The Perfect Secret (A Jessie Hunt Psychological Suspense Thriller—Book Eleven)

by Blake Pierce

  Elodie stared at her, trying to gauge whether Hannah could be trusted. Hannah looked back, intentionally projecting a mix of apprehension and excitement, though she felt none of the former and only a bit of the latter. She did her best to keep her disdain hidden. The idea that this silly teenage half-pimp could see into her soul was laughable. If she could, she’d already be running away screaming.

  “Here’s the deal,” Elodie finally said, apparently convinced of Hannah’s credibility. “Based on these guys’ tastes, you might be a little old. When do you turn eighteen?”

  “Next spring.”

  “That’s cutting it close,” Elodie noted. “But something about officially being underage makes a big difference to them, so that works in your favor. Plus, you have a lot of the qualities they like—tall, blonde, pretty, green eyes, athletic figure. A lot of the clients are foreign and don’t see much of that in their countries. I could set up a meeting with my contact and see what he thinks. Interested?”

  “I guess,” Hannah said, keeping a bit of trepidation in her tone. “When?”

  “How about after school today?” Elodie asked. “He could pick us up in the parking lot and drop us back afterward.”

  “Wow, that’s fast.”

  “It has to be,” Elodie said. “This isn’t a small operation. There’s a girl like me on half the campuses in the city, mostly the schools with girls who look like you and me. We bring candidates to our contacts, who decide if you’re a good fit. They don’t have time for girls who aren’t sure. There are benefits if you do well—travel, that kind of thing. But you need to show Rico that you’re committed.”

  “Rico?”

  “That’s my contact. He doesn’t like it when I waste his time so I don’t. I’ve brought him twelve girls since January and he’s taken on nine. That’s a solid record. I don’t want to mess it up. So are you up for this or are you gonna chicken out when it gets real?”

  “I don’t chicken out,” Hannah said, flashing her best “I’m in” smile. It seemed to work.

  “Good. I’ll meet you in the guest lot after school. Take this stuff,” she said, handing over a plastic bag.

  “What’s in here?” Hannah asked.

  “Some hair ties, barrettes, and a Catholic school–style miniskirt. After school lets out, put your hair up in pigtails and put the barrettes in. Wear the skirt. You want to sell yourself from the second he sees you. It’s too bad you don’t have braces.”

  “Sorry,” Hannah said.

  “That’s okay,” Elodie replied, not picking up on the sarcasm. “Just giggle and squirm a lot. Even Rico can be played if you know what he likes.”

  Hannah nodded. If there was one thing she was good it, it was playing people.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “So Jensen’s in the clear?” Karen asked in disbelief.

  Jessie had just returned to Central Station and was sharing what she’d learned at the estate with Karen and Jamil.

  “If Brittany is to be believed, then yes,” Jessie answered. “And I didn’t get the impression that she was making it up.”

  “Is this Brittany?” Jamil asked, directing their attention to an image on one of the four monitors on his desk in the research room.

  Jessie confirmed that the woman, scantily clad and splayed out on a bed beside Rance Jensen, was her.

  “Then that just about seals his alibi,” Jamil said. “This is from Jensen’s Instagram, posted at two fifty-seven a.m. on Sunday morning. I wasn’t sure it was legit until now. But there are three others just like it that suggest he was quite busy at the time of the murder. Shall I show them to you?”

  “That’s okay,” Jessie said. “I’ll take your word for it. Any better luck on Percy Avalon?”

  “Not yet,” Jamil said. “I’m still searching but it doesn’t look like he posted anything at all that night.”

  “Sounds like we may have to do some real-life, in-person questioning of the guy,” Karen said, clearly more excited by the prospect of getting back in the field than poring over social media accounts.

  “Agreed,” Jessie said. “I think that should be our next stop. But before that, I was hoping something might have popped on Nancy Salter. The woman is definitely rougher around the edges than she lets on. And physically, I don’t think she’d have much trouble breaking someone’s neck, especially a person like Milly Estrada, who was much smaller.”

