The Perfect Facade (A Jessie Hunt Psychological Suspense Thriller—Book Twelve)

by Blake Pierce

  Jimmy knew she was baiting him and tried not to let his anger cloud his judgment. If she was aware of his background and was here anyway, she was someone he shouldn’t underestimate. If he had to take drastic action, there was always the crowbar in the storage basket on the floor just a few feet away, hidden behind his black umbrella. But he didn’t want to resort to that if it could be avoided.

  “Maybe you should tell me why you’re really here,” he said. “It’s obviously not to sell candy.”

  “I want to know where she is,” the girl said flatly.

  “Where who is?” he asked carefully.

  “I think you know.”

  “No, I don’t,” he replied, hoping he sounded convincing.

  “Mindy Stokes, the girl who walked past here every day for months—what did you do with her?”

  Jimmy suddenly felt a wave of relief. Now that the girl had revealed her hand, he knew how to proceed.

  “I assume you’ve searched my house and didn’t find her or else the police would already be here.”

  “No, I haven’t searched it,” she said. “I actually just came in here in a second ago. But I assumed you wouldn’t be so stupid as to keep her here. So where is she?”

  “You know, little miss, you really should know your facts before you make accusations. Don’t you watch the news?”

  For the first time, he saw hesitation in her eyes, and maybe a little bit of fear. He liked it. The sight made him salivate more than any burger could.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “Clearly you didn’t hear. They found that girl a half hour ago, forty miles east of here in La Verne. The guy who took her is in custody and she’s at the hospital.”

  He enjoyed watching the girl’s mouth drop open. The stirring he felt was no longer just in his chest. Casually, he moved to his right, resting his hand on the wall just above the storage basket where the crowbar waited.

  “So you know what that means,” he said, lingering on each word. “First of all, the police who questioned me about that case will probably steer well clear of me for a while. They don’t want me suing them for harassment. And with that girl now safe, I’m no longer a suspect. I’m just a regular guy trying to piece together a life who stumbled upon an intruder in his home. And no one could blame a man for protecting his home.”

  He smiled at her as he allowed that recognizable rush to course through his system, the one he’d spent so many months trying to bottle up, the one he got when he could almost taste the anticipation of what was to come.

  After years of fighting this battle with himself, he knew when it was lost. The need was too strong now for him to turn back. It was out of his hands. But very soon, she would be in them.

  *

  Hannah knew she was in trouble. Jimmy Poston’s entire demeanor had changed since he revealed the news about Mindy Stokes. He had a look she recognized from nature documentaries, when a lion stalks a gazelle on an African savannah. His eyes were fixed on her and his body was taut, ready to pounce.

  Somehow, she had allowed herself to get trapped in the home of a convicted sexual predator, without anyone aware of her location. She had Mace and a retractable baton, but both were currently in the small backpack she wore, an oversight that loomed especially large at the moment.

  She watched him sidle over to his right and rest his hand just above a basket on the floor with an umbrella in it. She had the sneaking suspicion that wasn’t the only item in there. His lips parted and he gave her a wide, contorted smile. It reminded her of Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight.

  She could feel that he was only moments from doing something. And that realization caused an unexpected reaction in her. Yes, there was fear, lurking deep in the pit of her stomach. But a different sensation was clawing its way to prominence—exhilaration.

  This was what she’d come here for. This was why she’d investigated the missing girl’s case in the first place, why she’d broken into Kat’s office—for this moment. This was the high she’d told herself she had to live without but now knew she couldn’t. The tingling in her fingertips, the beating of her heart against her chest wall, the sudden dryness in her mouth were all signs that she was still alive, still capable of feeling something other than boredom and mild disregard.

  The cacophony of jumbled emotions was thrilling. But Hannah reminded herself that she wouldn’t be feeling them for long if she was killed. This was a dangerous situation and getting out of it would require more than just a willingness to take it on. It required quick thinking. It required a plan.

  Unfortunately, she didn’t have one. So, without a clear idea of how to react, she fell back on a technique she’d used in other life and death situations. She tried to stall.

  “You’re not a bad-looking guy, Jimmy,” she lied, doing her best to keep the nerves out of her voice. “Why force young girls to do things I bet you could get adult women to agree to?”

  He looked briefly taken aback, as if he wondered if she might be propositioning him. But it was momentary. After the flicker of hesitation, he seemed somehow even angrier, clearly feeling that she was taunting him.

  Luckily all she needed was that moment to gather herself. By the time his hesitation had turned to grim determination, she had moved into the defensive posture that Jessie had taught her. Then she waited, ready to counter whatever move he made next.

  “You’re a little bitch, you know that?” he snarled.

  “So I’ve been told,” she replied, her attention fixed on his eyes, which involuntarily darted to whatever was behind that umbrella in the basket.

  “I’m going to beat the bitch out of you,” he said, his voice dripping with malice.

  “I’ve been told that before too,” she said, aware that each barb was filling him with the very fury that might cloud his judgment enough for her to escape.

