THE PERFECT HOUSE

by Blake Pierce

  There was one added benefit. Because she worked so hard, both mentally and physically, for almost every waking moment, she hardly ever dreamed. Or at least, she didn’t have nightmares.

  Back home, she often woke up screaming in a cold sweat as memories of her childhood or her more recent traumas replayed in her unconscious. She still remembered her most recent source of anxiety. It was her last conversation with incarcerated serial killer Bolton Crutchfield, the one in which he’d told her he would be chatting with her own murderous father sometime soon.

  If she had been back in L.A. for the last ten weeks, she’d have spent most of that time obsessing over whether Crutchfield was telling the truth or screwing with her. And if he was being honest, how would he manage to coordinate a discussion with an on-the-lam killer while he was being held in a secure mental hospital?

  But because she’d been thousands of miles away, focused on unrelentingly challenging tasks for almost every waking second, she hadn’t been able to fixate on Crutchfield’s claims. She likely would again soon, but not just yet. Right now, she was simply too tired for her brain to mess with her.

  As she settled back into her seat, allowing sleep to envelop her again, Jessie had a thought.

  So all I have to do to get good sleep for the rest of my life is spend every morning working out until I almost throw up, followed by ten hours of non-stop professional instruction. Sounds like a plan.

  Before she fully formed the grin that was beginning to play at her lips, she was asleep again.

  *

  That sense of cozy comfort disappeared the second she walked outside of LAX just after noon. From this moment on, she would need to be on constant guard again. After all, as she’d learned before she left for Quantico, a never-captured serial killer was on the hunt. Xander Thurman had been looking for her for months. Thurman also happened to be her father.

  She took a rideshare from the airport to work, which was the Central Community Police Station in downtown L.A. She didn’t formally start work again until tomorrow and wasn’t in the mood to chat, so she didn’t even go into the main bullpen of the station.

  Instead, she went to her assigned mailbox cubby and collected her mail, which had been forwarded from a post office box. No one—not her work colleagues, not her friends, not even her adoptive parents—knew her actual address. She’d rented the apartment through a leasing company; her name was nowhere on the agreement and there was no paperwork connecting her to the building.

  Once she grabbed the mail, she walked along a side corridor to the motor pool, where taxis were always waiting in the adjoining alley. She hopped in one and directed it to the retail strip center that was situated next to her apartment complex, about two miles away.

  One reason she’d picked this place to live after her friend Lacy had insisted she move out was that it was difficult to find and even harder to access without permission. First of all, its parking structure was under the adjoining retail complex in the same building, so anyone following her would have a hard time determining where she was going.

  Even if someone did figure it out, the building had a doorman and a security guard. The front door and the elevators both required keycards. And none of the apartments themselves had unit numbers listed on the outside. Residents just had to remember which was theirs.

  Still, Jessie took extra precautions. Once the cab, which she paid for with cash, dropped her off, she walked into the retail center. First she passed quickly through a coffee shop, meandering through the crowd before taking a side exit.

  Then, pulling the hood of her sweatshirt over her shoulder-length brown hair, she passed through a food court to a hallway that had restrooms next to a door marked “Employees Only.” She pushed open the women’s restroom door so that anyone following her would see it closing and think she’d gone in. Instead, not looking back, she hurried through the employee entrance, which was a long hallway with back door entrances to each business.

  She jogged along the curved corridor until she found a stairwell with a sign marked “Maintenance.” Hurrying down the steps as quietly as possible, she used the keycard she’d gotten from the building manager to unlock that door too. She’d negotiated special authorization to this area based on her LAPD connection rather than by trying to explain that her precautions were related to having an on-the-loose serial killer for a father.

  The maintenance door closed and locked behind her as she navigated her way along a narrow passage with exposed pipes jutting out at all angles and metal cages securing equipment she didn’t understand. After several minutes of dodging and weaving among the obstacles, she reached a small alcove near a large boiler.

  Midway down the passage, the recessed area was unlit and easy to miss. She’d had to have it pointed out to her the first time she’d been down here. She stepped into the alcove as she pulled out the old key she’d been given. The lock to this door was an old-school bolt. She turned it, pushed open the heavy door, and quickly closed and locked it behind her.

  Now in the supply room on the basement level of her apartment building, she had officially transitioned from the retail center property to the apartment complex. She hurried through the darkened room, nearly tripping over a tub of bleach lying on the floor. She opened that door, passed through the empty maintenance manager’s office, and walked up the tight stairwell that opened onto the back hallway of the apartment building’s main floor.

  She rounded the corner to the vestibule with the bank of elevators, where she could hear Jimmy the doorman and Fred the security guard amiably chatting with a resident in the front lobby. She didn’t have time to catch up with them now but promised herself she would reconnect later.

  Both were nice guys. Fred was a former highway patrolman who had retired early after a bad on-the-job motorcycle accident. It left him with a limp and a large scar on his left cheek, but that didn’t stop him from constantly joking around. Jimmy, in his mid-twenties, was a sweet, earnest kid using this job to pay his way through college.

