Читать книгу The Perfect Lie - Блейк Пирс - Страница 4

The man skulked down the apartment complex’s outdoor hallway, looking over his shoulder every few seconds. It was early in the morning and a guy like him, thick as a tank, African-American and wearing a hoodie, tended to draw attention.

He was on the eighth floor, just outside the apartment of the woman he knew lived here. He also knew what her car looked like and had seen it in the parking garage below, so he assumed she might be in. As a precaution, the man knocked softly on the front door.

It wasn’t even seven a.m. yet and he didn’t want any early riser neighbors to poke their curious heads out. It was cold outside this morning and the man didn’t want to take off the hoodie. But fearing it would draw too much attention, he pulled it off his head, exposing his skin to the biting wind.

When he got no response to his knock, he made a perfunctory attempt to open the door he was sure would be locked. It was. He moved over to the adjacent window. He could see that it was slightly open. He debated whether he should really go ahead with this. After a moment’s hedging he made up his mind, yanked the window up, and climbed in. He knew anyone who saw him would likely be calling the cops but decided it was worth the risk.

Once inside, he tried make his way quietly to the bedroom. All the lights were off and there was a strange smell he couldn’t identify. As he stepped further back into the apartment, he got a cold chill that had nothing to do with the weather. He reached the door of the bedroom, gently turned the knob, and peeked in.

There on the bed was the woman he’d been expecting to see. She appeared to be sleeping but something was weird. Even in the dim morning light, her skin looked strangely pale. Also, she didn’t seem to be moving at all. No rising and falling of the chest. No movement at all. He stepped into the room and walked over to the bed. The smell was overwhelming now, a rotting stench that made his eyes water and his stomach turn.

He wanted to reach out and touch her but couldn’t bring himself to. He wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words. Finally he turned away and stepped out of the room.

He pulled out his phone and dialed the only number he could think of. It rang several times before giving him a recorded voice. He pushed several buttons and waited for a response as he retreated to the living room of the apartment. Finally, a voice came on the line.

“911. What is your emergency?”

“Yes, my name is Vin Stacey. I think my friend is dead. Her name is Taylor Jansen. I came to her apartment because I couldn’t reach her for several days. She’s lying in her bed. But she isn’t moving and she…doesn’t look right. Also there’s a smell.”

That was the moment when the reality of the situation hit him—that vivacious, enthusiastic Taylor was lying dead less than thirty feet from him. He bent over and threw up.

*

Jessie sat in the back seat for what she hoped was the final time. The U.S. Marshal vehicle pulled into the LAPD Central Station parking structure and parked in a visitor spot. Standing there waiting was her boss, Captain Roy Decker.

He didn’t look much different than the last time she saw him. Almost sixty, though he appeared much older, Decker was tall and skinny with a mostly bald head, deep creases in his face, a sharp nose, and small, penetrating eyes. He was talking to a uniformed officer but was clearly there to meet her.

“Wow,” she said sarcastically to the Marshals in the front seat. “I feel like a woman in the eighteenth century being formally handed off from her father to her husband.”

The Marshal in the passenger seat scowled back at her. His name was Patrick Murphy, though everyone called him Murph. Short and trim, with tightly cropped light brown hair, he projected a no-nonsense sensibility, though that turned out to be a bit of ruse.

“That scenario would require a husband who wanted to take you in, which I find highly unlikely,” said the man who had coordinated much of her security while she on the run from multiple serial killers.

Only the slightest hint of a grin at the edges of his mouth hinted that he was joking.

“You are, as always, a prince among men, Murph,” she said, faux-politely. “I don’t know how I’m going to muddle through without your charming personage at my side.”

“Me either,” he muttered.

“Nor without your conversational charisma, Marshal Toomey,” she said to the driver, a massive man with a shaved head and a blank expression.

Toomey, who rarely spoke, nodded silently.

Captain Decker, who had finished talking to the officer, looked at the three of them impatiently, waiting for them to get out of the car.

“I guess this is it,” Jessie said, opening the door and getting out with more energy than she felt. “How’s it going, Captain?”

“More complicated today than yesterday,” he said, “now that I’ve got you back on my hands.”

“But I swear, Captain, Murph here has collected a hefty dowry to go along with me. I promise not to be a burden and to always earn my wifely keep.”

“What?” he asked, perplexed.

“Oh, Pa,” she said, turning back to Murph. “Do I have to leave the farm? I’ll miss you and Mother ever so much.”

“What the hell is going on?” Decker demanded.

Murph forced his face into a mask of seriousness and turned to the confused cop who had walked over to the passenger window.

“Captain Decker,” he said formally, handing over clipboard with a sheet of paper on it. “The protection duty of the U.S. Marshal Service is no longer required. I hereby officially relinquish custody of Jessie Hunt to the Los Angeles Police Department.”

