by Blake Pierce
“Care to explain yourself?” Ryan asked.
“What’s going on?” the kid asked, half-hysterical.
“That’s what I’d like to know,” Ryan said. “And please be honest up front. As you can see, my friends here aren’t in the most understanding mood.”
“I was just leaving my girlfriend’s house,” he blurted out, his eyes beginning to water. “Her mom came up to check on her and I was sneaking out. I swear that’s all it was.”
Ryan sighed in frustration.
“Show me some ID, kid,” he said before turning to Trembley and the other officer. “You guys can probably put your guns away.”
He turned off his flashlight and pulled out his phone. Before calling Jessie and Decker to let them know about the false alarm, he gave Trembley one more instruction.
“Take this kid to the front door and see if the family knows him. If he’s legit, don’t rat him out.”
Trembley nodded and began to help the boy extricate himself from the hedge. Ryan hoped that letting the kid go without shaming him would get him some good karma on the case and in his own life.
He could use it.
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
“It was just a kid.”
Jessie was filling Kat in on the situation and the disappointing outcome. Both of them had held out brief hope that this nightmare was over. Now they had to force themselves back into high alert mode.
Jessie was studying the roofs of the houses on either side of the Fergusons’ in case Joseph Setts was considering the same maneuver. But it quickly became apparent that the distance between these extravagant Brentwood lots would make even an Olympic long jumper hesitate.
Just then, her phone rang. It was Decker. She picked up immediately.
“Yes, Captain?” she said excitedly.
“Don’t get your hopes up,” he warned. “I have an update for you but it’s not on this case.”
“Go ahead,” she said, though she wasn’t sure she wanted him to.
“I just got a call from the assistant warden at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility. Andrea Robinson tried to kill herself.”
“What!”
Kat, who couldn’t hear, looked at her with shock. Jessie put the call on speaker, her finger shaking slightly.
“Apparently she’d been hoarding her medication somehow,” Decker said. “They found her in her cell, unconscious. She’s been stabilized and transported to the nearest hospital.”
“Is she conscious now?” Jessie asked. “Did she say anything?”
“She’s not awake,” Decker told her. “But she did leave a message for you. Considering the week you’ve had, I thought about not calling tonight. But I don’t need you pissed at me for holding out.”
“Good call, Captain,” she replied. “What was the message?”
“It said ‘tell Jessie this is all part of the plan.’ Also, she wrote it on the wall of her cell in blood.”
“Also?” Jessie said incredulously.
“Like I said, it’s a lot.”
“What does that mean?” Jessie demanded, trying to stay focused on the content of the message rather than the delivery system. “All part of what plan?”
“I was hoping it would make sense to you,” Decker said. “One possibility is that we were right to suspect her of trying to ruin you. This could be the final step, to pin the blame for her suicide on you somehow.”
“Maybe,” Jessie said. “But of the three people we most suspected of doing this, I would have pegged her as the least likely. Both Costabile and Kyle probably have ways of reaching people on the outside. I checked her file. She’s held in isolation most of the day. She’s under constant observation. And she’s heavily medicated.”
“It seems she’s not as medicated as we thought if she was hoarding enough pills to overdose,” Decker noted.
“Fair point,” Jessie agreed. “Still, I assume the guards there are on alert in case she’s somehow faking or wakes up early. She’s not the sort of person who should be underestimated.”
“They doubled the guard contingent for her transport to the hospital. Everyone’s aware of who they’re dealing with.”
“Great,” Jessie said, relieved. “I guess we need to do a more detailed deep dive tomorrow.”
“I’ve already got people rechecking her visitor logs and call records again,” Decker assured her. “We should have something for you to review tomorrow.”
“Thanks Captain,” Jessie said, impressed that all her concerns were being preemptively addressed. “Will you update me if her condition changes?”
“I’ll do my best,” he said. “But I want you to stay focused on the task at hand. There’s nothing you can do about Andrea Robinson tonight. You can make a difference in this case.”
