The Perfect Block

“But they got dramatically more frequent and intense once you got the message, correct?”

“I assume we’re talking about the message Bolton Crutchfield passed along to me revealing that he’s been in contact with my father, who would very much like to find me.”

“That’s the message we’re talking about.”

“Then yes, that’s around the time they got worse,” Jessie answered.

“Setting aside the dreams for a moment,” Dr. Lemmon said, “I wanted to reiterate what I I’ve told you previously.”

“Yes, Doctor, I haven’t forgotten. In your capacity as an advisor to the Department of State Hospitals, Non-Rehabilitative Division, you’ve consulted with the security team at the hospital to ensure that Bolton Crutchfield doesn’t have access to any unauthorized outside personnel. There is no way for him to communicate with my father to let him know my new identity.”

“How many times have I said that?” Dr. Lemmon asked. “It must have been a few for you to have it memorized.”

“Let’s just say more than once. Besides, I’ve become friendly with the head of security at the NRD facility, Kat Gentry, and she told me basically the same thing—they’ve updated their procedures to ensure that Crutchfield has no communication with the outside world.”

“And yet you don’t sound convinced,” Dr. Lemmon noted.

“Would you be?” Jessie countered. “If your dad was a serial killer known to the world as the Ozarks Executioner and you’d personally seen him eviscerate his victims and he was never caught, would your mind be set at ease by a few platitudes?”

“I admit I’d probably be a bit skeptical. But I’m not sure how productive it is to dwell on something you can’t control.”

“I was meaning to broach that with you, Dr. Lemmon,” Jessie said, dropping the sarcasm now that she had a genuine request. “Are we sure I don’t have any control over the situation? It seems that Bolton Crutchfield knows a fair bit about what my father has been up to in recent years. And Bolton…enjoys my company. I was thinking another visit to chat with him might be in order. Who knows what he might reveal?”

Dr. Lemmon took a deep breath as she considered the proposal.

“I’m not sure playing mind games with a notorious serial killer is the best next step for your emotional well-being, Jessie.”

“You know what would be great for my emotional well-being, Doctor?” Jessie said, feeling her frustration rise despite her best efforts. “Not fearing that my psycho dad is going to jump out from around a corner and get all stabby on me.”

“Jessie, if just talking to me about this gets you so riled up, what’s going to happen when Crutchfield starts pushing your buttons?”

“It’s not the same. I don’t have to censor myself around you. With him I’m a different person. I’m professional,” Jessie said, making sure her tone was more measured now. “I’m tired of being a victim and this is something tangible I can do to change the dynamic. Will you just consider it? I know that your recommendation is pretty much a golden ticket in this town.”

Dr. Lemmon stared at her for a few seconds from behind her thick glasses, her eyes boring into her.

“I’ll see what I can do,” she finally said. “Speaking of golden tickets, have you formally accepted the FBI’s National Academy invitation yet?”

“Not yet. I’m still weighing my options.”

“I think you could learn a lot there, Jessie. And it wouldn’t hurt to have it on your résumé when you’re trying to get work out here. I worry that passing on it might be a form of self-sabotage.”

“It’s not that,” Jessie assured her. “I know it’s a great opportunity. I’m just not sure this is the ideal time for me to up and move across the country for almost three months. My whole world is in flux right now.”

She tried to keep the agitation out of her voice but could hear it creeping in. Clearly Dr. Lemmon did too because she shifted gears.

“Okay. Now that we’ve gotten a big picture view of how things are going, I’d like to dig a little deeper on a few subjects. If I recall, your adoptive father came out here recently to help get you squared away. I want to get into how that went momentarily. But first, let’s discuss how you’re recovering physically. I understand you just had your last physical therapy session. How was that?”

The next forty-five minutes made Jessie feel like a tree having its bark peeled back. When it was over, she was happy to leave, even if it meant her next stop was getting checked to reconfirm she could have kids in the future. After nearly an hour of Dr. Lemmon poking and prodding her psyche, she figured getting her body poked and prodded would be a breeze. She was wrong.

*

It wasn’t so much the poking that set her off. It was the aftermath. The appointment itself was pretty uneventful. Jessie’s doctor confirmed that she hadn’t suffered any permanent damage and assured her that she should be able to conceive in the future. She also gave the all-clear to resume sexual activity, a notion that had genuinely not crossed Jessie’s mind since Kyle attacked her. The doctor said that barring something unexpected, she should return for a follow-up in six months.

