by Blake Pierce
*
Ryan breathed.
As he repeated the process, in and out, keeping it slow, he focused on pushing out his frustrations and inhaling positivity. He’d never gone in for meditation before the attack. But in the hospital, his respiratory therapist, a retired cop who’d taken up the gig to keep from getting bored, had convinced him that it helped.
And when he could quiet his mind enough to try it, it did. The problem for Ryan Hernandez was that his mind was usually a series of bouncing, disconnected thoughts and fears that he couldn’t control, much less verbalize.
Would he ever rejoin the force? Would he ever walk again? Would he ever inhale without that brief, painful twinge so far back in his chest that it felt like a splinter had lodged there? Would Jessie grow weary of playing nursemaid and dump him once she’d given it the old college try? He couldn’t quiet his mind back when he led a life of non-stop activity. How was he supposed to do it when he was trapped in this shell of a body with no outlet for his anxieties?
Still, as he sat propped up against the pillows of the hospital bed they’d had brought in, he tried to calm his thoughts. He tried to let go of the guilt he felt for lashing out at Jessie, who was only trying to help him. He tried to forget the fear he’d seen in Hannah’s eyes when she walked into the room and found him sprawled out, helpless, on the floor. He tried to block out the memory of Jessie’s ex-husband plunging a knife into his chest while he lay frozen in place, paralyzed by a drug that kept him awake and able to feel pain, but powerless to move.
He heard the blender in the next room and knew Jessie would be returning soon. He had to get a grip before then. He had to let her know he was sorry, that he appreciated what she was doing. He had to let her know that he understood that he couldn’t do this again.
The road to recovery was going to be slow. Dr. Badalia had warned him that it might be weeks before he could get to the bathroom on his own. He’d said that targeting the new year to walk on his own normally again was realistic. It was September now. That meant that he was probably wheelchair-, walker-, and cane-bound for at least the next three months. The thought was unbearably depressing. And yet, that’s the way it was.
Ryan had never been one to quit. No one had even expected him to graduate high school, much less finish near the top of his class at the police academy. No one had expected him to make detective at all, much less do it faster than almost anyone in department history. No one had expected him to lead the most highly regarded investigative unit in the LAPD before the age of thirty. Even he hadn’t expected that after an ugly divorce, he’d find love again with a brilliant, gorgeous woman who kept him on his toes every day, if only figuratively for now.
*
Jessie took a deep breath and walked back in carrying a tray with a smoothie and a bowl of chicken noodle soup. She set it up in front of him and adjusted his bed so that he was fully upright. She wasn’t sure if he wanted her to stay or go. He cleared the question up quickly.
“I’m…sorry,” he said.
She pulled up a chair and sat down next to him.
“No, I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I know that this must be incredibly frustrating for you and I should have been here for you, not driving around the city on a wild goose chase. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Was sorry…for myself,” he said as forcefully as his lungs would allow. “Not okay. Will…try harder.”
She nodded.
“I get frustrated too,” she admitted. “This is going to be hard, obviously more so for you than me. But for it to work, we need to make some hard choices. The reality is that Hannah and I need some help.”
“Yes,” he said, nodding in agreement.
That gave her the confidence to ask her next question.
“Are you willing to reconsider a night nurse, at least for a little while, until you’re a little stronger?”
He nodded again, though he didn’t speak this time. A single tear trickled down his cheek. Her heart ached for him.
“I know it’s not ideal,” she conceded. “But we’ll get through it together, like we always have. Okay?”
His breathing was clearly labored so he offered her a thumbs-up instead of words. She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, where the tear had settled.
In that moment she made them both a silent promise. She would solve this case fast. She had to, so she could get back to him, to Hannah, to her family, the most precious thing in her life.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“I’ll take the bus home,” Hannah said as Jessie pulled into the school driveway to drop her off. “I don’t want you to have to stop in the middle of the case to get me.”
“I’ll be home by dinnertime,” Jessie said, intent on making that promise a reality, no matter what. “What are we having?”
“It’s a little something I like to call ‘leftover surprise.’”
“Well, they can’t all be winners,” Jessie allowed.
“Hey, wait until you’ve tasted it before you talk smack,” Hannah said as she hopped out.
With Ryan safe at home with Nurse Patty and in good spirits when they’d left, both of them felt comfortable with a little teasing banter. Hannah was about to close the door when she seemed to think of something else.
“Now if I find this sexual slavery dude on campus, should I call you or Captain Decker?”
“Very funny,” Jessie said, pulling out of the driveway.
She didn’t say it, but Hannah’s comment sent her into a spiral of thoughts about just how girls like Marla ended up in a fancy Pacific Palisades house, servicing the basest desires of men who used them and then tossed them away. She was tempted to call Decker to get an update but forced herself not to. He might not even have briefed Gaylene Parker yet. She had to give it a little time.
Instead, as she worked her way along the choked rush-hour streets, making the seventy-minute drive back to Otis Estate, where she planned to meet Karen Bray, she called Jamil Winslow. As she had anticipated, he was in and answered on the first ring.