“Custody?” Jessie repeated testily. Murph, ignoring her, continued.

“Any additional security measures are now the obligation of your department. Signing this document acknowledges such.”

Decker took the clipboard and signed the paper without reading it. Then he handed it back and looked at Jessie.

“Good news, Hunt,” he said gruffly, without any of the enthusiasm that usually accompanied good news. “The detectives trying to track down Bolton Crutchfield found video footage of someone matching his description crossing the Mexican border yesterday. You may finally be free of the guy.”

“Facial recognition confirmed it?” she asked skeptically, losing the fake voice for the first time.

“No,” he admitted. “He kept his head down the entire time he walked across the bridge. But he matches the physical description almost perfectly and the very fact that he took care never to be cleanly captured in video suggests he knew what he was doing.”

“That is good news,” she said, deciding not to comment beyond that.

She agreed that she was likely no longer in Crutchfield’s crosshairs, but not because of some sketchy surveillance video that seemed far too convenient. Of course, she didn’t feel like she could tell Decker the real reason was her hunch that the killer had a soft spot for her.

“You ready to get back to work?” he asked, satisfied that he had addressed any lingering concerns she might have.

“In just a minute, Captain,” she said. “I just need a quick word with the marshals.”

“Make it fast,” Decker said as he walked several steps away. “You’ve got a busy day of sitting behind a desk ahead of you.”

“Yes sir,” she said before leaning down to the driver’s window.

“I think I’ll miss you most of all, Scarecrow,” she said to Toomey, who’d been her primary assigned marshal for the last two months. He nodded back. Apparently no words were necessary. Then she walked around to the passenger side and looked at Murphy guiltily.

“All joking aside, I just wanted to say how much I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. You put yourselves on the line to keep me safe and I’ll never forget it.”

He was still on crutches, though the casts on his legs had been removed last week, replaced by soft boots. That was around the same time he was permitted to remove the sling around his arm.

All those injuries were a result of being hit by the car Xander Thurman was driving when he ambushed him and Jessie in an alley. He’d broken both legs and his clavicle. So officially, he was on leave from the service for another four months. He’d only come this morning to see her off.

“Don’t start getting emotional on me now,” he protested. “We’ve got this ‘hard-bitten, reluctant allies’ thing down cold. You’re going to mess it up.”

“How’s Emerson’s family doing?” she asked quietly.

Troy Emerson was the marshal her father had shot in the head that terrible night. Jessie hadn’t even known his first name until after he died, nor that he was recently married with a four-month-old son. She hadn’t been able to go to the funeral because of her injuries but had subsequently reached out to Emerson’s widow. She hadn’t heard back.

“Kelly’s getting there,” Murph assured her. “She got your message. I know she wants to get back to you but she just needs more time.”

“I understand. To be honest, I’d understand if she never wanted to speak to me.”

“Hey, don’t take all this on yourself,” he replied, almost angrily. “It’s not your fault your dad was a psycho. And Troy knew the risks when he got into this job. We all did. You can feel sympathy. But don’t feel guilty.”

Jessie nodded, unable to think of a suitable response.

“I’d give you a hug,” Murph said. “But it would make me wince, and not for emotional reasons. So let’s just pretend we did, okay?”

“Whatever you say, Marshal Murphy,” she said.

“Don’t start getting formal on me now,” he insisted as he delicately eased himself back into the passenger seat of the car. “You can still call me Murph. It’s not like I’m going to stop calling you by your nickname.”

“What’s that?” she asked.

“The pain in my ass.”

She couldn’t help but laugh at that.

“Goodbye, Murph,” she said. “Give Toomey a kiss for me.”

“I’d do that even without being asked,” he shouted as Toomey hit the accelerator and the tires squealed on the garage floor.

Jessie turned around to find Decker staring at her impatiently.

“You done?” he asked sharply. “Or should I take in a showing of The Notebook while you all work out your emotions some more?”

“It’s good to be back, Captain,” she sighed.

He started walking inside and waved for her to follow him. She ignored the twinge in her leg and back and jogged after him. She was only just catching up when he launched into his plan for her.

“So don’t expect any fieldwork for a while,” he said gruffly. “I wasn’t kidding about keeping you on a desk. You’re rusty and I can see you desperately trying not to limp on that right leg as you walk. Until I think you’re solid again, you should get used the bullpen’s fluorescent lights.”

“Don’t you think I’d get back in the swing of things quicker if I just dived in?” Jessie asked, trying not to sound pleading. She had to take two steps to every one of his to keep up as he barreled down the hall.

“Funny, that’s almost exactly what your buddy Hernandez said when he came back last week. I put him on desk duty too. And guess what? He’s still there.”

“I didn’t know Hernandez was back,” she said.

“I thought you two were bosom buddies,” he said as they rounded the corner.

