Page 4 of The Perfect Deception
Hannah didn’t point out that Finn might not be safe from the very people who were moving him if they intended him harm.But she knew how wild that would sound.Besides, Tony was good at his job.He wouldn’t have just handed off the person he was charged with protecting without making sure everything was above board.
“Can I get the name of the Marshal in charge?”
“Of course, but I don’t think he’s going to be any more forthcoming with you than he were with me.”
“We’ll see.”
Hannah didn’t say it but she didn’t need anyone to be forthcoming.If they held out on her, she had other ways of getting to the truth.She’d find out where Finn Anderton was, no matter who tried to stop her
CHAPTER THREE
Today
Jessie Hunt took the hot towel from the flight attendant and gently patted her face.
They’d only turned on the plane’s interior lights a few minutes ago and she was still drowsy from the medication she’d taken to help her sleep through the transatlantic flight.
The plane was scheduled to land in Los Angeles in an hour and a half, where her husband, LAPD detective Ryan Hernandez, would pick her up.Hopefully by then she’d be fully alert.She knew she’d need to be.After over two months of being on sabbatical, Captain Parker had asked that she make a pit stop at the department’s Central Police Station today, even though she didn’t officially start back at work until tomorrow.
It was wild to think that for the last eight weeks, she been in Taormina, Sicily, and not for vacation.Of course no one at the station other than Ryan knew the real reason she was on sabbatical.Most assumed it was because of the mild concussion she’d suffered during her last case, when she ended up in a life or death struggle with a serial killer.
It was far from her first brain injury and the neurologist who'd diagnosed her as being at risk for Second Impact Syndrome worried that she'd had a recurrence.Luckily she'd managed to avoid the worst of it, but neither she nor Ryan told that to anyone on the force.Instead, they let everyone believe her head injury was the reason for her absence when the real one was far more disturbing.
The flight attendant handed her a breakfast menu.Jessie looked it over as she brought her pod upright.Due to a combination of her inheritance and her divorce, she was able to afford first class and she had no compunction about using it.On a flight this long, she needed to be able to stretch out to her full five foot ten height.
As she glanced over the food and drink choices, she saw that a Bloody Mary was an option.Maybe it was because she’d just woken up and the mental gates she’d set up in her brain as defenses weren’t yet secure, but the sight of the word “bloody” flashed her mind back to that fateful day in early May.
That was when she’d cornered Rachel Thompson, a disturbed woman who was killing the second, younger wives of older men.Thompson was an abandoned first wife and the experience had sent her into a violent tailspin that resulted in the stabbing murders of three women.
Jessie ended up in a physical struggle with Thompson, which involved getting slammed around and hitting her head.Then the woman attempted to use the knife on her.Disoriented, in pain, and jacked up on adrenaline, Jessie managed to get the upper hand, climbing on top of Thompson and turning the knife back at her attacker.
Sensing that she herself was on the verge of passing out, Jessie used the last of her strength to plunge the knife into Thompson’s chest.When she regained consciousness, she found herself splayed across the blood-soaked corpse.
Her actions were deemed self-defense by the Force Investigation Division.But Jessie wasn’t so sure.She knew something they didn’t: that for months prior to killing Thompson, she’d been having nearly uncontrollable urges to mete out violent retribution on wrongdoers.
The feelings had been nearly all-consuming.In the leadup to Thompson’s death, Jessie had tried everything to control the urges.She met regularly with her long-time psychiatrist, Dr.Janice Lemmon.She tried taking medication, which made her too fuzzy-headed to do her job.She even visited a residential treatment facility.Unfortunately, she was repeatedly recognized, a result of her semi-celebrity as the criminal profiler who’d taken down multiple serial killers, including her own father.Without anonymity, she knew that her issue would eventually get out, destroying her career and maybe her life.
So she’d struggled along on her own, until the day when she killed Rachel Thompson.The truth was that Jessie still wasn’t sure if she’d actually succumbed to her bloodthirsty desires, or if she really had no choice but to stab the woman.She knew that if she’d passed out while Thompson was still a threat, she’d definitely be dead right now.The woman would have gutted her.
But did she have to sink that knife into Thompson’s heart?Could she have tried to knock the woman out and cuff her before losing consciousness herself?Jerssie still wasn’t sure.In the moment, she’d felt like she had no other options.But was that really true or had she intentionally chosen to go down that road all along?
One thing was certain.She couldn’t just go back to work the next day like everything was copacetic.So, after getting the all-clear from her neurologist and helping set up security for Hannah’s friend in the hospital, she left town.
Dr.Lemmon had found a well-regarded but lesser known treatment facility in the upscale Sicilian village and secured a place for her there.Using her head injury as an excuse, Jessie didn’t ask, but rathertoldCaptain Parker that she’d be going on medical leave for a few months.Parker knew better than to push back.
So Jessie packed up and left.The only people who knew the real reason she was going to Italy were Ryan, her younger sister Hannah, her best friend Kat Gentry, and Dr.Lemmon.She arrived on a Sunday in the village of 11,000 people, and started the program the next day.The treatment facility was small but breathtaking, located in a converted boutique hotel on a cliff overlooking the Ionian Sea, which gave the place its name, the innocuous-sounding The Ionian Center.
More importantly, no one there knew who she was.The program only had seventeen patients there when she arrived.Six were from English-speaking countries but only one other person was an American, the wife of a Detroit auto executive who was dealing with addiction issues.She was in the middle of an ugly withdrawal and didn’t know or care who Jessie was.
When she wasn’t in her room or taking long walks along the cobblestone streets of the mostly car-free town, she was in individual and group therapy sessions.Some were incredibly intense, but they could only help so much, for one glaring reason.
This facility was designed to treat folks with all manner of issues.They handled drug, alcohol, gambling, and sex addiction.They worked with people battling bipolar disorder, depression, eating disorders, and even suicidal ideation.But the brochure didn’t mention treatment for vengeful bloodlust.
The closest they had was their anger management program, which did address violent tendencies, but nothing on the level she was dealing with.Still, it was the least bad option.And even though she couldn’t be completely forthright with her therapists about the nature of her “anger” (which often felt like a hurdle to honest and constructive interaction), she did her best to embrace the program.
It included a variety of techniques, including breathing practices, structured counting, and guided imagery, where she was instructed to imagine herself in a serene environment.All of those tools were potentially valuable and she intended to deploy them.But she had real concerns about how effective they would be.
It was one thing to practice box breathing or visualization when trapped in a long line or dealing with a rude barista.It was something else entirely to rein in violent impulses when standing face to face with a person who’d committed unspeakable acts.Counting backwards from 10,000 wasn’t going to be successful in that situation.