“Winslow, Research.”
“Hey, Jamil, how’s your Monday morning treating you?” she asked.
“Busy, Ms. Hunt, very busy. I already have a few updates if you’re interested.”
“I’m always interested in what you have to share,” she replied.
“Okay, how about we start with the victim’s husband, Beto Estrada. You wanted to see if we could independently confirm his claim that he was home all night.”
“Right,” she confirmed. “Any luck?”
“Some,” he said. “Based on a check of his GPS data, his phone never left the house after five p.m. and his car never moved from the driveway. But as we both know, that’s not definitive proof of anything on its own. So I checked the cottage. Estrada is renting it from a management company. They use motion-activated security cameras on the exterior of all their properties. I don’t know if Estrada was aware of that. In any case, I got them to send me the footage from Saturday night.”
“Don’t keep me in suspense, Jamil.”
“It shows the same thing. There was no movement outside the cottage after five. So, either he was home all night or he’s one stealthy middle-aged guy.”
“Good to know,” Jessie said. She didn’t say it but she was secretly glad that Estrada seemed to be in the clear. It would have vastly complicated the credibility of the Marla tape if he had been lying about his alibi. “What else have you got?”
“I don’t know whether this next bit is good news or bad news, but here goes. Tech has already done facial recognition on the camera footage from outside the main house during the party. Of the eight people you referred to us based on your research at the law firm yesterday—the ones who seemed like credible suspects based on their past criminal cases—all but two alibi out.”
“How can you be sure?” Jessie pressed, as she zipped past an old pickup truck belching out dark clouds of exhaust.
“Because all six of them are c
learly visible on camera, leaving the estate prior to the established window of death, from three o’clock to three fifty. We followed up using phone data to make sure that one of them didn’t double back later and verified that none of them were on the estate property after three that morning.”
“But you said that two were still there,” Jessie reminded him. “Who?”
“One is the actor you interviewed yesterday, Rance Jensen. Because of the dampening technology used on the estate, we can’t use his phone location data to determine where exactly he was. But the main house camera shows him arriving at the estate at nine forty-four p.m. and leaving at four oh-nine a.m. We’re still trying to see if he was active on social media during that period. If so, it might help us piece together his whereabouts with more specificity.”
“Good idea,” Jessie said as she quickly switched lanes to avoid getting stuck behind a garbage truck. “So who’s our final contender?”
“Percy Avalon, the singer.”
“Ah yes,” Jessie said, remembering the man who had claimed ignorance about an entourage member holding a woman in his hotel room against her will. “What’s his story?”
“He showed up with a whole crew just after eleven p.m. The footage shows them all piling into a limo to leave around seven fifteen the next morning.”
“That was just before Detective Bray and I arrived on the scene,” Jessie said, dumbfounded. “The estate should have already been secured. Are you telling me these people were just allowed to leave?”
“According to the footage I’m looking at, they were met at the driveway by an officer with a clipboard, who took down some info from each of them—it looks like he’s writing down the names on driver’s licenses. But then he let them go.”
“Wow,” Jessie marveled in disgust. “These Westside cops definitely have a different way of doing things. Anything else?”
“Maybe one more thing. It doesn’t have to do with your requests but I thought you might want to know. Around five forty-five a.m., there’s footage of what looks like a catering staffer, a guy in his twenties, leaving through the main entrance. A few seconds later, a tall, middle-aged woman ran out after him. She caught up to him and looked like she was yelling at him. He said something back to her and she hauled off and slapped him. She hit him so hard that he was knocked to the ground.”
Jessie had a sneaking suspicion who the slapper might be.
“You said the woman was tall and middle-aged,” she noted. “Was she wearing a business suit with a scarf, with black hair tied up in a bun?”
“That’s the one,” Jamil said.
“Her name is Nancy Salter. She’s Otis’s estate manager. Can you do a check on her when you get a chance? I know we won’t be able to track her location but we can at least look at her criminal history.”
“On it,” Jamil said.
“You’re a lifesaver,” Jessie told him. “Don’t hesitate to pummel me with updates. I’m heading back to Holmby Hills now.”
After hanging up, Jessie called Bray to update her on what Jamil had learned. When that was done, it still took her nearly an hour to finally get to the estate. Bray was waiting outside the gate. She didn’t look happy.
“What’s the problem?” Jessie asked.
“They’re not letting me on the property. They say that Otis got a stay from a local judge, restricting any future searches without a warrant. I checked at the station. It’s true. They’ve also reneged on the promise to provide the security footage from the entire estate. All we have is what they originally provided from the main entrance to the South House.”
“These aren’t the choices an innocent man makes,” Jessie fumed, trying but failing to rein in her anger. “I’ve had just about enough of this guy and his games. I want this case solved.”
“You’re preaching to the choir,” Karen said. “It’s unbelievably suspicious. The problem is, now that they’ve informed me, I’m stuck. I can’t proceed with anything here until the situation is resolved.”
