The Perfect Deceit (A Jessie Hunt Psychological Suspense Thriller—Book Fourteen)

by Blake Pierce

  She hung up and returned to the car, where Reid was waiting.

  “How is everything?” he asked.

  “Good,” she said. “Sister’s safe. Boyfriend’s safe. Elderly serial killer is still at large but we can’t have everything, I guess. What about you?”

  “My call wasn’t as great,” he admitted. “Decker’s really on edge. He seemed fixated on Jax Coopersmith’s net worth. Apparently, all told, it’s valued at north of five million. He kept saying he couldn’t believe someone who reviewed clothes online for a living could be so wealthy. I told him to join the club. I don’t get it either.”

  Jessie sat quietly for a moment. It occurred to her that one need not be a crusty old cop to be overwhelmed and possibly irked by a fact like that.

  “You know, Jack Bender said Titus Poole was the jealous type,” she said. “I wonder just how far that extended.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Titus may work as a studio executive. But I doubt he makes the money or has the influence of his younger, more famous fiancée. I think we should pay that visit to him now. Let’s see what he really thought about Jax being the brightest light in the sky.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  She hung up the phone. Her latest appointment was confirmed. That meant she’d have to take a pause in the planning of the next Rebalancing session. It was too bad. She was just getting into the nitty-gritty of the preparation.

  But it was okay. This interruption would give her time to savor the anticipation. She was getting a real taste for it. Admittedly, she’d been nervous for the first one. But her loathing for that silver-spooned, high society wannabe Claire Bender had been strong enough to push her out of her comfort zone, to make her do the research on the chemicals she would need and how to safely employ them. Claire really shouldn’t have been so smug.

  Jax was a different story. She had never been mean. In fact, when she’d heard about the broken engagement, she’d been sympathetic. But it was clear that she didn’t really get it. How could a beautiful, famous celebrity understand what it was like for someone else, someone without her gifts and her luck, to deal with a broken heart? She doubted that Jax had ever even been dumped, much less had an engagement ended just weeks before the wedding.

  That’s why she had been next on the list. The guilt almost stopped that one from coming to fruition. But when, from her hiding place beside the bed, she saw the gorgeous influencer toss her sexy gown on the comforter and wander into the bathroom to stare at her perfect body while munching on a late-night snack, the guilt disappeared, and the resolve hardened. When Jax’s face started to melt to the point that even her moans were unintelligible, it provided an almost sexual thrill.

  And it would all happen again this evening. But first she’d have to head out for another glamorous outing and pretend that she enjoyed all the doting and preening. After that, tonight would be her time. She could picture herself lying patiently in wait as the next target came closer, oblivious to the danger. She could almost smell the sizzling flesh.

  As she imagined it all, she realized she was salivating and delicately wiped away the bit of drool that had formed on her lips.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  As she waited outside Titus Poole’s office, Jessie had just about reached the end of her patience.

  First of all, it had taken well over an hour to get from Jack Bender’s house to Dandelion Studios, where Poole worked. When they finally got to his office, Poole’s assistant, Annaleigh, who looked like she’d just wrapped up her term as Miss Hawaiian Tropic, was less accommodating.

  “Mr. Poole is in a meeting,” she said, standing up to reveal that she was wearing a miniskirt and a cream blouse open about two buttons lower than Jessie would have been comfortable with. “He’ll be with you as soon as possible.”

  Then she pushed a sign-in sheet across the desk and walked over to whisper something to another assistant outside the adjoining office of a nearby executive. As she passed, Jessie could feel Reid straining not to look at the woman’s long, tan legs or her other attributes. Jessie reminded herself not to be too judge-y. Maybe the gal typed a hundred words a minute.

  “Let’s just pull rank,” Jessie had suggested.

  “I know you’re anxious to get in there,” Reid told her. “But Dandelion is the most successful studio in town. They hold an annual ball for LAPD every year. They’ve raised over four million dollars for the families of officers killed in the line of duty. Every boss I’ve ever had told me to use kid gloves as much as possible when we have to visit this lot.”