  Jamil shook his head.

  “Afraid not,” he said. “Her record is clean. The woman’s never even had a parking ticket, though she has been sued a few times for creating an unwelcome work environment. Based on the way she clocked that caterer, I’d say that’s an understatement. I’ll keep probing though.”

  Jessie, who had really wanted an excuse to go after Salter, tried to hide her disappointment.

  “What’s that?’ she asked, pointing at a monitor with a still frame from in front of South House.

  Jamil glanced over to see what she was referencing.

  “Oh, I used the main house footage to confirm when Millicent Estrada arrived at the party. It was pretty early in the evening, at eight forty-two.”

  He hit play and the screen unfroze to show Estrada walking from the parking lot to the main doors, where she waited briefly in line before entering.

  “Play it back,” Jessie requested.

  This time she focused less on the woman’s movements than on her presence. Milly Estrada had an elegance in motion that didn’t come across in photos. As she walked, she held her head high, almost regally, as her dark, wavy hair bounced gently about her head.

  Jessie could almost sense the excitement coming off her as she prepared to enter the party. Her gold blouse shimmered in the floodlights surrounding the house. Her long black skirt had a slit that rose provocatively to her upper thigh, revealing a toned leg that she must have worked hard to maintain.

  Something about seeing her like that was incredibly bittersweet. Jessie was happy that this woman had decided to make a bold, fresh start, to reboot her life and pursue the passion that had been missing from it. And yet, it seemed that her embrace of this new, more exhilarating lifestyle led directly to the end of that life, to her lying half-naked, wet, and forgotten, with her proud, regal neck broken and limp.

  Jessie felt impotent fury rise in her belly and reminded herself that it need not be impotent. She could do something about it. She had to. Pulling out her phone, she gave Jamil the list of big names that had been mentioned to her: Senator Johnson, actor Paul Gilliard, and Omar the mystery sultan.

  “Based on Blondie-by-the-pool’s walk-back, I’m not optimistic that we’ll get any hits on these guys,” she admitted. “But we should nail down their whereabouts anyway. And Jamil, I’d love it if you could do a full rundown on whoever this sultan is—background, assets, anything out of the ordinary.”

  “Am I looking for something specific?” Jamil asked, his interest piqued.

  “You’ll know it if you see it,” she said.

  “Are we off to see Avalon then?” Karen asked, hoping to keep things moving.

  “In just a few,” Jessie assured her. “I just have talk to Captain Decker about another matter. Meet you at the car in ten?”

  After Karen headed out, Jessie went in search of Decker. The mention of the sultan reminded her that she’d given the captain more than enough time to fill Detective Parker in, give her the tape, and get an update.

  With nightmarish visions of girls even younger than Hannah being tied down and blindfolded filling her head, she quickly walked to his office but found it empty. Returning to the bullpen, she saw Detective Alan Trembley over in the HSS section and approached him. Trembley was a solid detective, if perhaps a bit too much of an eager beaver.

  “You seen Decker lately?” she asked when she reached his desk.

  “That’s the greeting I get?” he said, feigning offense. “No ‘hiya Trembley’? No ‘how’s it going?’ No ‘can’t wait to work with you again’?”

  She gave him
her best “not now” glare and tried again.

  “Hiya, Trembley. How’s it going? Can’t wait to work with you again. Where is Captain Decker?”

  Sensing that she wasn’t in a playful mood, he answered directly.

  “I think he went to Vice.”

  “Thanks, Trembley,” she said sweetly. “Talk soon.”

  She hurried down the back hall. Vice had a dedicated section of the bullpen, but its leader, Detective Gaylene Parker, had a second, smaller office at the far end of the building. It was designed as a place where sensitive material could be reviewed and discussed without prying eyes or ears.

  She was halfway down the hall when she saw Decker returning in her direction. They made eye contact and she immediately knew something was wrong. He stopped in his tracks with a guilty look on his face. That only made her move toward him faster.

