Page 14 of The Perfect Deception
“Hello?”The male voice was sleepy and confused.“Who is this?’
“This is Los Angeles Police Department Detective Ryan Hernandez.Am I speaking to Michael Dominik?”
“Yes.”The voice sounded slightly less fuzzy now.“What’s wrong?”
“Mr.Dominik, we’re at your front door right now.Are you home?”
“No.“Dominik now sounded completely alert.“I’m in San Diego for work.Why are the police in front of my house?”
Ryan winced slightly and Jessie knew he was about to do something he wasn’t happy about.
“We’re investigating a case in your neighborhood, Mr.Dominik.As part of it, we see a light on in one of your second floor rooms.We’ve been knocking and ringing the bell for a while and no one has answered.We have some concerns for the welfare of your wife, Cassandra.”
Jessie realized that was what had Ryan wincing.He knew he couldn’t tell the man about his dead wife until they got the information they needed.If he led with her murder, Dominik—assuming he wasn’t involved—would be too upset to be of use to them.
“Are you saying something happened to her?”The man’s borderline panicked tone justified Ryan’s decision in Jessie’s mind.
Ryan closed his eyes as he answered.“We’re trying to ascertain the situation.It’s possible there’s an intruder in your home.With the light on and no one answering, things are a little suspicious.”
“I’ll call her.Maybe she’s just afraid to answer the door in the middle of the night.”
“That’s possible,” Ryan said, willing to allow the man his delusions if it worked to their advantage.“But don’t call.If thereisan intruder in the house and she’s hiding, it might alert them to her location.”
Jessie felt for her husband.Up until this point, he’d been trying to carefully walk a line: not outright lying to the man about his wife’s death nor giving him the false impression that everything was going to be okay.But now he’d overtly suggested that she might be alive when she most definitely wasn’t.It was clearly weighing on him.
“Here’s what I propose,” he continued, pushing past his deception as quickly as he could.“I’m going to give you my badge number.You can call Central Station, where I operate from, to confirm my identity.Or you can just call the non-emergency police line.Once they confirm my identity, you can call me back.If you have a hidden key or an access code, I’ll use it to enter the home and check on the situation.”
"Screw that."Dominik's panic level was rising again."I'll take your word that you are who you say you are.Finding Cassie is more important than anything else.There's a gray brick in the wall behind the small table on the left side of the porch.It's fake.Push it in and it will pop back out.It has a house key.Once you get inside, the security code is #13114."
“All right, Mr.Dominik.”Ryan was already up on the porch.“I’m going to check things out.I’ll call you back once I know more.”
Jessie saw the gray brick first.It popped open just as Dominik said it would.The key was resting inside the hollow brick.She grabbed it and went to the front door.Ryan pulled out his weapon as she unlocked the door and stepped to the side.He entered first, and she followed as she unholstered her gun.
"The alarm's not on," she whispered.In her mind, that was a bad sign.It was hard to imagine that Cassandra would have left the house to go to the Maplewoods in the middle of the night without turning it on.
“We can search the first floor first or go straight upstairs to the room with the light on,” Ryan whispered back.
Jessie held up two fingers to vote for the second choice.Whatever was going on here, she felt sure that it was happening in that room.Ryan turned on his flashlight and located the stairs.They weren’t as elaborate as those at the Maplewood place, though the rustic wooden steps were probably equally expensive.
He led the way and she followed close behind, glancing back periodically to make sure no one was sneaking up after them from the first floor.When they reached the top, it was immediately clear which room to go to.A stream of light poked out from underneath the closed door.The rest of the hallway was dark.
They used the same procedure as before.Jessie grabbed the door handle, turned it, and pushed the door open.Then she stepped to the side so Ryan could enter first.
“No obvious threats,” he whispered after a few seconds.
Jessie joined him in the room.It may have been clear of obvious threats but it wasn’t clear of unexpected horrors.At the far end of the large bedroom, lying above the covers, was a woman who looked very much like Olivia Maplewood.It was hard to be sure because, even at this distance, Jessie could see that the woman’s face, bent at an awkward angle, was smeared in blood.
“Let’s check the rest of the place out before we approach her,” Ryan whispered.
He went into the bathroom while Jessie opened the walk-in closet and leapt back.There was no one there.She got to her knees and peeked under the bed in case anyone was hiding there.No one was.
“Bathroom is empty,” Ryan said from behind her
Nodding, she stood up and approached the bed.The woman in front of her was definitely Olivia Maplewood.She was wearing a loose, cream-colored nightgown.Her head, resting on a satin pillow, had slumped sharply to the right.Her throat, like Cassandra Dominik’s, was slit across the front.
The arterial spray, when it happened, was the likely cause for the red splatter covering her face.Much of the blood had flowed out and collected in the bowl-like dip of the pillow, framing her head in the thick liquid.Her dark hair, partly covering her face, had begun to clump amid the drying blood.Unlike Cassandra, her brown eyes were wide open.They looked scared.
The bubbling cauldron of anger that Jessie had felt operating on simmer in her gut when she saw Cassandra at the first house had returned.Only now it felt like the heat had been turned up.