  She moved past the vestibule to the service elevator, which wasn’t visible from the lobby, swiped her card, and waited anxiously to see if anyone had followed her. She knew the chances were remote but that didn’t stop her from shifting nervously from one foot to the other until the elevator arrived.

  When it did, she stepped in, pushed the button for the fourth floor, and then the one to close the door. When the doors opened, she scurried down the hall until she got to her apartment. Taking a moment to catch her breath, she studied her door.

  On first glance, it looked as nondescript as all the others on the floor. But she’d had several security upgrades added when she moved in. First, she stepped back so that she was three feet away from the door and directly in line with the peephole. A dull green glow that wasn’t visible from any other angle emanated from the rim around the hole, an indicator that the unit had not been forcibly accessed. Had it been, the rim around the peephole would have been red.

  In addition to the Nest doorbell camera she’d had installed, there were also multiple hidden cameras in the corridor. One had a direct view of her door. Another focused on the hall facing back to the elevator and the adjoining stairwell. A third pointed in the other direction of the second set of stairs. She’d checked them all on the way over in the cab and found no suspicious movement around her place today.

  The next step was entry. She used a traditional key to open one bolt, then swiped her card and heard the other sliding bolt open as well. She stepped inside as the motion sensor alarm warning went off, dropped her backpack on the floor, and ignored the alarm as she rebolted both doors and pulled the sliding security bar across as well. Only then did she punch in the eight-digit code.

  After that she grabbed the nightstick she kept by the door and hurried to the bedroom. She lifted up the removable picture frame beside the light switch to reveal the hidden security panel and punched in the four-digit code for the second, silent alarm—the one that went straight to the polic
e if she didn’t deactivate it in forty seconds.

  Only then did she allow herself to breathe. As she inhaled and exhaled slowly, she walked around the small apartment, nightstick in hand, ready for anything. Searching the whole place, including the closets, shower, and pantry, took under a minute.

  When she was confident that she was alone and secure, she checked the half dozen nanny-cams she had placed throughout the unit. Then she evaluated the locks on the windows. Everything was in working order. That left only one place to review.

  She stepped into the bathroom and opened the narrow closet that held shelves with supplies like extra toilet paper, a plunger, some bars of soap, shower scrubbers, and mirror cleaning fluid. There was a small clasp on the left side of the closet, not visible unless one knew where to look. She flipped it and tugged, feeling the hidden latch click.

  The shelving unit swung open, revealing an extremely narrow shaft behind it, with a rope ladder attached to the brick wall. The tube and ladder extended from her fourth-floor unit down to a crawl space in the basement laundry room. It was designed as her last-ditch emergency exit if all her other security measures fell through. She hoped she’d never need it.

  She replaced the shelf and was about to return to the living room when she caught sight of herself in the bathroom mirror. It was the first time she’d really studied herself at length since she left. She liked what she saw.

  On the surface, she didn’t look that different from before. She’d had a birthday while at the FBI and was now twenty-nine, but she didn’t look older. In fact, she thought she looked better than when she’d left.

  Her hair was still brown, but it seemed somehow bouncier, less limp than it had been when she left L.A. all those weeks ago. Despite the long days at the FBI, her green eyes sparkled with energy and no longer had the dark shadows underneath that had become so familiar to her. She was still a lean five feet ten, but she felt stronger and firmer than before. Her arms were more toned and her core was tight from endless sit-ups and planks. She felt…prepared.

  Moving into the living room, she finally turned on the lights. It took her a second to remember that all the furniture in the space was hers. She’d bought most of it just before she’d left for Quantico. She hadn’t had much choice. She’d sold all the stuff from the house she’d owned with her sociopathic, currently incarcerated ex-husband, Kyle. For a while after that, she crashed at the apartment of her old college friend, Lacy Cartwright. But after it was broken into by someone sending a message to Jessie on behalf of Bolton Crutchfield, Lacy had insisted she leave, pretty much right then.

  So she’d done exactly that, living in a weekly hotel for a while until she found a place—this place—that met her security needs. But it was unfurnished, so she’d burned a chunk of her money from the divorce all at once on furniture and appliances. Since she’d had to leave for the National Academy so soon after buying it all, she hadn’t gotten a chance to appreciate any of it.

  Now she hoped to. She sat down on the love seat and leaned back, settling in. There was a cardboard box marked “stuff to go through” sitting on the floor beside her. She picked it up and began rifling through it. Most of it was paperwork she had no intention of dealing with now. At the very bottom of the box was an 8x10 wedding photo of her and Kyle.

  She stared at it almost uncomprehendingly, amazed that the person who had that life was the one sitting here now. Almost a decade ago, during their sophomore year at USC, she’d started dating Kyle Voss. They’d moved in together soon after graduation and gotten married three years ago.

  For a long time, things seemed great. They lived in a cool apartment not far from here in downtown Los Angeles, or DTLA as it was often called. Kyle had a good job in finance and Jessie was getting her master’s degree. Their life was comfortable. They went to new restaurants and checked out the hot bars. Jessie was happy and probably could have stayed that way for a long time.

