*
Hannah was awake when Jessie got home.
The girl barely looked up from the movie she was watching when she walked in. It was almost 1 a.m. and tomorrow was a school day but Jessie didn’t have the energy to fight.
“It’s been a long night,” she said. “I’m going to bed. Can you please turn the volume down and try to get some sleep soon so you can function tomorrow?”
Hannah turned the volume down a few notches but otherwise didn’t acknowledge her half-sister’s words. Jessie stood in her bedroom doorway for a moment, debating whether to try again. But ultimately she decided it wasn’t worth it and simply closed the door.
She slept restlessly that night. That wasn’t unusual. For the last few years, she could count on near-nightly nightmares centered on one of the men who had posed a threat to her very life. They were usually a mix of her ex-husband, her father, and Bolton Crutchfield.
But tonight, like so many recent nights, her dreams centered on Hannah. Her mind was filled with a swirl of disconnected images, some of the girl in peril at the hands of a masked assailant, others in which she walked nonchalantly into danger.
But the dream that troubled her the most was the last one, in which Hannah sat at a table, smiling casually as an unidentifiable waiter served her a plate filled with dismembered body parts. She was just lifting a forkful of human flesh to her mouth when Jessie startled awake, drenched in sweat and breathing heavily.
The first rays of morning sun streamed in through a crack in the curtains. She sat up, swung her legs over the side of the bed, and rested her head in her hands. Her skull was pounding and she felt vaguely nauseated. As she reached for ibuprofen and a bottle of Pepto-Bismol, she tried not to read too much into the dreams.
She knew from experience that they weren’t so much a predictor as a manifestation of her fears. She was having these dreams because she feared for Hannah’s future, not because of anything she was destined to become.
At least that’s what she told herself.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Despite her exhaustion, Jessie was excited to get to the station.
She managed to get Hannah out the door only ten minutes late this morning and figured that if she hit only light traffic, she could still arrive at work before it got too busy. She wanted some quiet time to focus on the Michaela Penn case, which felt more wrong every time she thought about it.
Why did the officers on scene want to wrap things up so fast? Why hadn’t the detective arrived more quickly—if he arrived at all? What made Chatty Cathy call Ryan in the first place? Jessie’s gut screamed that this was more than just a standard robbery gone wrong. Nine stab wounds felt very personal.
And yet, as she’d been reminded repeatedly at the ten-week FBI Academy training session she’d attended, her gut was no substitute for evidence. Just because a person or scenario seemed suspicious, that wasn’t proof of anything on its own. For Jessie, who had excelled at almost every test they threw at her at Quantico, taking that lesson to heart had been the most challenging.
When she arrived at her desk at 7:33 a.m., the station bullpen was still sparsely populated. She knew she had about a half hour until that changed so she dived right in. First she called the Valley Bureau Coroner’s Office to get any results they might have. Maggie Caldwell wasn’t in. But according to Jimmy, the guy on call, she’d instructed him to pass along any updates if someone from Central Station called. At least Caldwell didn’t seem to be part of whatever slow walk operation Sergeant Costabile was running.
According to Jimmy, Michaela had been sexually assaulted before she died. But apparently the assailant had used a condom and then doused her in some sort of disinfectant that prevented the collection of any usable DNA. They were waiting to see if more detailed testing might offer something but he wasn’t optimistic.
Her next call was to the hospital to check on Lizzie. As she waited on hold for an update, her thoughts drifted to back to Hannah. The similarities between her and Michaela Penn weren’t lost on her. Both girls were seventeen. Both had gone to private schools in the San Fernando Valley. It looked like both of them had to grow up faster than they should have. Jessie couldn’t help but wonder what other parallels they shared.
A nurse came on the line, snapping her out of her thoughts. Apparently Lizzie was still sedated. The nurse said she should be awake by mid-morning and suggested holding off on visiting until then.
After that she called Van Nuys Station and asked for Officer Burnside, who had been standing guard outside the apartment building. Out of all the cops she encountered last night, he was the one who seemed the least comfortable with the situation. She hoped she might be able to pry some details out of him. She was told his shift had just ended—it ran from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. With a little cajoling, she was able to convince the desk sergeant to give her his cell number. Her hope that he might be awake and still driving home was rewarded when he picked up on the second ring.
“Hello?” he said tentatively.
“Officer Burnside? This is Jessie Hunt. We met last night at the Penn murder scene.”
“I know who you are,” he said, caution in his voice.
Sensing his intense wariness, she debated whether to try to set him at ease or just accept that this was going to be an uncomfortable situation. She decided that being forthright was the smarter move.
“Look, Officer, I know you’re not psyched to be getting this call. And I don’t want to put you in a difficult situation, so I’ll keep it brief.”
She paused, but when she got no response, she continued.
“I’m wondering if you’ve gotten any updates on the status of Michaela’s phone or laptop. Any pings on the phone? Any attempts to pawn it or the computer that you’re aware of?”
After a period of silence, Burnside finally responded.
“I think you’d be better off going through official channels, Ms. Hunt.”
He sounded embarrassed to say it and she decided to use that to her advantage.
“I think we both know how well that would go, Officer. I’d be running in circles for hours. Look, I’m not asking you to tell me why that crime scene was handled so unprofessionally. I’m not asking you to explain why almost every cop there was acting like they were guilty of something. All I’m asking is if either the phone or laptop has turned up.”
She waited and could almost hear Burnside’s brain working in the intervening silence.
“You didn’t get this from me, okay?” he insisted.
“Of course not.”
“Nothing’s turned up on the laptop yet. We’re still waiting. The phone is still missing too. But we traced it to its last known location, a few blocks away. We found the SIM card in an alley, or at least what was left of it. It had been crushed, and from the look of it, burned.”
“That seems unusually thorough for a thief, don’t you think?” Jessie noted. “Almost like the robber was more interested in keeping Michaela’s call data hidden than in keeping her phone.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Ms. Hunt,” Burnside replied.
“No, of course you don’t. As long as this conversation isn’t officially happening, is there anything else you want to tell me about what occurred last night?”