Page 10 of The Perfect Illusion

“Yes!” he whispered breathlessly.

“Care to share with the group?” Jessie wondered.

"Patricia Hollinger has a really old AOL account," he explained. "It uses the same password as her other ones, but it looks like she mostly stopped using it about a half dozen years ago. But she set up the account to forward e-mails sent there to her current ones. There have only been two in the last six months that weren't spam. They're both from someone named Marcus Sullivan."

“What do they say?” Jessie asked.

"I'll screenshot them for you," Jamil said, "But they're related. Apparently, he runs several pageants in Orange County. In the first e-mail, dated ten days ago, he says: Long time, no talk. It’s been far too long. Would love to catch up by having you be a guest judge at Miss Costa Mesa Pageant. He goes on to provide details. Her response came the same day. It’s just one word: No.”

“That’s pretty definitive,” Beth muttered.

“And the second e-mail?” Brady wanted to know. “What does it say?”

“It’s from three days later,” Jamil told them. “It says: Just checking back in to see if you’d reconsider judging. I’d love to discuss the possibility more but this is my only contact information for you. Please get back to me. He then reiterates the offer details.”

“And you have no indication that she ever replied to that one?” Jessie confirmed.

“Correct,” Jamil said.

“One might wonder if Marcus got a little more aggressive in his attempts to get in touch,” Brady mused.

"It's definitely worth looking into, "Beth said animatedly. "I just started checking into Marcus Sullivan's background, and it's not all peaches and cream. He's had multiple allegations of sexual harassment made against him by various pageant contestants over the years. I'm finding at least two out-of-court settlements in the last decade. He was even charged with assault once a dozen years ago, although the charge was dropped when the alleged victim refused to testify. The prosecutor's notes indicate that he thought the woman was threatened, though they couldn't prove that."

“Does Patricia Hollinger’s name come up in any of those harassment allegations?” Brady asked.

“Back then, her last name was Corning, so I’ve been searching that,” Beth said. “But I’m coming up empty.”

“Just because nothing official shows up doesn’t mean harassment wasn’t happening,” Jessie noted. “And based on her terse reply to his offer, I’m guessing that Patricia was none too pleased to get any kind of communication from Sullivan. I think it’s time we pay him a visit to find out why.”

CHAPTER SIX

The corkboard would have been a dead giveaway if the authorities ever found it.

But that wasn’t going to happen. As they got up from their chair to study the board more closely, they couldn’t help but smile slightly. So far—other than a cut from the chunk of glass on the palm of the right hand that required a small bandage—almost everything had gone as planned.

Getting into the mansion had been easy. The old housekeeper was too oblivious to notice that the front door didn’t close completely when she left. And killing Hollinger had been much easier than expected.

This was the first attempt at it, and there were some concerns about whether they'd have the courage of their convictions when the moment came. But Hollinger had been so frozen in terror that she forgot to fight back. All she did was scream, which just made them angry.

That fury was what gave them the extra oomph needed to grip that chunk of glass tight and jam it in the beauty queen's neck. Fortunately, the arterial spray shot out mostly to the side, so that only a smattering of blood landed on them. The clothes they wore were currently burning in the fireplace, but that wasn't a problem. They'd purchased multiple sets of black outfits for these occasions.

The next one would be soon. Staring at the corkboard, they looked over the newspaper clippings. The ones about beauty pageant winner and all around whore Patricia Hollinger could come down now. But the other clippings would remain.

They stared at the stories on the next target. In addition to those were the surreptitious photos that had been taken. They would help immeasurably when the next mission happened. That wasn't until tonight but there was much work to do before then. First and foremost was a shower. Some of Hollinger's blood had landed on their face. For the last few hours, they'd left it there as a totem of their accomplishment.

But now it was time to get clean. That is, before getting dirty again.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Jessie reminded herself to stay cool.

The drive south to Marcus Sullivan’s Westport Beach office had taken nearly an hour and she’d gotten increasingly agitated on the way. That was partly due to the traffic. But it was also because this was the community where she had once lived.

At one time, it was where she’d thought she would spend her life—with her then-husband, Kyle, in their McMansion, possibly raising a family. That was all before he turned out to be a sociopathic killer who tried to frame her for murder and then kill her.

It might not have been fair, but by the time she and Brady had parked at Sullivan's building and gotten into the elevator up to his floor, she was ready to go off on the man. Even if he wasn't a killer, the record showed that he was, at the very least, a predator. And sometimes predators had to be put down.

“You okay?” Brady asked her, snapping her out of her revenge fantasy.

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