Page 3 of The Perfect Appearance

But despite avoiding the most acute effects of her concussion so far, she apparently wasn’t out of the woods. There were all manner of potential non-death side effects to her head injury, including memory loss, migraines, spatial disorientation, and generalized confusion, several of which she was experiencing intermittently. That was why she was currently officially on leave from work as a criminal profiler with the LAPD.

Luckily, she didn’t have to justify the leave, as it was ordered by her boss and husband, Captain Ryan Hernandez, who ran Los Angeles’s Central Station, where her specialized unit was based. The unit, Homicide Special Section—or HSS—investigated cases withhigh profiles or intense media scrutiny—typically involving multiple victims or serial killers. They would have make do without their dedicated profiler while they were in the middle of a search for a serial killer at large.

“Here you go,” Ryan said, handing her a water.

"Thanks, babe," she replied, giving him a grin that she hoped would ease some of the anxiety he was clearly feeling.

The average person would never know it to look at his chiseled, six foot, 200-pound frame or hissquare jaw, dark hair, warm brown eyes, and high wattage smile, but she could see the apprehension underneath. He was worried about her. And that was on top of everything else he was dealing with.

She felt for him. Not only was Ryan taking care of his injured wife, but he was also still getting his feet wet as Captain after serving as a detective for yearsandleading a manhunt for a killer who had murdered five people, all connected to Jessie.

For three and a half months now, The Clone Killer had been picking off people that Jessie saved from other murderers. But he had left almost no evidence at the scenes, making it nearly impossible to track him down. That is, until three days ago.

That was when Jessie finally made a breakthrough. The basic description they had of the killer matched that of a tall, blond, gangly guy with glasses in his early twenties who had attacked Hannah a few weeks ago at the Santa Monica Pier. It just so happened that on that same night, the Clone Killer also murdered his latest victim less than a mile from the attack.

Something had clicked for Jessie, who recalled that last fall, after giving a seminar on criminal profiling at UCLA, she’d been approached by a tall, gangly guy with blond hair and glasses. She and her best friend, Kat Gentry, who’d been walking with her, had pulled guns on the guy when he reached for something in his backpack. It turned out to only be a newspaper he claimed to want autographed, but it was clear that he was anextremelydevoted fanboy.

She vaguely remembered him saying that his name was Mark or Mike or something similar. When the HSS research department pulled up student photos of everyone with those names who attended the university last fall, both she and Kat pointed out the same guy, who Hannah also identified as her attacker at the pier.

His name was Mark Haddonfield, and he was a junior at UCLA. It all made sense in light of the totems he’d left at each murder scene including:a red apple, a pencil, a notepad, and most recently, a highlighter. They were all school-related items. He had mentioned that he hoped to take her seminar. This must have been his sick way of expressing his resentment at not getting in.

Once Haddonfield was identified, HSS detectives went straight to his university apartment. Unfortunately, he was gone. According to a neighbor, he left just a day earlier carrying two duffel bags. He hadn’t said where he was going and, despite searching all weekend, they couldn’t pick up his trail. When Ryan came home on both Saturday and Sunday, she could tell by his slumped shoulders that they’d had no success in finding Haddonfield. He’d even admitted that after coming up empty repeatedly, morale on the team was getting low.

Sitting on the couch, Hannah squeezed her hand and Jessie looked over.

“You okay?” her sister asked. “You look like you’re lost in thought.”

Jessie ran her hand through her shoulder-length brown hair and looked over at the young woman who shared the same green eyes as her. She tried to smile, not wanting to worry her.

“Just waiting for our protectors to make their presentation,” she replied.

“Me too,” Hannah said. “I’m hoping they have some ideas that don’t require me hiding in a dark hole for weeks on end.”

A little bit of resentment seeped into her voice as she said it, which Jessie couldn’t blame her for. Hannah wasn’t supposed to be on this couch with her right now. She was supposed to be starting her freshman year at the University of California Irvine, where today was the first day of classes. But that was on pause because of the other crisis they were all dealing with, the one that had two professional bodyguards at their house.

Last Friday, as Jessie was on this very couch recovering from her head injury, a woman named Ash Pierce was escaping from an armored prison truck taking her from the Central California Women’s Facility southto the Twin Towers Correctional Facility here in L.A.. During her escape, she’d murdered four prison transport guards.

But Ash Pierce wasn’t just any escaped prisoner. She was also a formerMarines Special Operations element leader and, later, a CIA asset who conducted covert assassinations for the Agency. Since then she’d become a hitwoman for hire and her most recent job was to kidnap, torture, and murder Hannah and Kat—all on video—which she would send to Jessie and the news media.

Luckily, Hannah had managed to get the upper hand and disable Pierce, though not before the woman had tortured and nearly killed Kat. The prison truck she escaped from was bringing her back to L.A. to stand trial for what she did to them. But now she was free, somewhere in Los Angeles, with a grudge against Hannah and Kat and the means to act on it.

That was why Grover Nix and Rufus Harrington were huddled in the corner of the living room, theoretically discussing how to keep them safe. Nix ran a security company with the intentionally bland name, Secure Analysis Services, or SAS, which until a few months ago, had protected a pharma billionaire. But when the man was murdered by his own wife, they lost their gig. Fortunately for them, Jessie was the one who solved the billionaire’s murder and didn’t view his death as a failure on their part, so she decided to hire them to keep herself and the people she loved safe.

Rufus had already been keeping watch on Kat and Hannah for two weeks now while Hannah worked as an intern at Kat’s detective agency. But with Pierce on the loose, one guy watching out for two people didn’t seem like enough.

“Everyone ready?” Grover asked, his relaxed, British accent belying his experience.

The man had formerlybeen an SAS soldier in the British Army, serving in both Iraq and Afghanistan. While he hadn’t worn the uniform in over fifteen years, his time in the military was what had gotten him multiple private security and bodyguard positions, including this one. For those in the know, the name of his company was a cheeky reference to his past work.

“We’vebeenready,” Hannah muttered under her breath.

“Go for it, Grover,” Jessie said quickly, hoping he hadn’t heard her sister’s grumbling.

The man stepped forward, wearing a crisp suit and sporting a gray crewcut. Though he wasa solid-looking man in his forties, no reasonable person would be able to guess his profession based on how he presented himself, which Jessie considered a plus. He was able to blend in rather than be a target or make his protectee one.

“Right then,” he said, “here’s the plan: I’m going to be sticking around with Jessie for the foreseeable future. While we don’t think Ash Pierce is focused on you, one never knows. Plus, with this Haddonfield bloke on the run and possibly desperate, we can’t rule out the possibility that he may have decided to stop hunting the people you’ve saved and come for you directly.”

“That’s two possible threats against her,” Ryan pointed out. “No offense, but are you sure that you’ll be enough?”

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