  “So you want roll over for them?” she objected, knowing that wasn’t fair.

  “No,” he said, straining to keep calm. “We go wherever a case takes us. But it has been made clear that it’s always better to maintain a smaller footprint here until we have to start stomping around. We’re not in stomp mode yet. Let’s give it a little more time.”

  Jessie relented, though she counted every second they sat there, imagining what she would do to Annaleigh if they ever met in a dark alley. It was already late afternoon and every second counted in a case like this.

  Moments later Annaleigh told them Poole could see them and they stepped into his office, which was as large as her living room. She did a double take at the view out his massive window, which looked down on Dandelion Garden Plaza.

  Along with the multiple benches and green spaces were ten large sculptures of different flowers, all painted in incredible detail, complete with human faces nestled among the petals. There was a red rose, a pink tulip, and an assortment of others, including a daisy, a carnation, a hibiscus, a bluebonnet and of course, smack dab in the middle of the plaza, a massive dandelion bursting forth like a yellow sun. Each flower represented a character in the studio’s hugely popular collection of films about anthropomorphic flowers. As a kid, Jessie had always been partial to Bonnie the Bluebonnet, who had a little sass to her.

  “I must admit I’m surprised to see you here,” Poole said, snapping her out of her childhood memory before turning to his assistant. “Can you please close the door, Annie?”

  “I was about to say the same about you,” Jessie replied, regaining her focus. “After what happened, I’m surprised you’re not in bed, sedated.”

  Poole, who was standing behind a giant desk, motioned for them to take seats opposite him, before doing the same.

  “I thought about it,” he admitted. “But it didn’t seem like a great idea. There’s no way I could sleep in that house right now. Besides, staying busy keeps me distracted. I’m actually glad that I’m in the middle of negotiating a big deal. It doesn’t give me much time to fixate on…anything else.”

  “Well,” Jessie said, sympathetic to his plight but not entirely convinced of his sincerity. “I’m sorry to tell you that we’ll need you to fixate for a few minutes.”

  “On what?” he asked guardedly.

  “How much do you make?” Reid asked bluntly.

  This was part of the plan they’d come up with on the way over, to throw Poole off by asking frank, even impolite questions in quick succession. The hope was that maybe he’d inadvertently reveal something. Maybe he’d get pissed.

  Based on the comment he allegedly made to Jack Bender about how black men couldn’t afford to get too angry in this world, she knew it would be hard to get his goat. But if they were going to learn anything of value, they had to break through the wall he’d spent years building to protect himself.

  “Do I have to answer that?” Poole asked, surprised but not upset.

  “Of course not,” Reid told him. “But it might help the investigation.”

  “How could that possibly be relevant?”

  Reid pointed his thumb at Jessie.

  “This one has a theory and I was hoping to test it,” he said, intentionally attempting to sound like he was humoring the little woman he’d been assigned to work with.

  “What’s that?” Poole asked, curious despite his apprehension.

  �
��Okay,” Jessie said, leaning in. “I figure you make a pretty solid salary if you’re high enough up the ladder to be closing deals late on a Sunday night. You probably rake in at least a couple of hundred thousand a year, right?’

  Poole shrugged.

  “You might be underestimating by a few hundred thousand,” he couldn’t stop himself from revealing. “But what does that have to do with anything?”

  “I’m getting there,” Jessie said, happily sensing the first hints of irritation in the executive’s voice. “But even at that salary, I’m guessing you were still well below Jax’s pay grade. Am I right? There was a news report that just came out saying she was worth over five million dollars when she died.”

  Titus Poole looked aghast that Jessie would broach such a thing, but when she remained silent, he realized she expected an answer.

  “That sounds about right,” he muttered quietly.

  “Yeah,” Jessie said, really getting into character now, needling him just a little more. “And I know it took her a while to break through. Her success started quite recently from what I read. So these last few years, she was probably pulling in well over one million a year, wouldn’t you say?”