It was only when she was in the elevator on the way down to the parking garage that she lost it. She wasn’t completely sure why but she felt like she was falling into a dark hole in the ground. She ran to the car and sat in the driver’s seat, letting the heaving sobs wrack her body.

And then, in the middle of the tears, she got it. Something about the finality of the appointment had hit her hard. She didn’t have to come back for six months. It would be a normal visit. The pregnancy stage of her life was, for the foreseeable future, over.

She could almost feel the emotional door slam shut and it was jarring. On top of her marriage ending in the most shocking way possible and learning that the murderous father she thought she’d put in the past was back in her present, the realization that she’d had a living being inside her and now she didn’t was too much to bear.

She peeled out of the parking garage, her vision blurred by tear-stained eyes. She didn’t care. She found herself pressing down hard on the accelerator as she roared south on Robertson. It was early afternoon and there wasn’t much traffic. Still, she weaved wildly in and out of lanes.

Ahead of her, at a stoplight, she saw a large moving truck. She hit the gas hard and felt her neck snap back as she accelerated. The speed limit was thirty-five, but she was at forty-five, fifty-five, passing sixty. She was sure that if she hit that truck hard enough, all her pain would vanish in an instant.

She glanced to her left and as she whizzed by, she saw a mother walking along the sidewalk with her toddler son. The thought of that little boy being witness to a mass of crumpled metal, blistering fire, and charred remains snapped her out of it.

Jessie hit the brakes hard, squealing to a stop only feet from the back of the truck. She pulled into the gas station parking lot to her right, parked, and turned off the car. She was breathing heavily and adrenaline coursed through her body, making her fingers and toes tingle to the point of discomfort.

After about five minutes sitting there motionless with her eyes closed, her chest stopped heaving and her breathing returned to normal. She heard a buzzing and opened her eyes. It was her phone. The caller ID said it was Detective Ryan Hernandez of the LAPD. He’d spoken to her criminology class last semester, where she’d impressed him with how she’d solved a sample case he presented to the class. He’d also visited her in the hospital after Kyle tried to kill her.

“Hello, hello,” Jessie said out loud to herself, making sure her voice sounded normal. Close enough. She answered the call.

“This is Jessie.”

“Hi, Ms. Hunt. This is Detective Ryan Hernandez calling. Do you remember me?”

“Of course,” she said, pleased that she sounded like her usual self. “What’s up?”

“I know you graduated recently,” he said, his voice sounding more hesitant than she remembered. “Have you secured a position yet?”

“Not yet,” she answered. “I’m weighing my options right now.”

“In that case, I’d like to talk to you about a job.”

CHAPTER FOUR

An hour later, Jessie was sitting in the reception area of the Central Community Police Station of the Los Angeles Police Department, or as it was more commonly called, Downtown Division, where she was waiting for Detective Hernandez to come out to meet her. She expressly refused to think about what happened with the near crash. It was too much to process at the moment. Instead, she focused on what was about to happen.

Hernandez had been cagey on the call, telling her he couldn’t go into detail—just that a junior position was opening up and he’d thought of her. He asked her to come in to discuss it in person as he wanted to gauge her interest before mentioning her to the higher-ups.

While Jessie waited, she tried to recall what she knew about Hernandez. She had met him earlier that fall when he’d visited her master’s program forensic psychology class to discuss the practical applications of profiling. It turned out that when he was a beat cop, he’d been instrumental in catching Bolton Crutchfield.

In the class, he’d presented an elaborate murder case to the students and asked if anyone could determine the perpetrator and the motive. Only Jessie had figured it out. In fact, Hernandez had said she was only the second student ever to solve the case.

The next time she saw him was in the hospital when she was recovering from Kyle’s attack. She was still a bit drugged up at the time, so her memory was a little hazy.

He had only been there in the first place because she’d called him, suspicious about Kyle’s background before she’d met him at age eighteen, hoping to get any leads he could offer. She’d left a voicemail with the detective and when he couldn’t reach her after multiple calls back—primarily because her husband had tied her up in their house—he’d tracked her cell and found she was in the hospital.

When he visited, he’d been helpful, walking her through the state of the pending case against Kyle. But he’d also quite clearly been suspicious (with good reason) that Jessie hadn’t done all she could to come clean after Kyle killed Natalia Urgova.