The Perfect Block

“I’ll be in touch,” she called out to Bridget as she closed the door behind her. But she wasn’t sure she would be. Right now she wasn’t sure of anything.

CHAPTER THREE

Dr. Janice Lemmon’s office was only a few blocks from the apartment building Jessie was leaving and she was glad for the chance to walk and clear her head. As she walked down Figueroa, she almost welcomed the sharp, cutting wind making her eyes water and immediately dry up. The bracing cold pushed most thoughts other than moving fast from her head.

She zipped her coat up to the neck and put her head down as she passed a coffee shop, then a diner filled to near overflowing. It was mid-December in Los Angeles and local businesses were doing their best to make their storefronts look holiday festive in a town where snow was almost an abstract concept.

But in the wind tunnels created by downtown skyscrapers, cold was ever-present. It was almost 11 a.m. but the sky was gray and the temperature was in the low fifties. Tonight it would drop close to forty. For L.A., that was bone-chilling. Of course, Jessie had been through far more frigid weather.

As a child in rural Missouri, before everything fell apart, she would play in the tiny front yard of her mom’s mobile home in the trailer park, her fingers and face half-numb, fashioning unimpressive but happy-faced snowmen while her mom watched protectively from the window. Jessie remembered wondering why her mother never took her eyes off her. Looking back now, it was clear.

A few years later, in the suburbs of Las Cruces, New Mexico, where she’d lived with her adoptive family after going into Witness Protection, she would go skiing on the bunny slopes of the nearby mountains with her second father, an FBI agent who projected calm professionalism, no matter the situation. He was always there to help her up when she fell. And she could usually count on a hot chocolate when they got off the barren, windswept hills and went back to the lodge.

Those chilly memories warmed her as she rounded the final block to Dr. Lemmon’s office. She meticulously chose not to think about the less pleasant memories that inevitably intertwined with the good ones.

She checked in and peeled off her layers as she waited to be called into the doctor’s office. It didn’t take long. Right at 11 a.m., her therapist opened the door and welcomed her inside.

Dr. Janice Lemmon was in her mid-sixties but didn’t look it. She was in great shape and her eyes, behind thick glasses, were sharp and focused. Her curly blonde ringlets bounced when she walked and she had a coiled intensity that couldn’t be masked.

They sat down in plush chairs across from each other. Dr. Lemmon gave her a few moments to settle in before speaking.

“How are you?” she asked in that open-ended way that always made Jessie genuinely ponder the question more seriously than she did in her daily life.

“I’ve been better,” she admitted.

“Why is that?”

Jessie recounted her panic attack in the apartment and the subsequent flashbacks.

“I don’t know what set me off,” she said in conclusion.

“I think you do,” Dr. Lemmon prodded.

“Care to give me a hint?” Jessie countered.

“Well, I’m wondering if you lost your cool in the presence of a near stranger because you don’t feel like you have any other place to release your anxiety. Let me ask you this—do you have any stressful events or decisions coming up?”

“You mean other than an OB-GYN appointment in two hours to see if I’m recovered from my miscarriage, finalizing a divorce from the man who tried to murder me, selling the house we shared together, processing the fact that my serial killer father is looking for me, deciding whether or not to go to Virginia for two and a half months to have FBI instructors laugh at me, and having to move out of my friend’s apartment so she can get a decent night’s sleep? Besides those things, I’d say I’m cool.”

“That does sound like quite a bit,” Dr. Lemmon replied, ignoring Jessie’s sarcasm. “Why don’t we start with the immediate concerns and work outward from there, okay?”

“You’re the boss,” Jessie muttered.

“Actually, I’m not. But tell me about your upcoming appointment. Why does that have you concerned?”

“It’s not so much that I’m concerned,” Jessie said. “The doctor already told me that it looks like I don’t have any permanent damage and will be able to conceive in the future. It’s more that I know going there will remind of what I lost and how I lost it.”

“You’re talking about how your husband drugged you so he could frame you for murdering Natalia Urgova? And how the drug he used induced your miscarriage?”

“Yes,” Jessie said drily. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

“Well, I’ll be surprised if anyone there brings that up,” Dr. Lemmon said, a gentle smile playing at her lips.

“So you’re saying I’m creating stress for myself about a situation that need not be stressful?”

“I’m saying that if you deal with the emotions ahead of time, it might not be so overwhelming when you’re actually in the room.”

“Easier said than done,” Jessie said.

“Everything is easier said than done,” Dr. Lemmon replied. “Let’s table that for now and move on to your pending divorce. How are things going on that front?”

“The house is in escrow. So I’m hoping that gets finished without complications. My attorney says that my request for an expedited divorce was approved and that it should be final before the end of year. There is a bonus on that front—because California is a community property state, I get half the assets of my murdering spouse. He gets half of mine too, despite going on trial for nine major felonies early next year. But considering I was a student until a few weeks ago, that doesn’t amount to much.”

“Okay, how do you feel about all that?”

“I feel good about the money. I’d say I more than earned it. Did you know I used the health insurance from his job to pay for the injury I got from him stabbing me with a fireplace poker? There’s something poetic about that. Otherwise, I’ll be glad when it’s all over. I mostly just want to move on and try to forget that I spent nearly a decade of my life with a sociopath and never realized it.”

“You think you should have known?” Dr. Lemmon asked.

“I am trying to become a professional criminal profiler, Doctor. How good can I be when I didn’t notice the criminal behavior of my own husband?”

“We’ve talked about this, Jessie. It’s often difficult for even the best profilers to identify illicit behavior in those close to them. Often professional distance is required to see what’s really going on.”

“I gather you speak from personal experience?” Jessie asked.

Janice Lemmon, in addition to being a behavioral therapist, was a highly regarded criminal consultant who used to work full time for the LAPD. She still offered her services on occasion.

Lemmon had used her considerable string-pulling influence to get Jessie permission to visit the state hospital in Norwalk so she could interview serial killer Bolton Crutchfield as part of her graduate work. And Jessie suspected that the doctor had also played an integral part in her being accepted to the FBI’s vaunted National Academy program, which typically only took seasoned local investigators, not recent graduates with almost no practical experience.

“I do,” Dr. Lemmon said. “But we can save that for another time. Would you like to discuss how you feel about being played by your husband?”

“I wouldn’t say I was totally played. After all, because of me, he’s in prison and three people who would otherwise be dead, including myself, are walking around. Don’t I get any credit for that? After all, I did eventually figure it out. I don’t think the cops ever would have.”

“That’s a fair point. I assume from your snark that you’d rather move on. Shall we discuss your father?”

“Really?” Jessie asked, incredulous. “Do we have to go there next? Can’t we just talk about my apartment troubles?”

“I gather they’re related. After all, isn’t the reason your roommate can’t get any sleep because you have scream-inducing nightmares?”

“You don’t play fair, Doctor.”

“I’m only working from things you tell me, Jessie. If you didn’t want me to know, you wouldn’t have mentioned it. Can I assume the dreams are related to your mother’s murder at the hands of your father?”

“Yep,” Jessie answered, keeping her tone overly jaunty. “The Ozarks Executioner may have gone underground but he’s still got one victim very much in his clutches.”

“Have the nightmares gotten worse since we last met?” Dr. Lemmon asked.

“I wouldn’t say worse,” Jessie corrected. “They’ve been pretty much at the same level of terrifyingly awful.”