Page 44 of The Perfect Revenge
“Only because I overheard mention of the killing on the scanner.Think about it, Detective.Would you have had any reason to suspect Ash Pierce was involved in this if I hadn’t suggested it?”
“Maybe,” he said, slightly defensively, before adding, “but maybe not.We should alert Hunt.”
Kat agreed, but she didn't want to freak her friend out.Jessie was already going through a rough stretch.She had only recently returned from her recovery trip to Sicily.Plus, based on the voicemail Hannah had left earlier today, it seemed that the sisters were on the outs over this whole Finn Anderton thing.Another stressor might not be what Jessie needed right now.At least Hannah was away on that hike in Malibu right now, far from the danger that Pierce presented.
“What is Jessie doing right now?”Kat asked.
“I believe she’s investigating some serial killer case on the west side of town.Multiple women were injected with some kind of poison.She and Susannah Valentine are working it.I heard they were up all night.”
“Okay, I think we should definitely tell her, but maybe we hold off for a bit.I don’t want to worry her when we don’t have anything useful to go on yet, especially if she’s trying to focus on catching a killer of her own.”
“Well, she’s going to find out eventually.I’m going to put out an APB on Pierce soon.”
"That makes sense.But maybe don't do it right this second.I bet she's checking the scanners, too.Before you put out the APB and alert her that she's in the crosshairs, you might want to visit the hotel where the limo driver picked her up.I know how she thinks, and I doubt she's actually staying there.Even if she is, she's probably gone by now.She knows that I'm hunting her, and she'll be wanting to get out of town before the dragnet closes in.But you never know."
“You don’t think we’ll get to her before she gets clear of the city?”Prescott asked.
“Anything’s possible.But this is a trained assassin who escaped from custody twice and has evaded law enforcement for three months now.I won’t hold my breath.”
What she didn’t say out loud was that part of herwasholding her breath, if only a little bit.Ash Pierce might slip through their fingers this time.But Kat could feel it—she was getting closer to catching her
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
“We understand that this is a lot to process,” Jessie said.“Why don’t you take a moment before we continue.”
She and Susannah were in the West L.A.conference room, on a video call with Devin Hayes, Lena Hayes’s ex-husband.They’d already broken the news of her death to him, but he was having trouble coming to terms with it.They’d had to repeat the basics three times before he seemed to really get it.
They'd only learned that Lena had been married a little while ago when Jamil and Beth gave them a snapshot of the woman's life.Thirty-six years old, she was a contracts lawyer with a Beverly Hills talent agency.She and Devin had gotten married eight years ago.The marriage last four years.The divorce, according to court documents, appeared to be fairly amicable.
“Are you able to answer a few questions now, Mr.Hayes?”Susannah asked after several seconds.
The man, who’d had his face in his hands, lifted his head.He was a bit older than Lena, at 38, but looked youthful.There was no gray in his brown hair.Only the slightest hint of crow’s feet had started to appear at the edges of his blue eyes, which were puffy now.Like Lena, he was a lawyer, but he’d moved to New York a few years ago with his new wife and their two children.
“I don’t know what I can tell you,” Hayes said.His voice was thick, as if he was trying to hold back his emotions.“Lena and I split four years ago.We hadn’t talked much since.”
"That's okay," Jessie said."Our questions are very specific, and we think you'll still be able to answer them."
“Okay.I’ll try.”
“When you and Lena were together, did you try to have children?”Susannah asked straight out.
He looked startled.“Is that kind of question appropriate.It feels private.”
“Normally it would be,” Jessie told him.“But in this instance, that kind of information could be crucial to our case.So, even though it might be uncomfortable, we’d really appreciate you being as forthright as possible.”
"All right," he said."Yes, we did try to have kids, for a few years, actually.But we were having trouble, so we went to a fertility clinic.That didn't work out either.Eventually, we even tried surrogacy."
“Any chance that you went through a company called Elite Family Services?”Susannah asked.
“No,” he said, clearly unfamiliar with the name.“We did it privately, with a surrogate that Lena found in her research.We’d thought we’d finally struck gold.But then, after all that, the surrogate miscarried.That was kind of the last straw for our efforts to have a child, and as it turned out, for our marriage too.”
Jessie could feel a little tingle run along her scalp.She wanted to look over at Susannah to get her reaction, but didn’t want to appear giddy in front of a man who’d just learned that his ex-wife had been murdered.When she asked her next question, she did her best to keep her voice even.
“Do you recall the name of that surrogate?”
“Of course.She was carrying our baby.Her name was Sienna Tropper.”
***
