And then it was over. She lay limp on the floor. The buzz started to fade almost immediately. He tried to keep his head about him, aware that the woman’s husband didn’t usually get home for at least another hour.
He hurried around the house, wiping down every surface he could remember touching. He’d worn gloves virtually the entire time he’d been there. But one could never be too careful. Within fifteen minutes he was ready to go. He borrowed one of Bloom’s sweatshirts, pulled the hoodie over his head, and left. No one gave him a second look.
Now, as he rested on the bed in his latest unsanctioned Airbnb, he recalled the feeling he’d gotten as he stole the last bit of life from that woman. It wasn’t something he’d ever have thought himself capable of. Yet he had to admit, it was a rush unlike anything he’d ever experienced. And if he was honest with himself, it was something he’d been longing for ever since. He knew it would happen again. The only question was when.
CHAPTER TEN
Ryan made coffee while Jessie showered.
Neither of them even considered going back to sleep once they returned to the apartment just after five. Hannah would be up in an hour anyway. The realization crushed Jessie anew.
How am I going to tell her?
Her sister wasn’t known for expressing her emotions or even necessarily having them. The concern that Hannah was a narcissistic sociopath incapable of feeling empathy was something Jessie had discussed with Garland on many occasions.
Now that worry would be put to the test. Hannah and Garland had become friendly, maybe even close, to the extent that was possible for her. Would she feel gutted by his loss? Or would it just be one more body in the endless parade of death she’d faced in the last year?
First her adoptive parents had been killed in front of her. Then the same thing happened to her foster parents. She’d seen Jessie tortured. She’d watched a serial killer murder a man in an attempt to co-opt her into becoming one herself.
And now this, the murder of a man she viewed as a paternal figure, who listened to her and took her seriously. At what point would she just shut down, too numb to the horrors she’d seen and suffered to engage with the world? Had it already happened? Was she just faking normal emotions?
When Jessie emerged from the bedroom, she found she would be able to test that question right away. Hannah was up, wearing a bathrobe and sipping coffee on the couch. When Jessie glanced over at Ryan, he shook his head imperceptibly to let her know he hadn’t said anything about what happened.
“Morning,” Hannah mumbled when she saw her.
“Morning,” Jessie replied as casually as she could.
Hannah cocked her head to the right, a probing look on her face.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Huh?” Jessie replied, feigning confusion. She needed more time to prepare for this.
“Something’s up,” she said with certitude. “You’re being fake cheerful and Ryan’s doing everything he can to avoid making eye contact with me. What’s going on?”
Jessie walked over, trying to think of how best to broach the subject. She sat down next to the half-sister she hadn’t known existed less than a year ago. Hannah stared at her with an odd mix of expectant trepidation. She’d learned to almost smell bad news coming.
I owe it to her to be honest. She’s earned that.
“I’ve got bad news,” she said slowly. “I had hoped we were done with saying that for a while. But I guess we’re not.”
“What do you mean?”
“Garland Moses was murdered last night while working on a case,” Jessie answered without hesitation.
Hannah’s face went from apprehensive to blank almost immediately. It was as if she was intentionally doing a forced shutdown of all her essential systems right there on the couch. She said nothing.
“I don’t know a lot about what happened yet,” Jessie continued, uncomfortable after the long silence. “But we’re going to get to the bottom of it. In the meantime, I thought you should know. He liked you and I think you were fond of him too.”
Hannah seemed to reboot. Her eyes, vacant a moment ago, fixed on Jessie. She didn’t seem angry or upset or scared. She was present but not much more.
“He was nice,” she said quietly, without expanding on it.
“He was,” Jessie agreed. “I’d grown to lean on him quite a lot recently. After I lost my adoptive parents, he was the closest thing to a paternal figure I had. And now I’ve lost him too. I’m pretty raw right now.”
“Yeah,” Hannah said flatly. “It’s kind of hard to process it actually.”
Jessie glanced over at Ryan, who was still standing at the kitchen counter. He gave her a reassuring nod.
“It really is,” she agreed. “When this is all over, I was planning to make an appointment with Dr. Lemmon to talk it out a bit. Would you like me to make one for you too?”
“Can I think about it?” Hannah asked. “Right now I just kind of want to get a handle on my own thoughts, you know?”
“Sure. And if you need to take the day for yourself, that’s okay. I can smooth it over at school.”
“No,” Hannah said. “I should go. I don’t want to just sit around. It’ll be good to have something to keep me busy.”
Okay,” Jessie said. “But if you find that it’s too much, you can change your mind.”
She certainly understood the urge to throw oneself into an activity to take your mind off whatever trauma was consuming you. She’d used the tactic on many occasions. But she knew it wasn’t always the healthiest choice for her. And she was even more dubious when it came to Hannah.
“I will,” the younger woman said. “But for now, I’m going to try to push through. In fact, I better shower and get dressed.”
She got up and returned to her room, closing the door firmly behind her. Jessie looked over at Ryan.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“I think that girl is going to need therapy for the rest of her life. And even that probably won’t be enough.”
*
The station was deathly quiet. Even the protesters out front, who never seemed to tire of marching with signs claiming Jessie was a racist, seemed more subdued than usual.
In the bullpen, there was little of the background chatter that usually created a constant buzz throughout the day. Most folks were seated at their desks, quietly typing away. Others huddled in small groups, whispering in hushed tones. There was a pall over the building.
This was the first time she’d been in the station since her injuries three weeks ago. But no one gave her a second glance, not even to send her the dirty looks she’d been expecting from her co-workers after the hateful social media posts that had been falsely written in her name. Everyone was focused on the man they’d lost.
Since she wasn’t scheduled to be back for another week, it made no sense for Jessie to go to her desk. Instead, she walked straight to Captain Decker’s office. Ryan matched her step for step.
To Ryan’s credit, he hadn’t even tried to dissuade her from coming in when she told him what she was doing. He must have known it would be pointless. She was going to work this case, whether she was in pain, whether skin was falling off her back, no matter what.