Page 6 of The Perfect Betrayal

It was a small price to pay to keep her family and friends safe. And on the one case he looked at, he actually proved helpful. She’d consented to let him look at more after his murder trial was over, regardless of the outcome.

But on the day he was convicted and was being transported back to jail, Ash Pierce, who was also at the courthouse for a proceeding, launched her escape plan. In the process, she shot him through the mouth. And just like that, Mark Haddonfield was gone.

Or so Jessie thought. Now she had this box that had been given to her as if it was some kind of inheritance. She'd been putting off looking at the contents, mostly because she didn't want to face whatever ugliness was inside. Was there another screed against her like the one that had launched an army of incel acolytes?

She had no idea. What she did know was that on the day he died, Haddonfield had tried to get in touch with her. Unable to do that, he'd gotten hold of Hannah through a collect call and pleaded with her to convey a message to Jessie. His sister had dutifully done so. According to Hannah, he'd said:If you want to be independent, you have to go to the mattresses.

The only problem was that Jessie had no idea what it meant. Apparently Hannah had asked him to clarify it, wanting to know if it was some reference to the line from the movie,The Godfather. But he’d only repeated himself, refusing to offer any more clarity. And now he never would.

There had to be more to it than just that. She still had about twenty minutes before she got to Redondo Beach, so she decided to make the most of it.

“Call Dante Moore,” she said into her phone.

Dante Moore was Administrator Moore, the man who ran Twin Towers Correctional Facility, where Haddonfield had been housed during his trial. She didn’t know what it said about her life that she had his direct number.

“Moore here,” he said, picking up on the first ring.

“Dante, it’s Jessie Hunt,” she said.

“I didn’t expect to hear from you anytime soon, Jessie,” he replied, before quipping, “I don’t think we’re currently holding anyone who has tried to kill you.”

“That’s actually why I’m calling,” she told him. “I have a question regarding one of the people who once did.”

"You'll have to be more specific than that, considering there have been a few."

“Mark Haddonfield,” she said. “I need you to let me know if anything new crops up with him.”

“Why would anything crop up?” Moore asked. “He’s dead.”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “He asked for some cryptic message to be passed along to me. He left me that godforsaken box of his personal effects. I know I’m probably grasping at straws here, but I feel like there’s another shoe that’s going to drop with him.”

“From beyond the grave?”

“With that guy, you never know,” she said. “Would you just let me know if you hear anything unusual, whether it be from an inmate, a guard—whoever?”

“Will do,” he said, seemingly unfazed by the request, before he had to get in a final dig. “And if you bump into his ghost, you be sure to let me know.”

She heard him chuckling as he hung up.

CHAPTER THREE

Jessie’s heart sank immediately.

Even from the back, Aaron Riddell didn’t give off a very friendly energy.

After parking in the private lot for the South Bay Yacht Club, she’d walked into the main lobby. There was a large mirror in the entry vestibule off the main lobby, which allowed her half a second to check herself.

Because she hadn’t been expecting to work today, she wasn’t in her typical professional attire. Rather, she wore blue jeans and a casual, loose-fitting top under a light gray, zippered sweat top with a hoodie, all of which masked her athletic runner’s build. Her brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Despite wearing almost zero makeup, she noticed that her green eyes still popped. Her white sneakers gave her an extra inch, bringing her to a full five foot eleven.

There were two men in the center of the lobby. One was a fastidious-looking fellow in his fifties wearing slacks, a dress shirt with a tie, and a vest. He had on wire-rimmed glasses. Jessie pegged him as the rep for the club.

Facing away from her was a very different-looking man. He was easily six-foot-four and 220 pounds. His bald head gleamed. He wore jeans and a sport coat, which had a slight, weapon-sized bulge protruding from the right side, another sign that this guy was a cop.

“Gentlemen,” she said, not wanting to make any verbal assumptions about who was who.

The bald guy turned around and she saw a badge hooked to his belt, confirming her suspicion. She guessed that he was about forty, though the deep creases in his face made him look close to a decade older. His dark eyes were simultaneouslystormy and penetrating. He was well-built, though less conventionally chiseled than Ryan, more like a block of granite.

“Are you Hunt?” he wanted to know, his tone sounding like he was already conducting an interrogation.

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