Page 64 of The Perfect People

“Why don’t I go grab your backpack?” he offered quickly. “I’ll be right back.”

He limped inside, reminding Jessie how Hannah said he’d been injured in the altercation with the attacker. Ryan quickly moved over to confer with the SMPD officers, leaving Jessie and Hannah alone.

“He seems nice,” Jessie said.

“He is,” Hannah said.

“Nice tongue too?” Jessie asked, before quickly adding, “I’m sorry, I had to. I swear, that’s the only teasing I’ll do.”

Hannah blushed but didn’t scold her for it.

“He’s pretty great,” she said. “Really easygoing. Even after what happened last night, he just kind of went with the flow, didn’t get all tensed up over it. I thought he might suddenly get distant or something, but no.”

“That’s good, right?” Jessie said, sensing that her sister was conflicted.

“It is, of course,” Hannah answered hesitantly, before releasing the floodgates, “but it got me thinking—he didn’t freak out, but maybe he should have. It wouldn’t be unreasonable for him to be asking himself if it’s safe to get involved with me. I mean, I’m askingmyselfthat. Let’s be real: will it ever truly be possible for me to have a genuine romantic relationship without the threat of danger hovering over me or the person I’m involved with? Won’t I always be putting them at risk because people might use them to get to me? Might another assassin try to use them as bait to take me out like Ash Pierce did? And setting Chris aside, will I everbe able to trust a guy I meet without doing a full background check on him first? Long term, what kind of romantic future does someone like me really have? And short term, can Ieverjust go on a normal date?”

With each word Hannah spoke, the lump in Jessie’s chest got larger and larger until she thought it might burst out of her like an alien in a horror film. She was speaking aloud the very fears that Jessie had been carrying for her sister ever since she assumed guardianship of her, even before that.

She knew how hard it would be for Hannah because remembered how difficult it had been for herself. She recalled how poorly she had chosen the first time she got married. After all, that man ended up trying to kill her.

“That’sa lot,” she said with a bittersweet smile, then reached out and pulled her sister in for a hug.

“That’s all you’ve got for me?” Hannah asked in a meek voice, muffled by being pressed against Jessie’s shoulder.

“I don’t have the answers, sweetie,” she whispered into her ear as she squeezed her tight. “I wish I did. But I think you’re doing a pretty good job so far. Chris seems like a great guy. And I’m happy to do a background check on him to make sure.”

She heard Hannah giggle and sighed happily at the sound of it. Releasing her from the hug, she grabbed her by the shoulders and looked her in the eyes.

“No matter what, I’ll be here to help you navigate your way through the mess, okay?”

“Okay,” Hannah said.

For the briefest of seconds, she considered mentioning assassin Ash Pierce’s imminent transfer from Lompoc Penitentiary to Twin Towers in L.A. for her earlier trial date but decided that they’d dealt with enough heavy stuff for now. That piece of bad news could wait until later.

“How’s Kat?” her sister asked, switching subjects before it became an issue. “Is she still coming back to town tomorrow?”

“Yes,” Jessie assured her. “And she’s still planning to reopen the detective agency the next day. She wants you to know she’d love to have her intern back if you’re up for it. But considering the unexpected excitement last night, you should feel free to press pause.”

“No way,” Hannah said. “I wouldn’t want to let her down, especially since I only have two weeks left before college starts. Besides, with everything she’s been through, she’ll need all the help she can get.”

Jessie couldn’t handle any more talk of the future, particularly how, imminently now, her sister would be leaving the nest. Feeling the lump in her chest from earlier migrating to her stomach, she quickly tried to shut it down.

“Now did anything else noteworthy happen this weekend,” she asked abruptly, “I mean other than being attacked by a tall, creepy guy on the pier?”

“Actually, kind of,” Hannah said. “At lunch yesterday, there was adifferentcreepy guy staring at me, but when I confronted him, he apologized and said it was because he recognized me as your sister. He asked me to say ‘hi’ and ‘thank you’ to you.”

“Oh, who was that?”

“I think his name was something Gelman.”

“Andy Gelman?” Jessie asked, surprised.

“That’s it!” Hannah said. “So youdoknow him then? He wasn’t full of it?”

“No, I know him,” Jessie said, that uncomfortable tingle she knew so well starting to percolate in her gut. “I just thought he was out of the country.”

“He said that he was,” Hannah explained. “It was kind of weird, now that I think about it. He said he moved away because he was messed up or something. But he’s back—said he has a beach house around here now. He also said that you helped him out of a jam and that he wanted you to know that he really appreciated it. What exactly happened with him?”

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