personal possessions to me.”

“I understand,” Ryan said, “But maybe it’s better to just rip off the Band-aid. Besides, he must have had a reason to give you his stuff beyond just being obsessed with you.”

“You sure about that?” she asked.

“I’m just glad you’re dealing with the box, so I don’t break my leg the next time I stumble over it,” he replied. “Now say goodbye so I can go talk to the research gang.”

“Goodbye,” she said. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

After she hung up, Jessie couldn’t help but let her mind drift back to that box. Why had Haddonfield left it to her?

Mark Haddonfield was an unbalanced former college student who became obsessed with Jessie when she taught a seminar at UCLA and, when she didn’t recognize his genius and ask him to be her profiling protégé, committed a series of murders before ultimately trying to take her out too.

She managed to outmaneuver him. He was arrested and incarcerated, but not before he published an online manifesto calling on supporters to hurt those closest to her. She’d managed to get him to retract the manifesto by agreeing to a deal that allowed him to look over some of her cases and assist in analysis.

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