  “What the—?” she started to say as he held up his hand and shook his head.

  “Join me in the courtyard, please,” he said quietly.

  She followed him outside and to an isolated corner where no one else could approach them without being seen well in advance.

  “What is it?” she hissed, preparing herself for whatever bad news she knew he was about to share.

  “I may have screwed up,” he said.

  “What does that mean?” she asked, doing her best to keep her anxiety in check.

  “Yesterday, after you played the audio for me, I dropped the thumb drive in Parker’s secure locker.”

  “Oh god,” Jessie muttered, already sensing where this was going. “Please don’t tell me what I think you’re going to tell me.”

  “I left her a voicemail letting her know to check it first thing this morning,” he said, pressing forward. “I was completely generic, other than to say it was high priority. When she got in this morning, the locker was busted open and the drive was gone.”

  Jessie knelt down and hugged her knees. The things she wanted to say to Decker wouldn’t just get her kicked off the case, they might get her arrested, so she stayed silent, waiting for the wave of rage to pass. Instead it lingered like a rain cloud that wouldn’t move on.

  “This is on me,” he said. “I don’t know how it happened but clearly my house isn’t in order. Someone knew you had the file and gave it to me. Someone knew I gave it to Parker. Someone in this station took it. I don’t know where the leak is but I’m going to plug it. I’m going to personally review security footage alone in my office when we’re done here. I’ll check every second from when I dropped the drive in that locker until Parker called me back. I’ll check the entry logs. I’ll check access card swipes.”

  “Captain,” Jessie said, her head still down. “Obviously someone with resources didn’t want that file investigated. We can both make educated guesses about who that might be. Almost no one knew about it and yet it was taken. Do you really think the people responsible for that don’t have the power to cover their tracks? We’re never going to find out who did it.”

  “You let me worry about that. I’ve talked to Parker and given her the essentials about the interview with Marla. She said she’s heard rumors about this kind of thing for years but has never been able to pin anything down. She’s going to open some doors—quietly. This isn’t over, I assure you.”

  “I feel like this girl was reaching out to me for help,” Jessie said. “And I’ve failed her.”

  “You didn’t fail her, Hunt. If anyone did, it was me. But truth be told, she may be past saving. That interview was from 2017. The chances that ‘Marla’ is still alive aren’t great. But that doesn’t mean we can’t help the other Marlas out there.”

  “How?” Jessie asked.

  “I don’t know yet but I’m going to run this to ground. You stay focused on the Estrada case. That’s the one thing you have some control over right now.”

  Jessie nodded. He was right. There was nothing she could do about Marla right now. But she could find Milly Estrada’s killer. If fate was just, maybe the two would intertwine at some point. She stood up.

  “I need something,” she said, knowing full well that there was no better time to make a tough demand of Decker. “Otis got a judge to grant a stay on our search warrant for the estate. I need it lifted.”

  Decker scratched his head.

  “That’s not going to be easy,” he warned.

  “I don’t care, Captain. It’s a goddamn crime scene. We’re entitled to access. Who the hell ever heard of a private citizen being able to prevent law enforcement from investigating the site of a murder? I know the guy is powerful, but the stay is ridiculous on its face. Shame the judge. Go to the press. Do whatever you have to do, but I want access to that house. There’s something fishy going on there and I shouldn’t have to fake being a pool girl to prove it.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” he said noncommittally, purposefully not asking about the pool ruse.

  “No excuses, Captain,” she said more directly than she’d ever spoken to him before. “You owe me.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Jessie seethed silently.

  Even though Karen Bray didn’t know her very well, she clearly had the good sense to realize that Jessie wasn’t in a chatty mood just now. So she silently drove to Percy Avalon’s house, leaving Jessie alone with her thoughts.

  No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get Jasper Otis out of her head. His smarmy, smiling face kept popping up like a billionaire whack-a-mole.