  As she waited for his response, she studied him. At five foot nine, she was about the same height as Jimmy Poston. But he was no longer the doughy guy from the photo in the sex offender registry. Maybe he’d taken up weightlifting behind bars.

  Whatever it was, she guessed that his listed weight of 170 pounds was more muscle than fat now. That gave him a good forty pounds on her. He had likely made the same assessment about their sizes and found her wanting. That was fine with her. She liked being underestimated.

  His right hand was now hovering above the basket, twitching slightly. It would happen any second. Hannah exhaled deeply.

  “The first thing I’m gonna do is bash out the teeth in that smart mouth of yours,” he growled.

  She knew he was on the verge and that almost anything she did now would push him over the edge. So she kept it simple and smiled, showing all those teeth in her smart mouth. That did it.

  Seeing her toothy grin made him snap. His hands flew toward the basket, one shoving the umbrella to the side as the other reached for something black and metal. Hannah took a quick step forward and kicked, knocking him into the wall as he pulled out what she now saw was a crowbar.

  The force of her kick made him lose his balance and he would have fallen to the floor if not for the wall. As he scrambled to recover, she kicked him again, this time in the kneecap. He yelped as it bent back awkwardly. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to make him fall and he lunged forward, swinging the bar over his head.

  Hannah dashed backward, barely avoiding the weapon as it whizzed in front of her, making the nearby air ripple. Poston was slightly off-balance from the force of charging forward and Hannah took advantage, sidestepping him and shoving him in the back, sending him farther in the direction his momentum was already taking him.

  She knew she only had a moment before he recovered and used it to grab the knob of the front door and fling it open. But she could sense him leaping back toward her and knew she didn’t have enough time to dart out of the house before he’d be able to land a blow with the crowbar.

  So instead of moving away, she bent into a crouch as she spun around t
o face him, and launched herself back toward him. She felt the force of the bar smash into her upper back just as her shoulder connected with his stomach. Ignoring the shock of pain that exploded between her shoulder blades, she churned her legs like a football lineman, sending Poston backward.

  He stumbled and collapsed as she toppled forward onto him, making sure to use all the power she could muster to pound her shoulder into his abdomen. As his body slammed into the floor and hers into him, she heard a loud, gasping exhalation escape his lips.

  She skidded past him and crashed into the bookshelf against the back wall of the living room. The crown of her head smashed into the lowest shelf with a hard crack that made her wince involuntarily.

  Looking over at Poston, she saw that he was lying on his back, gasping. She’d clearly knocked the wind out of him. Ignoring the ringing in her ears, she forced herself to get to her feet. Poston was rolling onto his side, trying to push up off the floor.

  Her attacker was still somewhat incapacitated. She was upright. The door was open. It was time to go. She staggered toward the door, pretending that her entire back wasn’t pulsating with pain and that her head didn’t feel like a gumball machine that had been shattered, sending pieces flying across the floor.

  Poston reached up sluggishly to grab at her leg. Something about the act made her pain give way to rage and she flung her foot out, kicking him in the face. He flopped to the floor again. When she got to the doorway, she saw his keys in the basket, grabbed them, and flung them out into the front yard, where they disappeared in the brown grass. She needed the head start.

  Stumbling out of the house, she scuttled across the yard as best she could, heading in the direction of the convenience store in the strip mall around the corner and one block down. She glanced back once and saw Poston clinging to his doorway, watching her go. He was still holding the crowbar but made no attempt to chase her. She thought he might yell out but he remained silent.

  She turned back around and focused her attention on the sidewalk in front of her. Her vision was cloudy and her shoulder blades were screaming but she kept moving, watching one foot move in front of the other, seemingly independent of any instruction from her.

  She briefly considered dialing 911 on her cell but decided to wait until she got to the convenience store, where she could use their phone. She needed the call to be anonymous.

  Somehow, in the middle of it all, she processed an unexpected fact: she was smiling.

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  After Joe Wender waived his Miranda rights, Jessie called Karen into the interrogation room.

  “Don’t be too aggressive,” she whispered to the detective just outside the door. “For the purposes of this discussion, we believe he’s innocent. All our questions should follow from that.”

  “Is that what you believe?” Karen asked, surprised.

  “I just don’t know. If he did this, then he’s incredibly clever and planned it well in advance. But it’s possible he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Either way, getting him to talk more can only help us.”

  “Then you should take the lead,” Karen said. “I’m not sure I can keep the skepticism out of my voice.”

  Jessie tended to agree but didn’t say so, only nodding. Once they entered the room, she casually waved in the direction of one of the cameras. It was a pre-determined sign to Jamil that he should listen in and check up on Wender’s claims in real time if possible.

  “So,” she started once they were all at the table together, “what made you think Claudia might be cheating?”

  For a moment, it looked like Wender was going to back out of his agreement to talk. But after clenching his eyes shut for a few seconds, he opened them again and began.

  “It wasn’t any one thing,” he said. “Part of it was just this general sense of distance between us. She seemed distracted lately. I noticed that some of her mommy meetings were being held at odd times. She had me pick up the kids more often than she used to because she was ‘running errands.’ Then, about a month ago, Cloudy took the kids to stay at her folks’ for about a week. I couldn’t go because of work. She usually handles the bills but there were a few that came due that week so I had to pay them online. As I was looking at a credit card statement, I noticed some weird, unexplained charges.”

