The Perfect House

Eliza looked down. It was true. Each compression caused a slow leak of blood from what appeared to be wide gashes in her chest cavity. She looked up again.

“Call nine-one-one!” she screamed, though she knew there was no point.

*

Jessie, who felt unexpectedly nervous, got to work early.

With all of the extra security precautions she had in place, she’d decided to leave for her first day of work in three months twenty minutes early to make sure she arrived by 9 a.m., the time Captain Decker had told her to show up. But she must have been getting better at negotiating all the hidden turns and stairwells because it didn’t take nearly as long as she expected to get to Central Station.

As she walked from the parking structure to the main entrance of the station, her eyes darted back and forth, looking for anything out of the ordinary. But then she remembered the promise she’d made to herself just before she fell asleep last night. She would not allow the threat from her father to consume her.

She had no idea how vague or specific Bolton Crutchfield’s information to her father had been. She couldn’t even be sure that Crutchfield was telling her the truth. Regardless, there wasn’t much more she could do about it than she was already doing. Kat Gentry was checking the tapes of Crutchfield’s visits. She basically lived in a bunker. She’d be getting her official weapon today. Beyond that, she had to live her life. Otherwise she’d go crazy.

She made her way back to the station’s main bullpen, more than a little apprehensive at the reception she’d receive after so long away. Add to that, when she’d last been here she was merely an interim junior profiling consultant.

Now the interim tag was gone and, though she was technically still a consultant, she was paid by the LAPD and got all the attendant benefits. That included health insurance, which if recent experience was any example, she’d need in spades.

When she stepped into the large central work area, comprised of dozens of desks, separated by nothing more than corkboards, she breathed in and waited. But there was nothing. No one said anything.

In fact, no one even seemed to notice her arrival. Some heads were down, studying case files. Others were fixed on the people across the tables from them, in most cases witnesses or handcuffed suspects.

She felt slightly deflated. But more than that, she felt silly.

What did I expect—a parade?

It’s not like she won the mythical Nobel Prize for crime solving. She’d gone to an FBI training academy for two and a half months. It was pretty cool. But no one was going to break out in applause for her.

She walked quietly through the maze of desks, passing detectives she’d worked with previously. Callum Reid, in his mid-forties, glanced up from the file he was reading. As he nodded at her, his glasses almost fell off his forehead, where they had been resting.

Twenty-something Alan Trembley, his blond curls messy as usual, was wearing glasses too, but his were at the bridge of his nose as he intently questioned an older man who appeared to be drunk. He didn’t even notice Jessie as she walked past him.

She reached her desk, which was embarrassingly tidy, tossed down her jacket and backpack purse, and took a seat. As she did, she saw Garland Moses slowly amble from the break room, coffee in hand, as he started up the stairs to his second-floor office in what was essentially a broom closet.

It seemed a rather unimpressive workspace for the most celebrated criminal profiler the LAPD had but Moses didn’t appear to care. In fact, he couldn’t be bothered about much. Over seventy years old and working as a consultant for the department mostly to avoid boredom, the legendary profiler could do pretty much whatever he wanted. A former FBI agent, he’d moved to the West Coast to retire but had been convinced to consult for the department. He agreed, as long as he could pick his cases and work his hours. Considering his track record, no one objected at the time and they still didn’t now.

With a shock of unkempt white hair, leathery skin, and a wardrobe circa 1981, he had a reputation of being crusty at best and downright surly at worst. But in Jessie’s one significant interaction with him, she’d found him to be, if not warm, at least conversational. She wanted to pick his brain more but was still a bit frightened to engage him directly.

As he shuffled up the stairs and out of sight, she glanced around, looking for Ryan Hernandez, the detective she’d worked with most often and whom she felt borderline comfortable calling her friend. They’d even recently started using each other’s first name, a huge deal in cop circles.

They had actually met under non-professional circumstances, when her professor invited him to speak to her graduate criminal psychology class in her final semester at UC-Irvine last fall. He’d presented a case study, which Jessie, alone in the class, had been able to solve. Later, she learned she was only the second person ever to figure it out.

After that, they’d stayed in touch. She’d call him for help after she began to grow suspicious of her husband’s motives but before he tried to kill her. And once she’d moved back to DTLA, she was assigned to Central Station, where he was based.