“Yes sir,” Jessie said, hanging up and looking over at Kat, who wore a skeptical expression. “What?”
“I don’t want to bring you down,” her friend said. “But something about this just doesn’t feel right to me.”
“Just one thing?” Jessie said. “I have a list of about ten. What’s yours?”
Kat didn’t respond at first, as if she was deciding how best to phrase her concern.
“If Andy Robinson is out to get you,” she began at last, “this doesn’t seem like the most effective way to get to you. Yes, doing this might give you an undeserved pang of guilt. But unlike the other things that have been done to you, this doesn’t seem like it could hurt your career or relationships that much. I don’t see how it advances the ball. Maybe the ‘plan’ she mentioned has nothing to do with what’s happening to you.”
Jessie considered the point. It was a good one. If this was part of Andy’s grand plan to destroy Jessie’s reputation, then it wasn’t clear how it fit. Of course, the woman was a brilliant sociopath who almost got away with murder, so sometimes her plans were hard to decipher.
“You could be right,” she finally admitted, though she wasn’t convinced.
She was about to put up her phone when she noticed a text she’d missed while talking to Decker. It was from Delia Armbruster. She looked at it and a slight gasp escaped her lips.
“What is it?” Kat asked.
“A message from Armbruster. She says she just e-mailed all the files on the case they’ve opened on me, including the recording and transcript of the anonymous call that started this whole investigation.”
“That shouldn’t be surprising,” Kat said. “I think she’s required to give you everything. The rules are pretty strict.”
“I guess I figured she’d find some way to keep them from me,” Jessie said, opening her e-mail, forwarding it to Camille in tech in the hope she could ID the caller, and then downloading the relevant files. “I’ve got the call here. Want to hear it?”
Kat nodded. Jessie hit “play” and a bland, unmemorable male voice began to speak.
“Hi. I live near Jessie Hunt, the police profiler. I hate to get involved in people’s personal business. But I’ve been hearing some terrible things coming out of her place. She has a younger girl living with her and Jessie screams at her all the time, saying terrible, vicious things. I can’t repeat them. I’ve also heard what sounds like…hitting. And I’ve heard the younger girl crying. I’ve seen the girl limping sometimes. Jessie didn’t seem to care. She just told her to buck up. Please, help this girl.”
That was the end of it. Kat looked like she was about to speak but Jessie held up her hand. Something about that line at the end regarding bucking up stirred a vague memory in her mind but she couldn’t quite place it. No matter how hard she concentrated, she couldn’t remember where she knew it from.
“What were you going to say?” she finally asked Kat.
“It can wait. It looked like you were on to something.”
“One of the things he said sounded familiar,” Jessie explained. “But I don’t know why. It’ll come to me. What were you thinking?”
“Just how non-specific everything was. He lives ‘near’ you and
has heard terrible things coming from your ‘place,’ not your condo or apartment? It’s like he doesn’t know what your living situation is and doesn’t want to screw up by being too detailed. If this was really someone who lived on the same floor as you, or even in your building, he’d have been more specific about all of that. He’d have given an address at least.”
“Maybe he figured with the news covering my racist posts, it would be obvious,” Jessie said bitterly.
“That’s a major ‘maybe,’” Kat countered. “Did you recognize the voice?”
“No. It didn’t ring a bell,” she acknowledged, frustrated.
They sat in silence for a minute before Jessie’s phone rang. It was Camille.
“You’re popular tonight,” Kat teased.
“That depends on who you talk to,” Jessie said, answering the phone.
“Jessie?” the tech said. It was clear from her voice that she was excited.
“What’s up, Camille?”
“I found something,” she said, talking a mile a minute. “I’m not sure how big a deal it is but it’s more than we had before.”
“Okay, that’s great. Just calm down and tell me. And remember, I’m not a tech genius.”