Jessie thought for a moment. When she replied, she was smiling slightly.
“If you’re amenable, here’s what I think you should do. Go back to Central station. See if you can get that warrant. Use Captain Decker if you have to. I think we’ll have better luck if we go to a judge we deal with regularly, rather than one who might be in Otis’s pocket. Besides, by then Jamil may have locked down more details on where Rance Jensen and Percy Avalon were that night. If not, maybe you can think of some avenues of inquiry that didn’t occur to him.”
“All that sounds fine,” Karen said, a curious look on her face. “But where will you be while all this is going on?”
“You know, I think you’re better off if I don’t tell you.”
“You’re not going to do something crazy, are you?” Karen asked.
“I guess that depends on how you define crazy,” Jessie told her. “I’m not an LAPD employee. I’m just a private citizen consulting for the department. As such, I’m not bound by the same rules as you. And I’m not inclined to let some entitled, self-satisfied billionaire determine how I can investigate this murder. Milly Estrada deserves better than that. She deserves justice. And I’m going to get it for her.”
Karen didn’t respond to that other than to smile. She got in her car and backed out of the driveway. As she pulled away, she lowered her window.
“Let me know if you need me to bail you out,” she shouted as she drove off.
Once she left, Jessie parked her car half a block down the road, walked back in the direction of the main gate, and sat on a bench near some bushes in the park across the street. Ten minutes later, a dry-cleaning service van pulled up. The gate opened and the van headed up the driveway.
Jessie got up from the bench and casually jogged across the street. She darted by just before the gates slammed closed. The sound clarified one clear thought in her head.
No turning back now.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
She tried to act casual.
It was hard, considering that she had to make her way up a quarter-mile-long driveway to a massive mansion that she knew was at least partially monitored by 24/7 security. She expected personnel to show up at any second and kick her out.
When she got up to the roundabout in front of the house, she discovered why that hadn’t happened. Security had their hands full. There were already lots of people milling about. In addition to the dry cleaner, there were landscapers putting equipment back in a truck, several people doing work on a nearby stone fountain, and someone carrying pool equipment from a van around the side of the house.
Jessie decided that might be her best bet. If she approached the place from the side, she’d be less likely to attract attention than just wandering up to the front door. So she jogged after the pool guy as nonchalantly as possible.
“Hey,” she called out when she was close enough that only he could hear her. “Need a hand? It looks like something’s going to drop at any second.”
The guy turned around. He was in his fifties with gray hair and leathery skin that had clearly spent many years in the sun.
“Sure,” he said, offering her an unwieldy plastic hose. “I’d never turn down an extra hand. Is this a new policy?”
“What do you mean?”
“This is the first time a staffer has ever offered to help me with anything,” he said. “No offense, but your bosses aren’t exactly worker-friendly.”
“None taken,” Jessie said, throwing the hose over her shoulder. “I’m actually a peon too, and a new one, so I’m right there with you. Do you clean the pool every Monday?”
“Yep. And Fridays too. Those are pre-party prep days. Mondays are for post-party cleanup. They’re the worst.”
“Why do you say that?” Jessie asked, moving the hose closer to her face as they passed two employees walking by in the royal blue “JO” shirts that served as the Otis Estate uniform.
“You wouldn’t believe the stuff I’ve had to fish out of the pool,” h
e said. “The hot tub is even worse.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Trust me,” he said, visibly shivering at the memory. “You don’t want to know. Let’s just say that with some of the things I’ve found, I’m surprised the health department hasn’t raided this place. And there’s no amount of chorine that could get me in that water.”
They had reached the edge of the pool near the supply room. Jessie glanced around. There were about a dozen people lounging on chaises, most nibbling at pastries. Despite the early hour, a few young women were already in bikinis soaking up the sun.
“Thanks for your help,” the pool guy said, extending his hand. “I’m Mike, by the way.”
“Nice to meet you, Mike,” Jessie said, shaking his hand but not giving her name. “I hope today’s cleanup isn’t too painful. I guess I better get back to my job too.”
She grabbed a stack of towels and stacked them on her shoulder high enough to block her face from anyone she needed to avoid. Then she wandered over next to two youngish, model-looking women in robes sipping mimosas. She hoped they might be in a chatty mood.
“Anyone sitting here?” she asked them as she plopped down in the lounge next to them.
They exchanged disdainful looks before the blonder of the two replied.
“Is staff supposed to be chatting with guests like this?”
“Oh, I’m not staff,” Jessie assured her as she laid out some of the towels and undid an extra button near the top of her shirt. “I just like to have a lot of towels for extra cushion. I hate it when these chairs leave lines on my skin. So are we back to normal yet or is all this police stuff still going on? I mean, I thought I was going to have a relaxing week on the West Coast and I get here to discover there’s a frickin’ murder investigation going on.”
“I wouldn’t sweat it,” the less blonde woman said. “There’s nothing major going on until the oiled-down Twister party tomorrow night. By then, I’m sure Jasper will have this whole thing taken care of.”
