Page 44 of The Perfect Appearance

The last few days had been a little hectic after all. It was only five days ago that, after being imprisoned for two months, she had escaped from an armored transport vehicle. The undertaking required her to take a drug that induced massive vomiting, creating a huge mess in the truck. Also messy was navigating the blood and brains of the four prison transport guards she’d killed as part of her getaway.

And that was just the beginning of the hassles. With police sirens blaring as they got closer, she had to flee the scene barefoot and wearing prison garb. It was sheer luck that just a few blocks over, she found a woman getting into her car after her shift at the grocery store. Ash had carjacked her, getting her to drive to a part of town closer to her preferred safe house.

Once there, she’d had the woman pull into an alley, where she eliminated her, took her clothes and cash, put the body in the trunk, and walked the rest of the four miles to the safe house, which was really just a small apartment unit she rented under an alias. It was in a giant complex in East Hollywood where no one knew their neighbors, which was how she liked it.

As Ash reluctantly got out of the tub, she recalled how she had camped out at that apartment for the weekend, using the brief respite to bleach her dark hair blonde, update her disguises, check the status of her multiple bank accounts and fake IDs, and reacquaint herself with what was going on in the lives of Jessie Hunt, Hannah Dorsey, Kat Gentry, and Ryan Hernandez.

Once all that was done, she applied the makeup and facial putty that made her look a decade older, shimmied into her fat suit, put on the shoes that added four inches to her petite, narrow build, grabbed her small travel bag, and left the apartment for a spot with even less human interaction. She had the perfect place in mind.

While toweling off from the tub, Ash recalled that while behind bars at theCentral California Women’s Facilityin Chowchilla, a fellow inmate named Lettie had told her why she was there. Lettie had scammed a rich woman who lived in a Hollywood Hills mansion, convincing the lady to let her stay at the guest house on the property. It took days for the woman to mention it to her husband, who was less gullible. He called the cops and Lettie was busted, but not before resisting arrest and breaking one officer’s nose. Ash was considering pulling the same routine, but instead of scamming anyone, she’d just break into the guest house without the family’s knowledge.

As it turned out, that wasn’t necessary. A little research revealed to her that the Carroll family, who owned the house, was on vacation and staying at a Mediterranean villa through the end of September. That mean that Ash would have over a week and a half of uninterrupted time in a secure, isolated mansion before they returned. It was ideal.

So she took a cab up to the neighborhood, walked the rest of the way to the home, and knocked on the door. The live-in housekeeper, Livia, answered. It only took a short but forceful interrogation to learn that Livia was housesitting solo until the Carrolls returned. She also learned that Livia was an undocumented immigrant from Venezuela and that she was alone in the country, though she sent money back to her family in the hopes that they could join her soon.

That meant that no one would come looking for Livia until the Carrolls got back. With that knowledge, she quickly dispatched the housekeeper and dumped her in the large chest freezer in the garage. With that settled, she got down to business.

She drove Rick Carroll’s Porsche downtown to watch Kat Gentry. Though the private eye must have known about Ash’s escape, she certainly wasn’t in hiding. She still walked the city streets pursuing whatever case she was working. And walking beside her was her behemoth of a boyfriend, Sheriff’s deputy Mitch Connor, who had once allowed Ash to stay at his mountain cabin at Kat’s request, back when they had her as a client and believed her lie that she was an abused woman hiding from her common law husband.

Ash wrapped herself in a robe belonging to Renanta Carrol, the matriarch of the mansion, as she thought back on how easily Kat and Connor had been fooled. She felt confident that if she wanted to, she could efficiently take out both of them. But what fun was that? Just shooting them was no special feat. She’d want to take down Deputy Connor hand to hand. It would be like felling a Redwood tree. And she intended to take extra time with Kat before doing her in.

But after trailing them for a few hours, she realized that she didn’t need to get to Kat anytime soon. The former Army Ranger put up a good front, walking tall and chesty. But Ash could see how damaged the woman was. Her eyes constantly darted about, and every loud sound made her jump slightly. She was on permanent high alert, waiting for the next shoe to drop. Ash, proud that her handiwork was the cause of Kat’s pain, decided to let the shoe hover in the air for a while, especially since someone else was a higher priority.