“Right. So I looked at the information you sent me from DPSS and it included the number the anonymous call came from. It’s a burner phone, which is no surprise. That’s part of why it’s anonymous. But we were able to get some information. This phone was one of a batch that was stolen from a long haul truck en route to Los Angeles six weeks ago.”
“Okay,” Jessie said. “How does that help? If the phone was stolen, we can’t even check the video footage from the point of purchase.”
“That’s true,” Camille conceded. “But that’s not what’s interesting. I checked the point of origin of the truck shipment. When I saw it, on a hunch, I tried another trace on the protected IP address used for your recent social media ‘posts,’ But this time I used an algorithm that allowed me to check probabilities of possible origin and destination points.”
“I literally have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jessie said. “Remember the ‘not a tech genius’ thing?”
“Sorry. Long story short, I’m ninety percent sure the hack and the call came from the same place.”
“Where?” Jessie asked anxiously.
“Monterrey,” Camille said.
Something in Jessie’s brain exploded.
“The town south of San Francisco?” Kat asked, confused.
“No,” Jessie told her before Camille could reply. “Mexico.”
“That’s right,” Camille said. “We haven’t nailed down anything more specific than that. But it’s a start.”
“That’s great work,” Jessie said, trying to stay cool. “Maybe check with the drug task force. Give them what you found and mention the Monzon cartel. See if they can help you out. I’ve got to go.”
She hung up and stared at Kat, who could tell she’d had an epiphany.
“What?” her friend demanded.
“I remembered why the line from the anonymous call to DPSS about bucking up was so familiar. It was something my mother used to say to me when I was little—‘buck up or you’ll muck it up.’”
“How is that possible?” Kat asked, stunned. “It can’t be a coincidence, right?”
“It’s not. It was intentional. And it means I know who’s been setting me up this whole time.”
“Who?” Kat asked.
But before Jessie could reply, the sky lit up a bright orange. A fraction of a second later, they heard the explosion.
And then they felt it.
CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN
When Jessie came to, the sky was still ablaze.
She looked over to see that Kat was slumped in the passenger seat, knocked out. A crack in the window told her that her friend’s skull must have been smashed against it. Kat was breathing but when Jessie tried to shake her awake, she was unresponsive.
She opened her door and stumbled out, looking for the source of the explosion. It was no surprise to see it had come from the Ferguson house. From this vantage point, it looked like the blast had originated somewhere in the back of the second floor. A thick swirl of smoke curled upward from the spot.
Jessie grabbed the police radio and called in the incident. Then she rushed over to the house, unholstering her weapon as she moved. She scanned the area with blurry eyes, looking for any sign of Joseph Setts. She didn’t see him but did come across a uniformed officer sprawled on the ground at the foot of the front door. It was Tanner, the same one from earlier who’d chided her for the online posts and mentioned his interracial marriage.
He was conscious but clearly out of it. Though he didn’t have any obvious injuries, he looked confused and was having trouble sitting up. She bent down next to him.
“Officer Tanner, it’s Jessie Hunt. Can you hear me?”
He nodded.
“There’s been an explosion in the house. It looks like it came from the second floor. We need to check on the family. Are you able to stand up?”
He nodded again and she helped him to his feet.
“Where in the house was your partner?” she asked.
“Family room,” he said, breathing heavily, “with the parents. Just put kids to bed.”
“Okay, we’re going in now,” she said, looking in his eyes to see just how clear-headed he was. It was hard to tell. “We need to find Brenda and Ty, the kids, and Officer Kendrick. Are you up for this? I can’t have you inadvertently shooting a civilian.”
That seemed to shake him out of his malaise.
“I’m good,” he said convincingly. “Let’s go.”
The front door was locked but Tanner had a key and opened it. As soon as the door swung open, a gust of billowing smoke blew out. The officer led the way to the living room, which was empty.
“Upstairs?” he asked, looking back at her.
