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Jessie worried that she was missing something important.

Her head still hadn’t completely cleared, and it was now several hours since she’d woken up. She simultaneously worried when that would finally happen and silently chastised herself for taking the medication in the first place. She’d been so intent on controlling her violent urges that she’d let that desperation trump her good judgment, and Dr. Lemmon’s. Now she was paying the price. She could only hope that potential future victims of this killer wouldn’t as well.

As she and Riddell waited in Oliver Stanton’s yacht club office, she tried to focus. They were here for a reason. Supposedly any minute, two mutual friends of Daran Peterson and Taye Boyce were set to arrive at the yacht club.

Riddell was agitated and impatient, but Jessie was happy for the brief respite, hoping that by the time the men showed up, she’d be back to her normal self. She certainly hadn’t been that way an hour earlier when they’d pressed Stanton about the friendship between the two men.

“Were these guys just causal friends or were they besties?” Riddell had asked after the three of them returned to the clubhouse from the boat where the CSU was finishing their work.

“They were friends who were all part of the same social circle,” Stanton had explained.

“How many people are we talking about?” Riddell had demanded.

“It’s not an official group or anything,” Oliver said, sounding put out by Riddell’s aggressive tone. “But I’d say there are six of them that typically hang out together.”

“We’ll need all their names, Mr. Stanton,” Jessie had told him, trying not to sound as domineering as Riddell.

“Is that really necessary?”

She jumped in with her answer before her partner could berate the guy.

“I’m afraid it is,” she explained. “We need to find out if these murders are connected. Were two random members of the club killed independent of each other? Or did their friendship have something to do with it? Either way, talking to their friends will give us insight that we can’t get from just looking at video footage or going over their biographical profiles. We need their names so we can ask them to come in.”

Stanton had given them the list just after 8 A.M. It was now almost nine, and no one had arrived. Riddell was flat out pissed.

"We should just go to their offices and interrogate them there," he groused. "See how these rich, pretty boys like that."

Jessie understood that instinct. In fact, she was intrigued by the idea of putting these guys in their place too. But the whole point of having them come to the club was that they’d feel comfortable and hopefully be more forthcoming than if they were questioned at their offices or down at a police station.

“Let’s give it a few more minutes,” she suggested. “We can always go to them if we need to, but I’d rather not start off confrontational. Let’s build to that.”

Riddell opened his mouth, clearly about to register a different take, when Jessie’s phone rang.

“It’s Jamil, my head of research. Let’s see what he has for us,” she said before turning to Stanton. “Do you mind giving us a moment?”

Stanton nodded and scurried out of his own office. Jessie turned her attention to Jamil, whom she’d tasked him with gathering all he could on Taye Boyce. With several hours to do a deep dive, she expected a lot.

“What have you got for us, Jamil?” she asked, “You’re on speaker with me and Detective Riddell.”

“Unfortunately, Ms. Hunt,” he began, “we haven’t uncovered as much as I would have hoped by now.”

“Whatever you’ve discovered is more than we know here, so fire away.”

“All right,” he said. “Taye Boyce worked for a corporate bank based out of Chicago called Midway Finance. Their L.A. offices are in El Segundo.”

Jessie nodded to herself. El Segundo was only about five miles up the coast from Redondo Beach, making after-work visits to the beach club an easy drive.

“What exactly did he do for them?” Riddell wanted to know.

“He was in their mergers and acquisitions group,” Beth said, speaking for the first time. “And it looked like he was doing pretty well for himself. He was made a vice-president six months ago. His salary was bumped up to $1.5 million. With bonuses, he cleared over $4 million last year. All this for a guy who just turned thirty.”

"What is his personal situation?" Jessie asked.

"He lives in a beachfront condo in Manhattan Beach," Beth replied. "According to his social media, he was dating a corporate lawyer from Santa Monica for about a year, until last summer. But since then, he seems to have been living the single life. From what we can tell, he mostly worked, traveled for work, and hung out on the sailboat that he bought three years ago."

“Any criminal record?” Riddell wanted to know.

“Nothing that we can find so far,” Jamil said, sounding deflated. “But Detective Hernandez said that he was going to talk to a buddy he knew down at the courthouse. He mentioned seeing something odd in the file but didn’t want to say more until he was sure it was something real.”

“He didn’t give you any more than that?” Jessie pressed.

“I’m afraid not, Ms. Hunt,” Jamil said, with a hint of frustration. “He was quite guarded about it.”

“You sound upset,” Jessie said.

“Jamil is just mad at himself,” Beth said. “He thinks that he should have been able to pick up on whatever it was that Detective Hernandez noticed. I told him that’s why the man is a detective. But he’s pouting anyway.”

“I’m not pouting,” Jamil said, clearly pouting.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Oliver Stanton said, poking his head into his own office. “But two of the gentlemen from the friend group have arrived.”

“Jamil, we have to go,” Jessie said. “But please have Ryan reach out when he has something for us.”

"Yes, ma'am," the researcher promised.

Jessie hung up and turned to Riddell.

“How do you want to handle this?” she asked. “We can question them as a pair or break them up.”

