Page 17 of The Perfect Obsession
A minute later, Wren exited the bakery and headed back to the intersection, passing by them.She glanced in their direction but otherwise gave no indication that she recognized them.Hannah was impressed.
Just then, the man headed back their way as well.As far as Hannah could tell, he’d never shown any interest in catching a bus.As he approached, she pulled out her phone and held it up slightly, pretending to scroll.But she was actually preparing to take photos of the man as he got closer.Beside her, Kat fiddled with the car’s display panel, as if she had no interest in the man just outside.
“Don’t make it obvious,” she muttered under her breath, even though the windows were closed.
“I’m not,” Hannah said as she snapped multiple images of the guy.“I’m just a shallow blonde teenager fixated on her social media page.I’m busting out my most ditzy expression for this.”
As the man passed by her, she did actually switch from her camera app to Instagram so that if he glanced over at her, he wouldn’t see anything suspicious.But his attention was on Wren.Hannah checked the side-view mirror, waiting until he began to step into the crosswalk before returning to the photos and pinching in for a close-up.
“What do I do now?”Wren asked, back on the other side of the street.
“Continue into work as if everything’s cool,” Kat said.
“Okay,” Wren said, “but did you get a good look at him?”
Hannah held out her phone for Kat to see.The man they were looking at was in his mid-thirties with black hair hidden under a purple L.A.Lakers baseball cap.Hewore jeans and a bland, button-down gray shirt.He was pale and had a wispy black mustache.More importantly, he had a prominent mole in the center of his left cheek.
“We sure did,” Hannah said.“And I’m willing to go out on a limb here and say that we may have found our guy.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jessie looked at the clock and sighed in frustration.
It was 11:27 A.M.She and Ryan, after their parenthood discussion and near-silent drive back, had returned to Central Station well over an hour ago.And in that time, even with the help of Jamil and Beth, they hadn’t made as much progress as she would have hoped.
As they feared, the Ring camera footage from Diana Hartwell’s front door wasn’t helpful.From the time a package was dropped off yesterday at 3:34 P.M.until Carmen, the housekeeper, showed up this morning at 7:58 A.M., there was no sign of anyone out front.And since there was no footage of the side entrance, they still had no way to visually ID the killer.
They still hadn’t heard anything back from Drew Hartwell after what was now a total of four calls.It had reached the point that Ryan had floated the idea that maybe he’d never gone to this conference at all.
“Maybe he faked it so he’d have an alibi,” he suggested, “then snuck back home and killed his wife before fleeing the country.”
Jessie wasn’t going to dismiss the idea, but Jamil did.He and Beth, after some bureaucratic wrangling, had finally gotten access to much of both Diana’s and Drew’s financial information and digital correspondence.
“If he secretly snuck back to L.A.to kill her, he’s doing a pretty good job of covering his tracks,” he said.
“What do you mean?”Ryan asked.
“I have credit card receipts from last night at a hotel bar in Boston during the window of death for his wife.There was also a purchase at a nearby coffee shop a few hours ago.So either he’s still there or he lent his card to someone who is.”
“You buried the lead, Jamil,” Jessie pointed out.“If we know his hotel, we can call and have them try to locate him.”
“I’ll reach out to them now,” Jamil said, looking slightly embarrassed that he hadn’t thought of the idea himself.
“I may have something else worth looking into,” Beth said, staring at her screen.
“What’s that?”Ryan asked.
“I’m going through Diana Hartwell’s emails, and it looks like she was an alumna of the same high school as Caroline Sheffield, Thornfield Academy.In fact, it looks like they were in the same graduating class.”
“That seems notable,” Jessie said, starting to get excited.“What are the odds of that?”
“Considering that it’s an elite boarding school in the affluent San Rafael Hills section of Pasadena with just over a hundred total students, not great,” Beth said before her eyes lit up.
“What?”Jessie asked.
“There’s more,” Beth said, barely able to get the words out fast enough.“There are emails between the two of them.These women knew each other.The communication is sporadic, only every few months, sometimes not for a year or more, but it looks like they were friends.”
Jessie was about to press further when Ryan’s phone rang.His expression told her that her questions would have to wait.