She nodded and looked up. The stairs were accessible but hard to see clearly as waves of smoke cascaded down from the second floor. As they rushed up the stairs, Jessie felt the temperature rise dramatically. She could hear the crackle of flames in the distance. The acrid smell of burning paint filled her nostrils.
Once they got to the second-floor landing, they found Officer Kendrick lying face down in the middle of the hallway. Blood from somewhere on the front of his body was seeping onto the carpet. Tanner knelt down beside him and gingerly rolled him over. He was alive, moaning softly. Jessie saw that the blood was coming from multiple stab wounds on the side of his abdomen. It reminded her of what was done to Caroline Gidley.
“He’s here,” she whispered. “Setts is here. We’ll come back for Kendrick but we need to find the Fergusons.”
Tanner looked conflicted about leaving his partner but nodded. The back of the hall, where she knew Ty Ferguson’s study was located, no longer existed. She could see clear into the backyard. That was obviously where the explosion had originated.
Where there had once been a back wall, there was now only a gaping hole surrounded by flames that quickly danced toward her. The entire study was already consumed and the fire was creeping forward along the hallway walls. Another, smaller explosion made her stumble and almost fall to the floor.
“We have to move fast,” she said. “This whole house is going to be one big inferno in minutes.”
She pointed for Tanner to look in one of the three bedrooms while she took another. It turned out to be the master, which she moved through quickly. It was empty. She checked the bathroom, where the plastic shower curtain seemed to be melting. There was no one inside. When she stepped back into the hall, Tanner was waiting for her.
“The boy’s room is empty,” he said in a hushed voice.
They both looked at the one remaining bedroom. The door was slightly ajar. Jessie counted down from three and pushed it open. Tanner stepped in with gun in hand. She quickly followed. Though it was dark, she could tell it was the little girl’s room. It looked emp
ty too. Then they heard a soft voice from the closet.
The sliding door opened to reveal Ty Ferguson, holding his three-year-old daughter in his arms. His five-year-old son was next to him, clutching his waist.
Jessie moved toward them as Tanner covered her.
“Where’s Brenda?” she asked quietly.
“I don’t know,” he said in a panicky whisper. “We ran up the stairs together. I grabbed Coy. When I came back into the hall, Officer Kendrick was on the ground and Brenda was gone. I hurried in here, grabbed Cady, and we’ve been hiding in the closet ever since. I wanted to look for her but couldn’t risk leaving the kids alone.”
“You made the right decision,” Jessie assured him. “We’re getting you all out now and we’ll find Brenda.”
“Is it the guy?” Ty asked.
Jessie nodded. Before she could say anything, a shadow appeared in the doorway. She spun in that direction, aiming her gun. She had just heard Tanner’s safety click off when she saw who it was.
“Hold your fire,” she ordered. “She’s with us.”
It was Kat. She was holding a gun in one hand and a flashlight in the other. Blood dripped down the right side of her face from the gash on her forehead.
“Setts is here,” Jessie said without introduction. “And Brenda Ferguson is missing. We need to get these kids out and then find her.”
Kat nodded. Her face was set in grim determination. Jessie imagined this was how she had looked on the battlefields of Afghanistan.
“You take lead,” she barked at Tanner. “Then the family. I’ll be behind them, carrying the other officer out. Jessie, you take the rear and cover us all from the back. Got it?”
Everyone nodded, even little Coy and Cady.
“Let’s move out,” Kat ordered. “The fire is spreading fast.”
Tanner led the way down the stairs. Ty was next, with Cady hugging him tight, her face buried in his chest. Coy was beside him, holding his hand. Kat holstered her gun and swooped up Officer Kendrick like he was a sack of potatoes. She did her best to position him so that the side with the knife wounds wasn’t being squeezed. Jessie came last, swiveling back and forth as she followed, flinching at every flame-heightened, flickering shadow as she desperately wiped the sweat away from her eyes