  Titus nodded. Jessie studied his expression. He no longer looked irritated. He looked worried. She pressed on.

  “That’s a lot of money, Titus,” she said, using his first name for the first time. “Like over double what you earn.”

  “So?” he asked challengingly.

  “So,” she countered, ready to pounce. “I can’t help but wonder, did Jax ask you to sign a prenup?”

  His pursed lips told her that she’d struck gold.

  “What would make you say that?’ he asked.

  “Your fiancée makes twice what you do. She’s famous, adored by her fans. When you go to red carpet events, paparazzi call out her name. You’re already arm candy, one of thousands of interchangeable film executives in this town. You’re already feeling self-conscious and then she asks you to sign a prenup? That must have been so emasculating, Titus.”

  Poole took a long, deep breath before answering. When he did, he used the slow, deliberate tone that Jack Bender had mentioned he employed when his temper was flaring.

  “Yes, Jax asked me to sign a prenup. No, it wasn’t emasculating.”

  Every word seemed to be a burden to him.

  “Then why did she postpone the wedding?” she demanded. “It was her who postponed, wasn’t it?”

  It looked like she’d finally cracked through the façade. Poole’s eyes were blazing, and his lower lip trembled slightly. He leaned forward in his chair as he clenched and unclenched his fists repeatedly. It looked like he might leap up at any moment.

  But that wasn’t what Jessie wanted. She needed him to explode verbally, not physically, and was about to say something else to redirect him when Reid jumped in.

  “I wouldn’t, Mr. Poole,” he said, in a quiet but firm voice. “We both know that any rash decision you make won’t end well for you. If you didn’t kill Jax, your best bet is to simply answer our questions. Any other reaction will only make things worse.”

  Poole was still shaking slightly but seemed to have recaptured some control. He blinked twice, very slowly, then replied.

  “Jax wanted me to sign a prenup. It hurt my pride a little, but I understood. I was just taking my time reviewing it with my lawyers. She thought I was dragging my feet because I had doubts about the marriage. That escalated and we decided to push pause on everything so we could get back to a good place.”

  “And did you?” Jessie asked.

  “We went to therapy. I think it was working. I learned to admit that I was a little jealous. Here’s the thing. When we first met, she was just an aspiring influencer. By the time we got engaged, she was huge. It was a lot. But we were getting there.”

  “I’m glad,” Jessie said, aware that she was straddling the line between questioning and goading but knowing she might have to cross it to get the information she needed. It made her a little sick to her stomach, pushing a man to break who had spent his whole life forced to stay under control. But her job on this day was to get justice for Jax and Claire, not Titus Poole. “Then why did you lie about your alibi?”

  “What?” he asked, genuinely stunned.

  “You said that after the meeting you went home,” she pressed, “that you were on the phone the whole time. But when our tech people checked the GPS in your phone and car, we found that wasn’t true. You made a stop on the way home. Do you want to explain yourself?”

  Poole’s face hardened into a grimace, and then seemed to soften. It was as if he’d made some internal decision and was now at peace with it.

  “You’re right,” he said, speaking barely above a whisper. “I wasn’t forthright. I didn’t go straight home. I made a stop.”

  “On North Curson Avenue in Hollywood, it seems,” Jessie noted, looking at her phone. “What was so interesting at the Ocean Palms apartment complex?”

  “That’s where Annaleigh lives,” he said, his throat choked with guilt.

  “Ah yes, Annie,” Jessie said, commenting on the nickname Poole had used for her when he’d asked her to close the door earlier. “What’s that about?”

  Poole, his eyes wet, took another deep breath and launched in.

  “When Jax and I hit pause on the engagement, but before we started couples’ therapy, I was feeling sorry for myself. I knew Annie had a crush on me. When she made a move, I didn’t object. When Jax and I began therapy, I told Annie it had to stop. But she was insistent, and I didn’t really fight her very hard. Pretty soon it became a regular thing—in the office, in my car in the parking garage, at her place. It was never more than physical. I still wanted to marry Jax. But it was nice to be with someone who didn’t look at me with disappointment in her eyes. So I just…kept doing it.”