  Though she couldn’t prove it, he was almost certainly behind the Vice locker break-in. That meant he’d effectively quashed the only evidence that he might be a sex-trafficking pedophile. And now he was in the process of quashing a murder investigation.

  He’d prevented them from executing a search warrant. In addition, multiple people had apparently come forward in the last day, volunteering to be witnesses who could verify that Otis was around them at the time of the murder. There were so many, in fact, that it seemed the man was rubbing Jessie’s nose in it. Either he was lucky to have so many friends around or he paid very well for alibis.

  There was no camera evidence tying him to the scene of the murder because there were no working cameras in his personal residence, the area where they could actually prove useful. There was no GPS data available because his whole estate was blanketed in a dampening net. A call to Len Fustos, the medical examiner, had confirmed what she’d feared—because of the shower water and the unprecedented disturbance and cleaning of the murder scene, there was no useful DNA or fingerprint evidence. They had nothing on the guy. Not a thing.

  Her phone alarm buzzed, pulling her out of her pity fest. It was a reminder to call Nurse Patty to see how Ryan was faring. The fact that she wasn’t there to make that determination for herself left a lump of powerful regret in her throat, one she swallowed down hard as she called. Patty picked up the first ring.

  “How’s it going?” Jessie asked.

  “Not too bad,” Patty said. “His appetite has been solid and he really pushed hard during rehabilitative therapy. They went for an hour, double what the therapist usually starts out with.”

  “That sounds like Ryan,” Jessie said. “Can I talk to him?”

  “He’s actually sleeping right now. He was pretty wiped out after the rehab and the subsequent bath. It’s already been a full day.”

  “Okay,” Jessie said, disappointed. “Well, keep me posted please, Patty. Hannah will be home this afternoon and I’ll be there by dinner. The night nurse should be arriving at five.”

  She hung up and tried not to think about Ryan needing assistance getting in the bath. She knew he found it humiliating and didn’t like anyone to help him but her. But she had to get over the guilt. If this new normal was going to work, it would have to be a team effort.

  “How’s he doing?” Karen asked. “If I’m not intruding.”

  Jessie shrugged.

  “It sounds like he’s putting in the effort. So how’s he doing? I choose to believe ‘well.’”

/>   They were quiet the rest of the ride to Percy Avalon’s. The singer lived in a section of the Hollywood Hills above West Hollywood, just north of the famed stretch of Sunset Boulevard that included legendary clubs like Whisky a Go Go, The Viper Room, and The Roxy.

  Karen took the turns of the narrow, winding uphill roads fast, as if she was trying to generate some adrenaline after the slog of spending all morning doing boring deskwork. Jessie clung to the door grip handle, trying not to come across as a wuss, even though she feared they might tumble off a cliff at any moment.

  When they arrived, Karen pulled up halfway onto the curb to protect her car from drivers like herself. They got out and walked up to Avalon’s gate. Though it suffered by comparison to Jasper Otis’s place, this home was, by any normal measure, impressive.

  It was designed to look like a modern version of a medieval castle. There was something slightly cheesy about it, but once she got past the conceit, Jessie thought the actual home was quite charming. It seemed to be winking at itself, with a small, easily traversable stream that served as a moat, intricate spires, and what looked like a bell tower.

  When Karen pushed the buzzer by the gate, it opened almost immediately, without anyone asking questions. She looked over at Jessie, who shrugged and led the way in. They crossed the stream using the small drawbridge and walked up stone steps to the huge metal doors. One of them was half open.

  Karen poked her head in, and seeing no one, grabbed the large knocker attached to the door and banged it, inducing an echoing clang. A minute later, a barefoot, middle-aged guy in sweatpants and a T-shirt came to the door. He was wearing sunglasses and his silvery hair dangled past his shoulders.

  “Ladies?” he said. “What can I do for you?”

  “We’re with LAPD, here to talk to Percy Avalon,” Karen said, pulling out her badge. “Is he around?”