  “Like what?” Jessie asked.

  “Like a drink or three at a hotel bar in the middle of the afternoon. I found seven separate instances of that in one month, all at different hotels in Orange County but none in Westport Beach. It was almost like she didn’t want anyone she knew to see her there. She made a few purchases that stuck out too, like a pair of men’s gloves and a silver billfold.”

  “Maybe they were intended as Christmas gifts for you?” Karen suggested.

  “I guess it’s possible but they were both bought in October. Claudia and I are notorious for scrambling to buy gifts at the last minute. In fact, we were trying to brainstorm ideas for the kids just last week. I’ve never known her to plan months ahead.”

  “Anything else?” Jessie asked.

  “Nothing definitive,” he admitted. “Just things that started to seem suspicious once I began paying attention. If she got home after me, she’d say she felt grimy from the day and run into the shower before I had a chance to greet her. It was like she was trying to wash off any scent I might notice. I know that sounds crazy but that’s where my head started going.”

  “And then came the big girls’ night?” Jessie prodded.

  “Yeah,” he said. “In my head, I knew it was ridiculous to suspect anything, especially that night. I mean, her friends picked her up. Was that all part of some elaborate ruse they were all in on to give her cover so she could steal off with her lover for the night? I was embarrassed to even think it.”

  “And yet,” Karen noted softly, “you drove up here anyway.”

  He lowered his head and nodded.

  “I did,” he muttered, barely intelligible. “I wasn’t totally forthcoming with you before. When I said I picked up a steak and some beer that night, it was actually a six-pack. I intended to just hang out on the couch, but as the evening wore on I drank more. By the time I finished the last beer, I’d let my imagination get the better of me. I pictured Cloudy in some Hollywood love nest. So I got in her car and headed north. I shouldn’t have been driving at all. That’s the real reason I took her car. I worried that if I took mine and stopped for gas, someone might notice how smashed I was.”

  Jessie didn’t comment on the fact that even in his supposedly inebriated state, he apparently had the forethought to avoid potentially incriminating cameras or witnesses.

  “What then?” she asked simply.

  “I got to the hotel. My plan was to confront her, call her down to the lobby and have it out. But I’d forgotten my phone and I couldn’t remember her number so I couldn’t call her cell. I didn’t know her room number, just that they’d gotten a suite on the top floor. There was no point in asking the desk clerk because I knew the room wasn’t booked under Claudia’s name and it would look creepy for a middle-aged drunk guy to ask if there was a room booked under the name of one of three separate women.”

  Jessie caught Karen glancing over at her and knew what the detective was thinking. Wender’s reason for not approaching the clerk was credible. But he could also not have wanted to draw attention to himself by speaking to an employee who might remember him later. Neither of them pointed that out.

  “So what did you do?” Karen asked.

  “I decided to go up there,” he said sheepishly.

  “But you didn’t take the elevator?” she asked, trying to keep from sounding too accusatory.

  “No. One of them had a sign in front that said it was out of service for cleaning. The other was up on some high floor. I didn’t want to wait for it to come down so I decided to take the stairs.”

  “It seemed preferable to climb twenty flights of stairs rather than wait an extra minute for the elevator?” Karen
asked.

  Jessie gave her a look reminding her that they were supposed to be treating the guy with kid gloves. But Wender seemed oblivious to her tone.

  “I was drunk and jealous and impatient,” he answered, apparently unaware that none of those things made him a less likely suspect. “So I started jogging up, taking two stairs at a time. But at about the twelfth floor, I hit a wall. My legs started cramping up and I couldn’t catch my breath.”

  He stopped talking momentarily, seemingly reliving that moment in his head. Jessie was about to prompt him to continue when he picked up again.

  “I sat down on the stairs for a minute to get my second wind. I remember planning what I would do when I got up there. I figured I’d knock on every door until someone I recognized opened up. And then I had this moment of clarity. Something about picturing that, imagining bewildered people opening their doors in the middle of the night to some wild-eyed stranger demanding to see his wife, seemed ridiculous. It made me feel pathetic.”

  Jessie decided now was as good a time as any to go for broke. Everything Joe Wender had told them up until this point could credibly support his innocence or implicate him. If she was going to ever definitively determine if he’d killed his wife or not, she needed to throw him off guard. She needed to make him vulnerable enough for the façade to crack so the truth could slip through.

  “Is that when you started crying?” she asked without either sympathy or severity.

  He looked up at her, shocked.

  “How did you know that?” he demanded.

  “We saw you on the lobby camera feed.”

  He recovered enough to answer.

  “Yes,” he admitted. “It just all hit me at once. I had driven up from another county because I thought my wife might be cheating. I was sitting in a hotel stairwell, huffing and puffing, too overcome by leg cramps to go up or down. I was about to pound on random doors in the middle of the night so that I could make wild accusations. I saw myself clearly for a moment and I just kind of fell apart.”