Jessie glanced over at him sideways, trying to determine if her boss was suggesting anything. But he seemed to be sincere.

“We’re friends,” she acknowledged. “But I think with the injuries he suffered and his divorce, he wanted a little time to himself.”

“Really?” Decker said. “You could have fooled me.”

She didn’t know what to make of that comment but didn’t have time to ask before they arrived at the station bullpen, a large room with filled with a mishmash of desks pushed together, all populated by various detectives representing different LAPD divisions. At the far end of the bullpen, with the other Homicide Special Section detectives, was Ryan Hernandez.

For a man who’d been stabbed twice only two months earlier by her father (it seemed that every injured person she knew these days got their wounds at the hands of her father), Hernandez looked pretty good.

His left forearm wasn’t even bandaged anymore. The other wound had been to the left side of his abdomen. But considering that he was standing upright and laughing, she figured it couldn’t be bothering him that much.

As Decker led her over, she found herself perplexed by how annoyed she was at Hernandez joking around. She should be happy that he wasn’t depressed in the aftermath of having his marriage fall apart and nearly being killed. But if he was doing so well, why hadn’t he reached out more than two perfunctory times in the last couple of months?

She’d made much more of an effort to check in and rarely heard back. She’d assumed it was because he was struggling and had given him space to regroup. But based on how he looked now, everything seemed to be peachy.

“Nice to see the Homicide Special Section is in such good spirits on this fine morning,” Decker bellowed, startling the five men and one woman who comprised the unit. Detective Alan Trembley, looking as scattershot as usual, even dropped his bagel.

Homicide Special Section was a division assigned to high-profile cases, often ones with intense media scrutiny. That meant lots of homicides with multiple victims and serial killers. It was prestigious assignment and Hernandez was considered the cream of the crop.

“Look who’s back,” Detective Callum Reid said enthusiastically. “I didn’t know you were returning today. Now we’ve finally got some class back in the joint.”

“You know,” Jessie said, deciding to embrace the vibe of the group, “you could be classy too, Reid, if you didn’t let one rip every ten seconds. It’s not a high bar.”

Everyone busted out laughing.

“It’s funny because it’s true,” Trembley said happily, his unkempt blond curls bouncing as he laughed. He pushed up his glasses, which perpetually slid down his nose.

“How you feeling, Jessie?” Hernandez said when the noise had died down.

“I’m getting by,” she answered, trying not to sound cold. “You look like you’re on the mend.”

“Getting there,” he said. “I’ve still got a few aches and pains. But as I keep telling the Captain here, if he’d let me in the game I could make a real difference. I’m tired of riding the bench, Coach.”

“That never gets old, Hernandez,” Decker said grumpily, clearly tired of the team analogy. “Hunt, I’ll give you a few minutes to get resettled. Then we’ll go over your case load. I have a bunch of unsolved homicide files that could use a fresh eye. Maybe a profiler’s perspective will shake things up. I expect the rest of you to give me case updates in my office in five minutes. It looks like you have the spare time.”

He headed for his office grumbling to himself. The rest of the team assembled their files as Hernandez plopped down across from Jessie.

“You don’t have anything to report?” she asked.

“I don’t have any cases of my own yet. I’ve been backing these guys up on everything. Maybe now that you’re back, we can tag team Decker and get him to send us out on something. The two of us together make up one almost totally healthy person.”

“I’m glad that you’re in such good spirits,” Jessie said, desperately trying to stop herself from saying more but failing to do so. “I wish you’d have let me know you were all good earlier. I steered clear because I thought you were working stuff out.”

Hernandez’s smile faded as he took in what she said. He seemed to be weighing how to respond. As she waited for his reply and despite her annoyance, Jessie couldn’t help but admit the guy had maintained himself pretty well while recovering from a grievous injury and a divorce.

He looked put together. Not a strand of his short black hair was out of place. His brown eyes were clear and focused. And somehow, despite his injuries, he’d managed to keep in shape. He might have lost five pounds off his usual six-foot, two-hundred-pound frame, probably related to difficulty eating right after getting his stomach sliced open. But at thirty-one, he still had the toned look of a man who worked out often.

“Yeah, about that,” he started to say, snapping her back into the moment. “I wanted to call, but the thing is, some stuff has been going on and I wasn’t sure how to talk about it.”

“What kind of stuff?” she asked nervously. She didn’t like where this was headed.

Hernandez looked down, as if deciding how best to broach what was clearly a touchy subject. After a full five seconds he looked back up at her. Just as he was opening his mouth, Decker burst out of his office.

“We’ve got a gang-involved shooting in Westlake North,” he shouted. “The scene is still active. We already have four fatalities and an unknown number of injuries. I need SWAT, HSS, and gang units en route now. This is all hands on deck, people!”