“Let’s separate them,” Riddell said. “That way they can’t look to each other to create consensus answers.”

That was clearly the logical choice. In fact, she was embarrassed that she’d even asked the question, something she never would have done if her faculties were in full effect. The truth was that she was a little worried that talking to one of these guys solo, she might miss something important. But since there was no way to bring that up without losing all credibility, she nodded in agreement.

“Pick whoever you want,” she said. “I’ll take the other one.”

Riddell chose Archie Crittendon, a giant curly-haired dude who looked like a linebacker gone to seed. Jessie wasn’t sure if the detective picked him because he wanted to go mano a mano with the big guy or out of some chivalrous desire not to make her do so. Her money was on the former.

That left her with Jackson Dwyer, who was far less physically imposing than his friend. Jessie, at 5’10”, was a good three inches taller than him. He was on the frail side, with balding brown hair and reddish skin that suggested he didn’t use enough sunblock on his boat.

They each took their interviewee to separate conference rooms. Riddell chose the smaller of the two, possibly to make Crittendon feel claustrophobic. Jessie didn’t know if she was giving the detective too much credit. But whether it was an intentional choice or happenstance, it was a good move.

That left her with the bigger conference room. She hoped that she could work it to her advantage, perhaps by making Dwyer feel dwarfed by his surroundings and the situation.

“This is about Daran, right?” he said once she closed the door and had him take a seat.

Apparently he wasn’t yet ware of the death of his other friend. She decided to use that if she could and answered his question with one of her own.

“Can you think of any reason why someone would have wanted to kill Daran?” she asked.

“No way,” he insisted. “Daran was a good guy. He just kind of went with the flow. I can’t imagine anyone having an issue with him, much less one that would make them want to kill him.”

“How did you become friends?” Jessie asked.

“Well, we were both members of the club and have a lot of enthusiasm for being on the water. So there’s that. Plus, we both worked in our father’s companies, so we had that connection.”

“What do you do, Mr. Dwyer?’ she asked, even though she already knew the basics on him.

“My family handles a lot of commercial real estate, primarily in Torrance,” he explained. “My dad started the business about thirty-five years ago and I joined up right out of college.”

“How long have you and Daran been friends?”

“Maybe five years,” he said.

“And how long have you been friends with Taye Boyce?”

“Not as long,” he said. “He joined the club about three years ago and we kind of became chummy after a few months. Why?”

“Because he was murdered last night,” she said flatly. “Can you shed any light on that?”

She stopped talking and watched his reaction. He looked appropriately stunned. Normally, she'd trust that her conclusion about his response was genuine. But with the medication still in her system and clouding her mind, she couldn't be sure that she was reading him right. Was he truly stunned about Boyce's death, or was this the practiced reaction of someone who knew he was going to be asked that question?

“Taye is dead?’ he asked disbelieving.

“He is,” she answered, not giving him time to sit with the information. “Why do you think someone would have done that?”

“I have no idea,” he said, his voice rising in something close to panic.

“He and Daran were buddies,” she noted. “Did they piss someone off? Get in a barfight with some bikers? Make a pass at the girlfriend of a dude with an anger management problem?” She didn’t mention that they strongly suspected a woman of these crimes.

Dwyer put his head in his hands. Jessie didn't love that. She couldn't see his facial expression, which, even in her diminished capacity right now, could prove insightful.

“I don’t know,” he mumbled, barely audible. “They’re just regular guys. I don’t know why anyone would want to hurt either of them.”

“Look at me, Mr. Dwyer,” she said.

He lifted his head, and she saw that his eyes were red. Whether that was due to being upset or simply rubbing them with his palms, she didn't know. She decided to put a little pressure on him and maybe put some fear in him, too, even if it wasn't based on any proof.

"I don't know why they were killed," she told him. "But I do know that two members of your yacht club friend group are dead now. Who's to say if their deaths are just about the two of them or something larger? If the latter is the case, then you might be at risk too. So, if there's anything you're not sharing that might be relevant to this investigation, now's the time to come clean. I can you help you now but not so much once you're dead."

He stared at her open-mouthed. After blinking a few times, he gulped hard. That seemed to steady him a little bit.

“I don’t know why they were killed,” he said, sitting up straighter as his voice grew cold. “Maybe someone just doesn’t like young, rich guys. Maybe some psycho thinks that our vessels are ruining the bay. I’ve heard that one before. It could be anything. But I do know that if this does have something to do with all of us, then it's your job to protect us. So maybe you should spend less time interrogating me and more time out there hunting this person down. I expect that this situation will be handled promptly, and I'm quite sure my father will feel the same way."

“Is that really how you want to approach this situation, Mr. Dwyer?” Jessie asked. “Because being combative with the people who are trying to help you seems like a bad move.”

"Well, it's the move I'm making," he said, standing up. "And the other move I'm making is to call my lawyer. So you can address any further questions to him. In the meantime, unless I'm under arrest, I'm leaving."

Then he headed for the door. Jessie wanted to say something, but her brain offered no suggestions. All she could do was watch him storm out. Somehow, a petty, whiny daddy's boy had outmaneuvered her.

She really needed her mind back at full strength, and fast.