Page 40 of The Perfect People

“I will admit that Shaw’s notes from her interview with Boyce’s friends were damn comprehensive. She does good work.”

“There you go,” Jessie teased as they got close to the front of the line, “doesn’t it feel good to be positive?”

“Yeah, but positivity doesn’t get us any closer to catching this killer.”

“I know,” Jessie conceded, “and I think we both need to admit what we were hoping we could avoid if Lachlan Restrepo was a credible suspect: that we might be facing another attack tonight.”

“Why the hell do you think I was hesitant to come get coffee, Jessie?” Susannah growled under her breath. “I feel like we’re wasting valuable time here.”

Jessie shook her head vehemently.

“No way,” she insisted. “I’ve always found that I have my biggest breakthroughs come when I get out of the same tired headspace. This is good for us.”

“If you say so,” Susannah grumbled as they moved up in line.

“Besides,” Jessie added, trying to channel the optimist in her, “maybe the descriptions Nicole’s friends are giving the sketch artist right now will help. If there’s sufficient overlap between the new ones and what Trey Killian gave us from the attack on Shasta Mallory yesterday, it might be enough to actually narrow the suspect list in the database for Jamil and Beth.”

“Speaking of those two,” Susannah said, “we still haven’t gotten any hits on connections between our victims. At this point, I’m starting to doubt we will.”

“Let’s check in again,” Jessie suggested as she silently noted that the guy in front of them, who had just ordered a candy bar and paid with cash, was shaking like a leaf.

She was immediately suspicious of him and not only because he looked extremely nervous for someone involved in a simple retail encounter. He also wore his baseball cap so low that it covered the entire top half of his face and he had on an olive-green army jacket when it was easily ninety-five degrees outside. As Susannah started to order, he shuffled off to the left.

“Will you order for me?” Jessie asked her partner. “Just a large iced coffee.”

Susannah nodded and Jessie moved over so that she was right next to the man, whom she realized up close was actually a teenage boy, probably no more than fifteen.

“Hi,” she said, making sure to keep her voice conversational so as not to scare him off, “that candy bar looks good.”

“Um, yeah,” he muttered, clearly attempting to adopt a deeper voice.

“I’d ask if I could try a taste of it,” she whispered, borderline flirtatiously, “but I know you can’t rip the wrapper openandhold on to the tip jar you just slipped under your jacket.”

He immediately froze.

“It’s okay,” she said, still talking in a quietly lilting voice. “You still have time to fix this. But there’s really only one way to do it. Running away right now would be a bad move, considering the lady ordering drinks right now is a police detective. But if you slide back over to the counter, casually put the jar back where it was, and walk out of here, I’ll keep your momentary bad judgment between us.”

The kid looked over at her and she realized that he was closer to thirteen than fifteen and had used a black pen to draw stubble on his face. His eyes were wide with terror, and he was starting to hyperventilate.

“How do I know this isn’t a trick to bust me?” he squeaked.

“If I wanted to do that, it would have already happened,” Jessie told him. “Now I know you don’t really want to rob these hardworking people of the tips they’ve spent all morning earning. So go ahead and put the jar back before they notice it’s gone, and we’ll forget this happened. What do you say?”

He nodded anxiously and shuffled back over next to Susannah, who was now staring at him suspiciously. She glanced over at Jessie, who winked at her. The kid turned around to face her and held his jacket out to indicate that he wasn’t hiding anything. Jessie nodded and then indicated that he should leave. He scurried out without another word. Susannah walked over.

“The drinks will be ready in a minute,” she said. “How much do you think was in the jar?”

“Maybe seventy-five bucks?” Jessie guessed.

“You were nicer than me,” Susannah said. “I’d have him in cuffs right now.”

“He was so young that he had to draw hair on his face,” Jessie told her. “I figured I’d try scaring him straight instead. Besides, it gave me an idea.”

“What’s that?”

Let’s wait until we get our drinks and can talk outside,” Jessie said. “I don’t want anyone to accidentally hear me and choke on their lattes.”

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

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