Page 26 of The Perfect Deception
“But there’s nothing illegal about this arrangement,” she insisted when asked for her life swap client data, either playing at being obtuse or really believing it.“This is essentially a dating service, only for couples instead of individuals.Would you force a dating service to hand over their files?”
“Yes,” Jessie blurted out before she could stop herself, shaking her head at the woman’s cluelessness.“We would do that andhavedone that in the past.”
“It’s not a matter of illegality,” Ryan jumped in, his tone more measured than hers.“No one is being charged with a crime related to these swaps.But the information about them could be crucial to developing a motive and potentially, a suspect list.”
“A suspect list?”Prager was appalled.“Don’t you realize that if you go around accusing my clients of being suspects, it will destroy my relationships with them and potentially even hurt my charity work?”
“That’s not our intent,” Ryan assured her.“But it’s also not our primary concern.After all, you chose to start this project.You had to know there was a risk it would get out.We will do our best to be diplomatic in our investigation.We understand that you and your clients have reputations that you’d like to protect.But in the end, we’re trying to solve two murders.That’s our priority.And honestly, it should be yours too.If your other clients think there’s a murderer in their midst, are they really going to want to have any more sleepovers?”
“The reality is that we are getting that data one way or another,” Jessie informed her.“We can get a court order if we need to.But we’re trying to prevent this from getting adversarial.”
“Really?”Prager laughed caustically.“Becauseyourwhole vibe has been pretty adversarial since the start.”
Ryan glanced at Jessie.She could tell that he agreed, even if he’d never say it in here.His eyes were silently begging her to ease up.She got it.He wanted to get what they needed without going to a judge, which could waste precious time.She stood up.
“I’m going to run to the restroom,” she said, though that was not her intention.She just needed a break.
After she left the interrogation room, she returned to the station’s interior courtyard for the second time today.The bench she liked was occupied so she went to a quiet, shaded corner and leaned against the wall.She closed her eyes and tried to focus on the late afternoon breeze, a rarity on a July day.
She allowed her thoughts to return to the interrogation room.She had to admit that Prager was right.Shehadbeen adversarial.It wasn’t without justification.Prager’s general attitude was painfully self-involved.She’d shown little concern for either the dead wives or the widowed husbands whom she clearly knew pretty well.
In fact, for half a second before Jamil verified Prager’s alibi for last night—attending one of her fundraisers—Jessie had wondered if she might be a worthy suspect.Her narcissism certainly seemed like it could teeter on the edge of sociopathy.She appeared far more focused on protecting her business interests than in helping solve two murders.But in the end, Prager’s alibi and a complete lack of motive made Jessie dubious about her involvement
But as she felt the weight of the courtyard’s brick wall against her back, Jessie acknowledged that she might have crossed the line from adversarial to outright hostile.Maybe it was partly because, since Prager wasn’t the spouse of a victim, the inclination to be extra cautious in questioning her just wasn’t there.
Regardless, it wasn’t a great sign, considering that she’d just spent two months at a treatment center that was supposed to help her channel her anger in more constructive ways.She’d barely been back 24 hours and she was already battling the same demons from before she left.
Then again, what did she expect?Taormina, Sicily was breathtakingly gorgeous.Anytime she felt the tension rising in her, she could just look out from the cliffs at the water.And virtually her entire time there was spent in the company of people trying to help her get a handle on her emotions.For all of its pluses, the one thing The Ionian Center could not do was put her front and center with the kind of people who infuriated her so much.
That was something she had to handle on her own, back here in the fire of this sometimes soul-gutting job.Of course, it would be harder.She knew that, or should have.As a result, she needed to be more diligent about applying the techniques she'd been taught, even if she was unsure they would come through for her when it counted.
She could feel the tension rising up through her body from her back to her shoulders as she processed that realization and opened her eyes, hoping to fixate on something positive that could help de-stress her.But all she saw were cops hanging out.
Two uniformed officers stood in a corner, sipping coffees.Another one was sitting solo on the bench that she liked with his sandwich taking up the other seat so no one else could sit there.A swarthy-looking detective from the Narcotics unit wearing an L.A.Angels baseball cap leaned against the wall opposite her, taking a drag on his cigarette.
Even though he was outwardly the most unpleasant person in the courtyard, Jessie focused on him, or more specifically, his cap.Seeing it reminded her of a small epiphany she'd had in Italy, one she'd been excited about but somehow let slip through the cracks ever since.
Her last case before she left L.A., which ended with her stabbing Rachel Thompson in the heart, began with an interview with the husband of one of the victims.His name was Kai Cody and he was an outfielder for the Los Angeles Angels baseball team.When they’d spoken to him about his wife’s death, he was on a private plane flying back from a game in St.Louis.They’d recorded the conversation with him in case it was incriminating.It turned out not to be, but it was illuminating.She’d listened to it multiple times since and still remembered his words to them.
I’ve developed this thing over the course of my career that helps me in a big moment in a game, or when I’m being heckled by fans at an opposing team’s stadium.I kind of shut out everything except the minute details of the task in front of me.For example, how much is the pitcher that I’m facing sweating?Is the wind making the flags at the back of the stadium blow at all?Is the bat I’m holding positioned at the perfect angle?Zoning in on the particulars allows me to block out any distractions.I call it focused detachment.The only downside is that it makes me into a bit of a stone-faced zombie.Some people say I come across as an emotionless jerk.I’m hoping that if I can go to that place in my head right now, I can answer your questions without completely losing it emotionally.
He had used the technique to get through difficult situations in games and now he was using it to navigate the horror of learning his wife had been murdered.But Jessie wondered if it could work for her too.Could she, in a challenging moment, find a minute detail to occupy her mind until the fury inside her passed.Or could she use it to short circuit that fury entirely?
She decided that it was worth a try.After all, nothing else seemed to be working right now.So she closed her eyes again and forced herself to move beyond Elise Prager’s obnoxious personality and focus on any useful information she’d given them and how they could use it.
They would get the life swap client data soon, one way or another.When they did, what would she most want to pore over?Obviously, she’d want to see who else either couple had swapped with and what those interactions might have been like.She’d want to see if any members of other swap couples had a criminal history.And she’d want to know more about the swaps that Prager had said went badly.
Suddenly she remembered a question that Ryan had asked the first time they had Prager come in.He wanted to know if there was ever a situation in which one of the participants wished the swap was more permanent?Prager had answered that it had happened on a few occasions with other couples.Jessie still recalled the phrase she used to describe it: “not fun.”
Hearing it again in her head, Jessie pushed herself off the wall and stood upright.Why did she have to wait for the client data to get the answer to that question?Prager knew who was not fun and why.She could answer the question right now, and if she didn’t have affection for the people who were “not fun,” then she just might.Before Jessie knew it, she was in a full sprint across the courtyard
CHAPTER TWENTY
Jessie dashed back into the station and almost ran into Ryan, who was walking out to meet her.
“I knew you weren’t going to the restroom,” he said.“You always prefer to go to the courtyard when you’re frustrated.I think it’s your happy place.”
“It’s less my happy place than my thinking place and I’ve been doing some thinking, which gave me an idea.But first, did you get Prager to agree to share her data?”