She’d driven the Porsche over to Jessie’s house and kept watch there from a distance. Unfortunately, the profiler seemed to have already set up a security plan. Jessie and Ryan weren’t visible, but Ash had followed an unmarked car driven by an unidentified man to the Central Police Station, where they both worked. She suspected that they were somewhere in that car, even if she couldn’t see them. And it was clear that the unidentified man was private security that Jessie had hired with her enormous personal wealth.

As Ash ambled into the mansion's primary bedroom and began to get dressed, she had to acknowledge one thing: whoever the security guy was, he was good. He drove quickly and maneuvered deftly through traffic, eventually losing her. Only a hunch had led her to the station, where she eventually caught a brief glimpse of him pulling into the garage. But even if she'd lost them entirely, Ash wouldn't have been devastated.

Her assignment had always been to punish Jessie by killing her loved ones, not by actually taking the profiler out. And though she was no longer getting paid for the job, that was still her focus. But she had to prioritize. Ryan was a secondary target, at least for now. Kat was gettable whenever the mood struck. But Ash was focused on someone else.

She wanted to get the little bitch who had put her in her current position. Hannah Dorsey was the reason she was in hiding right now. Hannah was the one who had upended her two million dollar payday by interfering with Kat’s torture. by using a baton and dumb luck to disarm her, by getting her arrested and thrown in the slammer for months. Hannah was the reason she now regularly got sudden, splitting headaches that made her vision blur and her teeth grind. First and foremost, Hannah had to pay.

But Ash couldn’t find her. She hadn’t seen her enter or leave Jessie’s house once. Multiple cars came and went, all likely part of the security team that Jessie had hired, and Ash guessed that Hannah had been in one of them at some point. But she couldn’t follow all of them at once. And she couldn’t even be sure that Hannahhadleft the house, which was a veritable fortress.

She knew the girl wasn't at UC Irvine, where she was supposed to have started school yesterday. She had never moved into her dorm room, and she hadn't attended any of her classes. A simple hack had proven that she wasn't taking the classes over Zoom or online either.

She wasn’t using her phone and there was no indication that Jessie, Ryan, or Kat had received calls from unusual numbers that might be Hannah using a burner. It was like she had dropped off the grid.

Ash had tried to access her through the security team but had no luck with that either. All the cars were either unmarked or had license plates that led nowhere. The windows were tinted with a special material that made photography impossible. Any images she took caused a massive reflection that prevented personal identification.

Whoever Jessie had hired was a pro, and equally important, discreet. Ash probably could have determined who was doing the work, but that would have required both time and reaching out to assets in the know, and she couldn’t risk the latter. So she was left flailing.

She ambled into Renata Carroll’s giant walk-in closet and scanned the multitude of outfits as she tried to think of a solution to the problem. How was she going to find Hannah Dorsey, much less make her pay for the indignities she’d inflicted upon Ash’s honor?

As she pondered the question, she knelt down to get a better look at Renata’s array of high heels. The woman had at least three dozen pairs, all on chrome shoe racks. She noticed a shoebox stuffed behind one rack in the corner, and her curiosity piqued, tugged it out.

Opening it, she discovered a delightfully nasty little surprise, Inside the box was a collection of sexually explicit selfie photos with Renata and a man who was definitelynother husband, Rick. And it was clear that these weren’t old pictures with a long-ago lover. She looked about the same age as she did in the portraits all over the house of her with her hubby and two little kids.

Renata had a secret life that she obviously enjoyed revisiting occasionally. Apparently, she wasn't concerned about Rick entering her walk-in closet and stumbling across them. Ash immediately liked the woman more. After all, we all have our secrets.

The thought made her sit up straight on the closet floor. A brainstorm was circulating at the outer edges of her mind, and she didn't want to lose it. Then, all at once, it came to her. There was another way to find Hannah, one that should have been obvious to her from the start.

She stood up and headed to Rick Carroll’s office to do a little research. If her theory was right, she might find out where Hannah was hiding before the day was done.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

Kat felt bad for Gila Jabari.

It was one thing to protect an asset when she was in her office or even walking down the street. But asking her bodyguard to keep her safe under these circumstances was another matter entirely.

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