Page 6 of The Perfect Revenge
That was when, during a violent confrontation with a female serial killer named Rachel Thompson, Jessie had plunged a knife into the woman's heart.On the surface, it was defensible, and she'd been cleared of wrongdoing by the Force Investigation Division.After all, Thompson was trying to kill her with the very knife that ended up in her chest.Jessie was weak and near passing out during their clash, and knew that if she did, Thompson would surely kill here.And yet.
Jessie may have technically been justified in what she did, but that didn’t explain how she’d felt when she acted.She still remembered the sense of bloodthirsty fury she felt as she forced the long blade into Thompson’s chest.Equally vivid in her mind was the satisfaction, even relish, she’d experienced in the moment before she finally collapsed on top of the woman, briefly blacking out.
She knew she’d crossed some kind of line, one that she’d been carefully toeing for months.So she used the excuse of a head injury she suffered during the fight—which was a real concern based on her concussion history—to take a medical sabbatical to recover.Other than Ryan, Hannah, her best friend Kat Gentry, and her psychiatrist, Dr.Janice Lemmon, no one knew where she was going or the real reason why.
A bump in the road shook Jessie out of her reverie.Susannah was still giving Drake a hard time, though her tone now was more playfully teasing than genuinely angry.Still, Jessie tried to shut out her partner's voice and focus on her own situation.After all, they were currently en route to a crime scene, and she needed to be in the right headspace when they got there.
She thought about the anti-anger coping techniques they’d taught her at the Ionian Center, some of which she was already familiar with from her sessions with Dr.Lemmon.They included breathing practices, structured counting, and guided imagery, where she was instructed to imagine herself in a serene environment.
The only problem was that the Ionian Center staff thought they were treating Jessie for standard anger management issues.They didn’t understand the true scope of that anger, which was better described as bloodlust.And she couldn’t exactly be forthcoming.
It's not like she could say, "I have an intense desire to exact violent retribution on suspects whom I deem worthy of punishment, and recently, I acted on that desire by killing a woman."She didn't know what the staff's legal obligation was if she made such a confession, but she had no intention of finding out.
As a result, she didn’t have total confidence that the counting, breathing, or visualization was going to get the job done when the time came.It turned out that her concerns were valid.
On her first case back last week, she caught up to the killer she was after.The woman, Vanessa Winston, was in a standoff with her intended victim, a matchmaker named Elise Prager.Winston was a sympathetic figure, a wife whose husband was obsessed with another woman and who agreed to couple swaps to keep him interested.
Prager, the potential victim, was more personally odious.She had organized the swaps and showed no concern for the emotional fallout her business caused.When Prager taunted Winston, Jessie had briefly been tempted to take out the woman herself.
She’d managed to control that urge by employing a technique she’d learned from the widower of a victim in a prior case.The man, a Major League baseball player named Kai Cody, explained that he had developed the technique over the course of his career and how it helped him in big moments in games, or when he was 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,” he had told her.“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.”
In the moment of confrontation between Winston and Prager, Jessie had used his technique, fixating on a small detail.In that case, it was the minutiae of Winston’s face.Poring all her focus into that helped Jessie muffle her own fury.It also allowed her to note Winston’s twitching eyebrows, which tipped her off to the fact that the woman was heading over the edge.
Unfortunately, before Jessie could do anything, Winston attacked Prager, stabbing her.Jessie was able to apprehend her, but it was too late.Prager was dead.In the aftermath of the incident, Jessie told herself that everything had happened too fast, that there was nothing she could have done to prevent it.And in her head, she knew that was true.
But in a place deep down, she wondered if she’d hesitated in responding because she felt more of a kinship with Winston, the killer, than with her victim.The very possibility sent a shiver up her spine.If it was true, then she wondered what that meant for her.
She knew she had to get control of these feelings, once and for all.If she couldn’t, she had to question whether she could continue in this job, or if they’d even let her.
“We’re here.”
Susannah’s words brought her back to the present.They were parked across the street from a giant mansion that was marked off with police tape.Jessie had been so caught up in her own drama that she’d zoned out for the last part of the ride here.But she kept that to herself.
“Okay,” she said as if everything was fine, “let’s get in there.
CHAPTER FOUR
They had to dodge multiple vehicles to get to the house.
Jessie took note of the three squad cars, the ambulance, the medical examiner's van, and the crime scene truck.It seemed that she and Susannah were the last ones to the party.As they walked up the path to the front door, Susannah flashed a badge, and an officer stepped out of their way.They ducked under the police tape and approached the front door.
The mansion was an enormous Tudor-style thing, with a pitched roof, half-timbered frame, and white stucco everywhere.When they reached the front door, they were met by an officer in his late thirties or early forties.He had salt and pepper hair with a matching mustache.He was on the short side, with a wiry frame and steely gray eyes.
“You’re the detectives?”he said without much enthusiasm.
“I’m Detective Valentine,” Susannah corrected.“This is our profiler, Jessie Hunt.”
“I’ve heard the name,” the officer said, looking unimpressed.
“And who might you be?”Susannah asked.Her tone suggested that she wasn’t all that impressed with him either.
“Sergeant Beau Carson.West L.A.Station.Since I was originally assigned to the call, I guess I’ll be your liaison.”
“Great,” Jessie replied, trying to compensate for the sourness between the other two with a little pep.“How about you fill us in on what you know so far, Sergeant?”
“Follow me,” he said, turning and leading them into the house.
