Page 32 of The Perfect People

“I think that if you can answer that question, you’ll be well on your way to catching your killer.”

“Right now, it feels like we’re a long way from that,” she said with a heavy sigh. “Just like I get the impression that the rest of the team wasn’t making much progress on the Clone Killer.”

“To be honest Jessie,” he admitted, “other than what you have Jamil and Beth doing—contacting all those potential victims and warning them to be alert—we’re at an impasse. All the other HSS detectives are working their own cases. No one has had time to follow up on it today.”

“Wonderful,” Jessie muttered, “so we’re nowhere. Jamil didn’t say it, but I could tell my request to contact all those people was pretty overwhelming, and that wasbeforeI told him to put the sketch of Shasta Mallory’s attacker in the database too.”

She adjusted herself on the couch beside him and felt a twinge in her own shoulder, though she doubted it was anything like what Kat had suffered after her stabbing at the hands of Ash Pierce. Still, the pain reminded her of how she’d gotten hurt and that she owed Ryan an additional update.

“I meant to tell you this earlier, but there was a little incident today,” she said, before quickly adding, “nothing major. Susannah and I were apprehending a suspect and he got rowdy. I got knocked over and hit the ground.”

Ryan tensed up but said nothing. She continued.

“I landed on my shoulder pretty hard and bumped my head,” she said. “Even though it didn’t feel like much, Susannah insisted that we go to urgent care to get it checked out. They did multiple tests, which confirmed that I didn’t suffer any head injury and I’ve felt fine ever since. But I didn’t want to keep it from you.”

She’d had a bad habit in the past, which Ryan had called her on, of underplaying and even disregarding past close calls after her concussion in the mineshaft collapse last March. Now she was trying to turn over a new leaf and this was part of it.

“Thanks for being honest with me,” he said, taking her hand and squeezing it softly.

“Sure,” she said, glancing away, realizing that her revelation didn’t in any way resolve the larger trust issues that had been plaguing them for months. She felt a sudden need to change the subject, even awkwardly. “You said Decker was asking for updates on the Mallory case? How come? Was he getting blowback from Chantilly Mace?”

The look in Ryan’s eyes indicated that he knew she was desperately trying to steer the conversation away from their personal travails, but he apparently decided not to push the issue.

“Not from her,” he said. “In fact, Decker said that when Mace called him, she referred to you and Valentine as ‘a couple of badass bitches,’ which he understood to be a compliment. However, the response was less flattering from some of Mallory’s other big-name clients. He said a group of artists are unhappy with the pace of the investigation and are going to say so in a press conference tomorrow morning in front of police headquarters.

“Great,” Jessie muttered sarcastically, “that won’t turn things into even more of a circus. I guess we’ll just have to deal with it.”

“If you don’t like that, I’ve got an unrelated update for you that’s going to make you equally unhappy,” he said, his jaw clenching as he spoke.

“Okay,” Jessie said, trying not to visibly react.

She was still getting over his last big, unexpected revelation, the one where, for months, he hid from her the fact that a mental patient had made threats against him, Hannah, and Kat because he didn’t want her to worry; the one that led to hitwoman Ash Pierce causing the injuries that Kat was just now recovering from and almost led to both her and Hannah’s deaths.

You’re making a super duper effort to let that go, Jessie. Keep up the good work.

As she silently chastised herself for her inability to forgive, she prayed that what he was about to tell her wouldn’t compound the problem. While outwardly she remained placid, inside, she braced herself.

“I just got word that Ash Pierce’s trial has been moved up,” he said, looking at the TV, even though it wasn’t on. “Apparently, she’s prioritizing the ‘speedy’ part of the trial, so she’s being transferred from Lompoc Penitentiary down here to Twin Towers in L.A.”

“When is that happening?” Jessie asked, doing her best to ignore the pit that had suddenly developed in her gut.

“No exact word yet,” he said. “I was just told that it’s going to happen ‘imminently.’ I don’t know if that means two days or two weeks.”

“Which means that Hannah needs to emotionally prepare to testify earlier than she expected,” Jessie noted.

“Yeah,” Ryan said, “that was the main reason I thought you should know. Sorry for bringing you down.”

“No, thanks for telling me,” she told him. “I’ll break the news to her.”

“This weekend?” he asked.

Jessie thought about that prospect. Ash Pierce, even shackled and in a prison jumpsuit, was what nightmares were made of. Though she was petite and far from physically imposing, the former marine and CIA assassin turned contract killer was adept at deception and, as Kat learned the hard way, torture. Though Hannah had managed to just barely outwit and outmaneuver her, the experience had left internal scars, including nights when she woke up screaming, her body covered in sweat.

“No,” she said, “that would really mess her up. She deserves to have one weekend of fun, free from anxiety about this crap. I’ll tell her after the holiday.”

Ryan gave her a look which he immediately tried to erase, but it was too late. She recognized it. It was his “so you’re keeping something from her to protect her?” expression. He didn’t say a word to that effect, which would have been relationship suicide, but it lingered there between them.

“Have you heard anything from her today?” he asked quickly, clearly trying to move past the moment.

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