  Jessie looked over at Reid. His expression reflected how they both felt. Though it was satisfying to have answers, these didn’t get them any closer to solving their case. If Titus was with Annaleigh, then he couldn’t have killed Jax. And he had no reason to kill Claire.

  Under normal circumstances, Jessie would consider Titus’s devoted assistant/lover a suspect as well. But if she was with Titus last night, that ruled her out as well. They’d need to check her geo-data to be sure, but it didn’t look promising.

  She stood up to leave, giving one last glance at the Dandelion Garden Plaza. If nothing else, this trip had been worth it so she could see Bonnie the Bluebonnet in all her glory. But other than that, it had been a wash.

  They were no closer to having a quality suspect than when Jessie first learned of the case this morning. That was bad enough, but what worried her even more was that the day was drawing to a close. The last two evenings had involved the brutal murders of young women. What did tonight have in store?

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Ryan glanced around, trying not to appear suspicious and knowing full well that he was failing.

  The rideshare pulled away and he hurried up the steps to the house as fast as he could. He kept his head on a swivel for two reasons. First, he was looking for anyone that might resemble the Night Hunter. Second, he wanted to make sure that Jessie didn’t pull up. He needed time to stash the ring before she got home.

  He had just reached the front door when he got a text. It was from Brady and read: See that you’re home now. Won’t drive by in case Hannah’s watching. She’s been back since mid-afternoon. Heading out. Sorry for this morning. Talk soon.

  He lifted his hand high above his head as if he was stretching and gave an imperceptible wave. It bothered him that he didn’t spy Brady when he’d looked around. But maybe that was a good thing, a sign that his former partner was more competent than he’d seemed most of the day.

  He reached the door and looked around one more time to make sure no one was close by before opening up. The process was more involved than just turning a key in a lock. He punched a code into the keypad next to the doorbell
. A metal cover pulled back to reveal a device that scanned his eyes. Then he placed his palm on a plate of glass below the scanner and waited for it to read his fingerprints. After that, he whispered a code phrase into a small speaker. Only then did the front door locks click open.

  Once inside with the door locked, he stepped through the foyer into the living room and looked around. He could see the light on under Hannah’s door. There was no noise, which suggested she had her headphones on. That was ideal.

  Though he wanted to check in on her, this might be his only opportunity to hide the ring without prying eyes around. He had debated where to keep it on the ride home and eventually came up with what he considered an elegant solution: he’d put it in the panic room.

  The three of them rarely had cause to go in there. In fact, Hannah never did, and he and Jessie only did so every few weeks to check that the battery for the security box was still charged. It was perfect.

  As quietly as he could, he passed by Hannah’s room. In the hallway between it and the bedroom he shared with Jessie was a bookcase that stretched from just above the floor to the ceiling. It was filled with actual books so that the hidden room behind it wouldn’t be as easily discovered. But on the back of the third shelf, in the very upper right corner, was a small button that wouldn’t be visible to anyone over five feet tall. Even then, it looked like a mild irregularity in the wood.

  Ryan pushed the button and the shelf rolled quickly and quietly a mere two feet to the left, exposing a narrow entryway, leading to a small room, no larger than a constricted walk-in closet. He pushed the button on the left of the interior wall and, as fast as it had opened, the bookshelf rolled silently back into place.

  Once the passage closed, a dim light flickered overhead. Ryan took a moment to let his eyes adjust before moving forward. Despite his teasing earlier, he understood why Jessie wanted a second panic room. This one was extremely basic. There was nowhere to sit. Other than one small cabinet in the back right corner, with some bottled water, granola bars, paper towels, and hand sanitizer on top, there was no furniture at all. That is, unless you counted the bucket in the back left corner for bathroom emergencies, which he did not.