Page 21 of The Perfect Deception
“And how do you know Michael Dominik?”Jessie pressed.
“Am I obligated to answer that question?”
Her tart response surprised Jessie.People didn’t usually like to draw suspicion to themselves.
“Why wouldn’t you?”
Prager shrugged nonchalantly.“I just get the sense that you don’t have my best interests at heart.You’re giving off a very combative energy, Jessie, which I find odd, considering that we’ve never met before.Have I wronged you in some way?”
“It’s notmebeing wronged that I’m concerned about.”Jessie could hear the growl in her own voice and didn’t try to hide it.“It’s Cassandra Dominik, who, unlike you, will never have another cocktail again.So I’ll ask once more—how do you know Michael Dominik?”
Prager looked her up and down.She was obviously a proud woman who didn’t like to be bullied by anyone and appeared to be having an internal debate about how hard to push back.That was fine with Jessie.She wanted this woman squirming.That’s when she might actually reveal something of value.
Prager leaned in.When she spoke, it was barely over a whisper.“I’ll tell you what.I know a great many people in this bar.I can feel them staring.And I have no doubt that a few would like to amble by to catch a snippet our conversation.Rather than having that happen, which I suspect we’d both prefer to avoid, perhaps we can continue our chat somewhere less public.I promise to answer all your questions, or at least give it a shot, at that time.”
Jessie looked over at Ryan.His eyes were pleading with her to take the deal.They didn’t know who Elise Prager was, but he seemed to think they’d have more success with her away from the increasingly boisterous midday Cordy’s crowd.She turned back to Prager.
“We’ll give you a ride.”
“Where are we going?”Prager asked.
“The police station.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Kat tried not to slam down the phone in her office.
She was too deep into this thing to let frustration get the better of her, but it was still hard.
It wasn’t the fault of the overnight manager of the Las Vegas Commodore Hotel that she was no closer to her goal than before.He had just been the messenger.
When she left Vegas yesterday on her above-the-speed-limit journey back to help pick up Jessie at the airport, she already knew that she’d missed Ash Pierce.She just didn’t know by how long.Now she did.
According to the surveillance footage at the hotel, Pierce had left two days before Kat arrived.That was the information she’d hoped to glean before leaving Sin City yesterday.But at least she had it now and could add it to the picture she was forming.
Kat leaned back in her chair and stared at the map of the U.S.that she’d affixed to the corkboard on her office wall.The red pushpin she’d placed on the black dot for Vegas seemed to be staring back at her.She had been so close this time.
She was certainly closer than when this process first started.Once she’d learned that Pierce had returned to the country via a cruise ship in Long Beach nearly six weeks ago, she’d followed every available crumb.With the off-the-book assistance of both Hannah and Jamil, who used the department’s facial recognition technology to track Pierce down, she’d followed the crumbs first to San Diego.
There was footage of Pierce, now wearing a medium-length brown wig, getting off a bus near a youth hostel in the Gaslamp Quarter of the city.Kat had learned from Pierce’s time in Ecuador that she preferred hostels to hotels, probably because they were more likely to take cash and had fewer security cameras.
As soon as she saw the images, Kat drove the two hours south.Sure enough, one of the hostel managers confirmed that a woman matching Pierce’s description had stayed with them for about two weeks, but had left three days prior to Kat’s arrival.
Things quieted down for a couple of weeks before Hannah sent her a message at five in the morning one day.She’d got an alert that the facial recognition system had a hit on Pierce in Phoenix.When Kat looked at it, she was initially excited.That is, until she saw the date.The video clip of a woman with short red hair and oversized sunglasses was from a week prior to getting the alert.
Still, Kat drove the six hours to the desert city in the hope that she might find the hitwoman.If Pierce was staying there as long as she had in San Diego, maybe she hadn’t left yet.But the hope was misplaced.The hostel manager there said the woman had stayed for ten days and checked out two days prior to Kat showing up.
Next was Joshua Tree National Park.Pierce must not have noticed that some of the campgrounds there, in addition to having basic toilet facilities, also had cameras.That explained why, in the still images of her, the woman wasn’t wearing any disguise.She must have assumed that in an isolated camping spot in the middle of the California desert she could move about more freely.
That was how Kat saw that the woman’s dyed blonde hair was starting to return to its natural black color.In just a few weeks, she’d need to get another dye job if she wanted it to last.Unfortunately for Kat, those images weren’t on a central server so it took a while for her to see them.
Because of the lack of Wi-Fi in the area, a park ranger had to manually go to each campground, collect old school motion-detection disk recordings, and take them to the ranger station for downloading.That only happened weekly, which meant that by the time Jamil and Hannah flagged the Joshua Tree footage, it was a week old.
Even though she knew it was probably pointless, Kat made the trip to the national park.She checked out the campground where Pierce had stayed and spoke to a young couple who had overlapped with the killer by one day before she departed two days prior to Kat’s arrival.
“She seemed nice enough,” the young woman said.“We didn’t talk much because her campsite was about fifty yards east of ours.But the few times we did chat, she was pleasant.”
“Yeah,” her boyfriend added.“I misplaced my Swiss Army Knife and we had no way to open this can of beans we had.I walked over and asked her if she had one I could borrow.She pulled out this big one and proceeded to jam it in the top of the can and carve through it like it was butter.I was impressed.”
