“He is one of a kind,” Ryan agreed as he bent over to give her a kiss on the forehead. “Try to go back to sleep. I’ll check in with you in the morning.”
“I love you,” Jessie said as she lay back down.
“I love you too,” he said softly before turning off the bedside light and leaving.
Despite Ryan’s admonition, Jessie couldn’t get back to sleep. For the next twenty minutes, she tossed and turned but just couldn’t get comfortable. Something about his demeanor when he got the call kept flashing through her mind.
When he was listening to Decker talk, Ryan had gotten an expression she almost never saw on his face. It wasn’t simple shock or sadness. It was some combination that seemed bigger and more profound. And then it came to her. For a second, before he’d managed to regroup, he’d looked devastated.
She sat up. There was no way she would be able to fall asleep now. She went to the bathroom and splashed water on her face. Staring at herself in the mirror, she was pleased to see that her eyes weren’t rimmed with exhausted redness. Of course, that would likely change fast if she was up for the day, as seemed to be the case.
She returned to the bed and sat back down. Her mind kept flashing to the expression on Ryan’s face when Decker first started talking to him. Whatever the captain had said, something was horribly wrong.
She grabbed her phone and was about to call Garland when she thought better of it. Ryan had said he was already at the crime scene. That meant he was likely very busy and not in the mood to answer her questions. Instead she called the Central Station desk sergeant, who gave her the address in Manhattan Beach.
Without ever formally acknowledging to herself what she was doing, she started getting dressed. Five minutes later she was ready to go. She scribbled a quick note for Hannah, which she slid under the girl’s bedroom door. Then she left the apartment, making sure to turn all the security systems back on remotely as she headed to her car.
She knew Ryan and Garland would be pissed when she showed up to insert herself at the crime scene. But she didn’t care. Something was off. She felt it in her bones.
*
Even getting slightly lost, Jessie made it to the beach in no time.
During rush hour, the drive would have taken well over an hour. But at 3:30 in the morning, it took less than half that time, even with her missing the freeway exit and doubling back. The streets were mostly silent. As she approached the coast, a thick blanket of fog settled in, making each streetlight seem like a dull lantern in an isolated lighthouse. It gave the early morning a creepy, desolate feel.
When she arrived, she parked on Manhattan Avenue, just west of the pier and about a block from where her GPS said the address was. She walked briskly down to the Strand. Though she couldn’t see the ocean at this hour, she could hear the waves crashing on the beach and knew it was close.
She didn’t have to look hard to find her destination. Once on the Strand, even with the fog, the night sky was lit up by multiple emergency vehicles. As she approached the house, she counted at least half dozen police cars, an ambulance, and a coroner’s van. The entire area around the mansion was blocked off and multiple officers stood guard, keeping the curious from getting too close.
She approached a scared, youngish-looking officer and held up her ID, figuring he’d be the easiest to get past.
“I work with Detective Hernandez,” she said nonspecifically. “Can you tell me where he is?”
“He’s upstairs,” the officer said. Though she’d never met him, Jessie thought the kid seemed surprisingly shaken. She looked at his name tag.
“You okay, Officer…Timms?”
“Yes ma’am,” he assured her, pulling himself together. “It’s just, I had met the victim. I liked him. And then I ended up being the one who found him.”
“I understand,” she said, giving him a gentle pat on the shoulder. “It’s never easy when you have a personal connection.”
“No ma’am,” he said, lifting the police tape so she could duck under.
“How did you happen to find the victim in the house so late at night?”
She realized the question sounded accusatory, though she hadn’t intended it that way.
“He was supposed to return the key after a few hours. When he didn’t come back, I went to check on him and…” He broke off, overcome with emotion.
Jessie wanted to ask why someone would be returning a key to the police so late at night but she could tell the kid was in no condition so she let it go.
“Thanks for your help, Officer,” she said. Unable to think of anything else to say to comfort him, she turned and walked up to the house.
She held up her ID again for the officer guarding the door. He stepped aside to let her in. She glanced at the foyer floor and saw the chalk on the floor from what she assumed was the first victim. She glanced upstairs, where she could hear several voices. One of them sounded like Ryan’s.
She started toward the stairs, when another officer standing at the base of them who appeared to be a sergeant held up his hand. Unlike Officer Timms, he looked older and more battle-worn.
“Can I help you, ma’am?” he asked politely but challengingly.
“I work with Detective Hernandez,” she said, holding up her information for the third time.
“I’ll let him know you’re here,” the sergeant, whose name tag read “Breem,” said, not stepping aside.
“I hear his voice,” she said more testily than she would have preferred. “I can let him know myself when I get up there.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. Detective Hernandez was very clear that no one was to come upstairs without his express authorization. He wants everything done meticulously on this one.”
“He’s like that with every case,” Jessie replied forcefully. “What makes this one different?”
The sergeant gave her a perplexed expression. He opened his mouth to respond but before he could, a familiar voice called out from the second floor.
“Jessie?” Ryan said, looking down from the landing. “What are you doing here?”
She looked up at him and could tell immediately that he was upset by something unrelated to her showing up unannounced. As she stared at him, a sense of dread started to spread through her. She darted up the stairs before Sergeant Breem could stop her. The man started to follow her but she saw Hernandez shake his head.
“It’s okay, Sergeant,” he said.
“What’s going on, Ryan?” she asked quietly when she reached him at the top of the stairs.
“I need to talk to you privately outside,” he whispered.
“No. What’s going on? Where’s Garland?” she asked, sidestepping him and looking into the bedroom.
She blinked slowly, hoping that what she saw on the bedroom floor was an illusion. But when she opened her eyes again, he was still there. In between the coroner and a crime scene tech, Garland Moses was lying on the floor. He was dead.
CHAPTER NINE
Jessie felt her chest tighten and found that she couldn’t breathe.
She tried to speak but only a wheezy exhalation came out. She swallowed hard, trying to lubricate her suddenly dry throat. She reached out for the railing as she squinted at Ryan, wondering if that might somehow change things.