Page 9 of The Perfect Appearance

“I still have contacts from back in my LAPD profiling days,” Lemmon said. “I don’t have much cause to call on them anymore. But in this case, I wanted to see how things were coming along, and it seems like the answer is not well. It’s being handled by Wilshire Community Police Station and my understanding is that even though they are confident she was murdered by her final patient that day, and her receptionist gave a full description of the man, they don’t have any good suspects. The patient apparently used a fake name.”

“I see,” Jessie said, now much clearer on the reason for this chat.

“I know you’re on medical leave right now,” Lemmon continued, “and I feel guilty even broaching this. But I was hoping you might review the detectives’ work and the case more generally. Maybe you'd notice something they missed and be able to guide them in the right direction. Otherwise, I fear that with momentum waning, Gemma’s killer might never be found.”

Jessie leaned back in her chair and sighed. She knew how Ryan would feel about her even looking over the file of this case. Other than the complicated professional boundaries involved, he’d consider that to be working when she was supposed to be resting.

On the other hand, Janice Lemmon had never asked her for anything personal. Beyond that, she’d always been there for Jessie. She’d been counseling her for over a decade, working through the trauma of having a serial killer for a birth father—a man who had killed her mother when she was a child and later slaughtered her adoptive parents when he found them.

She’d helped Hannah navigate her challenges as well. Not only did she share a murderous father with Jessie, but she was also working through her own issues with blood lust, something that Lemmon had helped her temper to the point that Jessie no longer feared for Hannah’s future.

And just today, she was helping Jessie and Ryan find a path forward so that they could save their marriage. Was she really going to decline to help the person who had been there for her over the last decade? The idea was ridiculous.

“I’ll see what I can do,” she said.

***

She waited until they were safely back in the car and on the road before bringing it up.

They were still in the backseat, as if Grover was their well-armed chauffeur. Only once all the tail-avoiding city street maneuvers had been made and they were on the freeway, did she broach the subject.

“Do you know about the Gemma Britton case?” she asked Ryan.

“Sure,” he said. “I briefly considered taking it on for HSS because of her celebrity status. But ultimately, I decided that we’re just too slammed hunting for Haddonfield. So I left it for Wilshire Station, which has jurisdiction where the murder occurred. Why?”

"That's what Lemmon wanted to talk to me about," Jessie told him. "Apparently, they used to be friends before having a falling out a few years ago. She’s not happy with the progress of the investigation. According to her sources in the department, they’re at a dead end. She asked me to look over the case file.”

She watched Ryan’s face go through a gamut of emotions as she spoke. She had chosen not to massage or sugarcoat the request. After all, they’d just come from a couples counseling session that emphasized how they should be more open and honest with each other. She could see him struggling to respond with that guidance in mind.

“What did you tell her?” he finally asked.

“I said I’d do what I could,” she answered. “I don’t know what that entails though.”

“You know you’re supposed to be lying low, recovering,” he said carefully.

“I do,” she conceded. “But she didn’t ask me to take over the case. She just wanted to know if the assigned detectives might have missed something. I would simply be reviewing a file. If I found something relevant, we could pass it along to them diplomatically.”

“I’m not sure there’s any way to realistically do that without looking like Big Brother,” he replied.

Jessie sighed, doing her best to stay even-keeled. Ryan’s apprehensions were well-founded but to her mind, not deal breakers.

“Listen,” she said. “This woman has been an invaluable support system for us and Hannah. She’s never asked me for anything until now. Ryan, I just feel like flatly saying ‘no’ would be the wrong way to go. I owe her. Looking over the file seems like a meager repayment of everything she’s done for me.”

Ryan didn’t respond. He seemed to be genuinely thinking it over. Then, to her surprise, he spoke to Grover.

“What would this mean from a security perspective?” he asked. “If she were to go into the HSS office at Central Station to review the files. What kind of challenges would that present for you?”

In the front seat, Grove shrugged nonchalantly.

“I’m not sure that it would be much of an issue at all,” he said. “If we can’t keep Jessie safe in her own police station, surrounded by professionals who have her welfare in mind, then we may as well give up. Plus—and I may be drifting outside my professional lane here—it might be good for her. Things are likely to get a little boring cooped up in that house. If this can serve as a temporary distraction, then it might be worthwhile. And if that distraction results in the capture of a killer, all the better.”

“So you’re cool with it?” Ryan confirmed.

"As long as we're just talking document review and not fieldwork, I don’t see an issue,” the bodyguard replied.

Jessie looked over at her husband. She could tell from his expression that he knew he’d already lost this debate, to the extent that he was even putting up a fight. She grabbed his hand, gave it a squeeze and offered her saddest, most hangdog smile.

“What do you think, Captain Hernandez?” she asked sweetly.

---