  But then Kyle got a promotion at the company’s office in Orange County and insisted they move to a McMansion there. Jessie had consented, despite her apprehension. It was only then that Kyle’s true nature was revealed. He became obsessed with joining a secret club that turned out to be a front for a prostitution ring. He began an affair with one of the women there. And when it went bad, he killed her and tried to frame Jessie for it. To top it all off, when Jessie uncovered his plot, he tried to kill her too.

  But even now, as she studied the wedding photo, there was no hint of what her husband was ultimately capable of. He looked like a handsome, amiable, rough-around-the-edges future master of the universe. She crumpled up the photo and tossed it toward the trash can in the kitchen. It dropped right in the center, giving her an unexpected cathartic rush.

  Swish! That must mean something.

  There was something freeing about this place. Everything—the new furniture, the lack of personal mementos, even the borderline paranoid security measures—belonged to her. She had a fresh start.

  She stretched out, allowing her muscles to relax after the long flight on the tightly packed plane. This apartment was hers—the first place in over half a dozen years she could truly say that about. She could eat pizza on the couch and leave the box lying around without worrying about anyone complaining. Not that she was the type to do that. But the point was, she could.

  The thought of pizza made her suddenly hungry. She got up and checked the fridge. Not only was it empty, it wasn’t even turned on. Only then did she remember that she’d left it that way, not seeing any reason to pay for the electricity if she was going to be gone for two and a half months.

  She plugged it in and, feeling restless, decided to make a grocery run. Then she had another idea. Since she didn’t start work until tomorrow and it wasn’t too late in the afternoon there was another stop she could make: a place—and a person—she knew she’d eventually have to visit.

  She had managed to put it out of her head for most of her time at Quantico but there was still the matter of Bolton Crutchfield. She knew she should let it go, that he had been baiting her during their last meeting.

  And yet she had to know: had Crutchfield really found a way to meet with her father, Xander Thurman, the Ozarks Executioner? Had he found a way to reach out to the murderer of countless people, including her mother; the man who left her, a six-year-old child, tied up next to the body to face certain death in a freezing, isolated cabin?

  She was about to find out.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Eliza was waiting when Gray got home that night. He arrived in time for dinner, with a look on his face that suggested he knew what was coming. Since Millie and Henry were sitting right there eating their mac & cheese with hot dog slices, neither parent said anything about the situation.

  It was only after the kids were down for the night that it came up. Eliza was standing in the kitchen when Gray walked in after putting them to sleep. He had taken off his sport coat but was still wearing his loosened tie and slacks. She suspected it was to make him look more credible.

  Gray wasn’t a big man. At five foot nine and 160 pounds he was only an inch taller than she was, though he outweighed her by a good thirty pounds. But they both knew that he was far less imposing in a T-shirt and sweatpants. Business attire was his armor.

  “Before you say anything,” he began, “please let me try to explain.”

  Eliza, who had spent much of the day turning over how this could have happened, was happy let her anguish take a temporary back seat and allow him to squirm as he tried to justify himself.

  “Be my guest,” she said.

  “First. I’m sorry. No matter what else I say, I want you to know that I apologize. I should never have let it happen. It was a moment of weakness. She’s known me for years and she knew my vulnerabilities, what would pique my interest. I should have known better but I fell for it.”

  “What are you saying?” Eliza asked, dumbfounded as much as hurt. “That Penny was some seductress who manipulated you into having an affair
with her? We both know that you’re a weak man, Gray, but are you kidding me?”

  “No,” he said, choosing not to respond to the “weak” comment. “I take full responsibility for my actions. I had the three whiskey sours. I ogled her legs in the dress with the slit up the side. But she knows what makes me tick. I guess it’s all those heart-to-hearts you two have had over the years. She knew to brush her fingertip along my forearm. She knew to talk, almost purr in my left ear. She likely knew you hadn’t done any of those things in a long time. And she knew you wouldn’t be walking into that cocktail party because you were back home, knocked out on the sleeping pills you take most nights.”

  That hung in the air for several seconds as Eliza tried to compose herself. When she was sure she wouldn’t yell, she replied in a shockingly quiet voice.

  “Are you blaming me for this? Because it sounds like you’re saying you couldn’t keep it in your pants because I have trouble sleeping at night.”

  “No, I didn’t mean it like that,” he sniveled, backing down at the venom in her words. “It’s just that you always have trouble sleeping at night. And you never seem all that interested in staying up with me.”

  “Just to be clear, Grayson—you say you’re not blaming me. But then you immediately transition into saying I’m too knocked out on Valium and don’t give you enough big boy attention, so you had to have sex with my best friend.”

  “What kind of best friend is she to do that anyway?” Gray tossed out desperately.

  “Don’t change the subject,” she spat, forcing herself to keep her voice steady, partly to avoid waking the kids but mostly because doing so was the only thing keeping her from losing it. “She’s already on my list. It’s your turn now. You couldn’t have come to me and said, ‘Hey honey, I’d really love to spend a romantic evening with you tonight’ or ‘Sweetie, I feel disconnected from you lately. Can we get closer this evening?’ Those weren’t options?”