They worked several cases together, including the murder of high society philanthropist Victoria Missinger. It was in large part Jessie’s discovery of the killer that had garnered the respect that secured her the FBI gig. And it wouldn’t have been possible without Ryan Hernandez’s experience and instincts.

In fact, he was so well regarded that he’d been assigned to a special unit in Robbery-Homicide called Homicide Special Section, or HSS for short. They specialized in high-profile cases that engendered lots of media interest or public scrutiny. That usually meant arsons, murders with multiple victims, murders of notable individuals, and, of course, serial killers.

Beyond his gifts as an investigator, Jessie had to acknowledge that he wasn’t unpleasant to spend time with. The two of them had an easy rapport, as if they’d known each other much longer than six months. On a few occasions at Quantico, when her guard was down, Jessie wondered if things might have been different if they’d met under other circumstances. But at the time, Jessie had still been married and Hernandez and his wife had been together for over six years.

Just then Captain Roy Decker opened his office door and stepped out. Tall, skinny, and almost completely bald save for a few stray hairs, Decker was not yet sixty. But he looked much older than that, with a sallow, lined face that suggested constant stress. His nose came to a sharp point and his small eyes were alert, as if always on the hunt, which Jessie supposed he was.

As he stepped into the bullpen, someone followed him out. It was Ryan. He was just as she’d remembered him. About six feet tall and two hundred pounds with short black hair and brown eyes, he wore a coat and tie that hid what she knew to be a well-muscled frame.

He was thirty years old, young to be a full detective. But he had moved up fast, especially after, as a street officer, he’d helped catch a notorious serial killer named Bolton Crutchfield.

As he and Captain Decker walked out, something his boss said made him break into that warm, easy grin that was so disarming, even to suspects he was questioning. Much to her surprise, the sight of it caused an unexpected reaction in her. Somewhere in her stomach, she got a strange sensation she hadn’t felt in years: butterflies.

Hernandez caught sight of her and waved as the two men walked over. She stood up, annoyed at the unexpected feeling and hoping movement would stifle it. Forcing her brain into professional mode, she tried to discern what they might have been talking about privately based on their expressions. But both men wore masks that suggested they were trying to keep the content of their discussion private. Jessie did notice one thing, however: Ryan looked tired.

“Welcome back, Hunt,” Decker said perfunctorily. “I trust your time in Virginia was illuminating?”

“Very much so, sir,” she replied.

“Excellent. While I would love to hear about the particulars, we’ll have to hold off on that for now, Instead, you’re going to put your new skills to the test right away. You’ve got a case.”

“Sir?” she said, slightly surprised. She assumed he’d want to ease her back in and go over her new duties as a full-time non-interim profiler.

“Hernandez will explain the details to you en route,” Decker said. “The case is a bit sensitive and your services were specifically requested.”

“Really?” Jessie asked, regretting her enthusiasm the moment she said it.

“Really, Hunt,” Decker answered, scowling slightly. “Apparently you’ve developed a bit of a reputation as the Suburbia Whisperer. I can’t go into any more now. Suffice to say, the folks upstairs want this case handled delicately. I expect you’ll keep that in mind as you proceed.”

“Yes sir.”

“All right. We’ll catch up later,” he said. Then he turned and walked off without another word.

Ryan, who hadn’t spoken until then, finally did now.

“Welcome home,” he said. “How are you doing?”

“Not too bad,” she said, ignoring the fluttering sensation that had suddenly returned. “Just getting back into the flow of things, you know?”

“Well, diving right back in should help,” he said. “We’ve got to head out right away.”

“Do I have time to pick up the weapon I requisitioned before I left for Quantico?”

“I checked on that for you earlier this morning,” he said as they began walking through the bullpen. “Unfortunately, there was some kind of bureaucratic screw-up and it hadn’t been processed yet. I resolved the paperwork issue but you probably won’t get your gun until next week. Think you can survive just using your brain as a weapon for a few days?”

He smiled at her but she noticed something she hadn’t picked up on earlier. He had shadows under his eyes, which were a little red.

“Sure,” she said, nodding, trying to keep up with his brisk pace. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. Why?” he asked, glancing over at her.

“You just look a little…tired.”

“Yeah,” he said, looking straight ahead again as he talked. “I’ve had a bit of trouble sleeping lately. Shelly and I are getting separated.”