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When they arrived at the hospital just before 8:30, Jessie noted that the place was unusually quiet. There were no ambulance sirens going off outside, and the chaos they'd come to expect in the emergency room was nowhere to be found. Apparently, Monday mornings were quiet time on the trauma front. Or at least this Monday morning was.

The charge nurse directed them back to the bed where Sarah Whitaker was lying. When they arrived and pulled back the curtain, a nurse was taking the woman’s vitals. Whitaker was lying there quietly, her eyes open but dull. It was clear that the sedative hadn’t completely worn off yet.

She wore a floral hospital gown and had an IV in her arm. Someone, likely not her, had tied her brownish-gray hair with a loose scrunchie. She still wore her makeup from last night, and her mascara tears stained her cheeks.

“We’re with the police,” Ryan told the nurse. “Is she able to talk?”

“She’s gotten more alert in the last few minutes,” the nurse said. “If you’ll just wait until I finish recording her blood pressure before asking any questions, I’d appreciate it.”

They both stood there in awkward silence. Jessie watched her husband shift nervously from one foot to the other. Even under the circumstances, Jessie found it cute to see him so obviously uncomfortable.

Ryan was usually so self-assured. And why wouldn’t he be? Not only was he a block of human granite, with a square jaw and a well-muscled, two-hundred pound, six-foot tall body that strained at his dress shirt. But he also had warm brown eyes, a shy grin, and adorable dimples.

The man was gorgeous. So any time he seemed slightly out of his element was a delight, one that made him even more attractive to her. Jessie shook the thought out of her head. She was used to being in situations like this but James Whitaker wasn’t and she didn’t want to be seen fawning over her husband in front of a victim.

The nurse nodded that it was okay to continue. Ryan, now back in control, held out his badge so the woman lying in bed could see it.

“Hello, Mrs. Whitaker,” he said softly. “I’m Detective Hernandez with the LAPD. This is Jessie Hunt. She works with us. We’re sorry for your loss.”

"Thank you," Whitaker said, her voice dry. The nurse handed her a cup of water, and she took it, sipping from the straw.

“We’d like to talk to you about what happened last night,” Ryan continued.

“I know her from TV,” Whitaker said, pointing weakly at Jessie. “She’s the one who catches serial killers.”

“That’s right,” Jessie said, taking a step forward, “but I also help on other kinds of cases, Mrs. Whitaker. And with your help, I’m hoping to catch the person who poisoned your husband.”

Hearing those words, Sarah Whitaker flinched and closed her eyes tight for a second. When she opened them again, they seemed more focused than before.

“I’ll do whatever I can,” she said firmly.

“Thank you,” Ryan said. “We’d like to start with your dinner last night. Where did you go?”

“A new place called Daddio,” she said. “It just opened last Thursday, and we were able to get in yesterday. We were really excited.”

“Did you notice anything unusual at dinner?” Jessie asked. “Did either of you have an argument with someone there or take note of anyone acting oddly?”

“No, nothing like that,” Whitaker said.

“Your interactions with the waitstaff were pleasant?” Ryan checked.

“Absolutely,” Whitaker said. “Everyone was wonderful to us. We agreed that the food wasn’t everything we hoped for, but we gave them a pass because the place was so new. And we certainly didn’t say anything negative to anyone while we were there.”

“What about anyone not affiliated with the restaurant?” Jessie wondered. “Did someone else possibly approach your table, engage you in conversation?”

“No, not that I recall.”

“Did either of you leave the table, maybe at the same time?” Ryan pressed.

“I don’t think so,” Whitaker said with less certainty. “We both went to the restroom, but at different times.”

Jessie was reluctant to ask the next question because it might sound like she was placing blame.

“A lot of times, when someone who I’m eating with steps away for a minute, I’ll check my phone and not really pay attention to what’s going on around me,” she said. “Any chance you did the same thing when James went to the restroom?”

Whitaker’s face sank.

"Yeah," she said. "I do that all the time. I don't specifically remember doing it last night, but I'm sure I did. Are you saying that someone poisoned Jim's food or drink while I was sitting right there, oblivious to it?"

“I’m not saying that at all,” Jessie said quickly. “I don’t want you to think that. It’s our job to explore every possibility. That’s why we ask so many questions. Most of the time, it amounts to nothing. Tell us about the drive home. The sergeant at your house said that your husband started feeling bad then.”

From Whitaker’s expression, it appeared that Jessie had successfully short-circuited the guilt that the woman was starting to succumb to.

“Yeah, when we got home he told me he’d started feeling bad on the drive but that it had gotten much worse in the last few minutes,” she explained. “I had to help him inside. I guess that’s how the man got in. I wasn’t focused on lowering the garage door or locking the inside one. It’s my fault that he got in.”

“That’s not true,” Jessie assured her. “How could you have possibly envisioned what was going to happen? The fault here lies exclusively with the intruder.”

“Mrs. Whitaker,” Ryan said, “a moment ago, you said that ‘ he got in.’ Are you sure it was a man?”

She nodded forcefully. “Absolutely. He was pretty big—easily six feet tall and when he talked, his voice was clearly male.”

Ryan looked over at Jessie. She knew his expression well. He was letting her know that he planned to get into the hard part now, and she should pay close attention to Whitaker. She nodded back at him.

While everything they’d learned so far matched up with Sarah Whitaker’s story, they couldn’t be certain that she hadn’t made the whole thing up and killed her husband herself. Jessie wanted to closely observe her reaction to Ryan’s next questions.

“Okay,” he said, turning his attention back to Whitaker, “so what happened after the intruder got into the house?”

The woman sighed heavily at the memory before answering.

"I started screaming and grabbed the home phone to call '911,' but he took it from me and threw it against the wall. Jim tried to stop him but couldn't stand up and fell on the floor. The man forced me to sit at the breakfast table and tied me up. I begged him to let us go, but he said I 'needed to see the show.'"

She paused for a moment to take another sip of water. But Jessie suspected it was also to regroup. Neither she nor Ryan spoke, waiting for her to continue.

“The ‘show’ was Jim dying over the course of several hours,” Whitaker said bitterly. “I kept pleading with the man to call for an ambulance, but he didn’t answer. He just kept staring down at Jim. At one point, I refused to watch, and he said that if I looked away, he’d slit Jim’s throat. So I started watching again. Looking back on it, maybe I should have refused. Then Jim wouldn’t have been in pain for so long. But some part of me kept hoping that the man would relent and help him or let me call ‘911.’”

“But he never did?” Ryan said quietly.

Whitaker shook her head.

“At one point, I asked why he was doing this,” she said. “He said I needed to experience the pain, that it would be good for me. When I asked why, he said it would all become clear eventually.”

“But he never gave you an answer?” Ryan asked.

"No, he mostly just sat there in his black ski mask," she said. "Occasionally, he would check on Jim to see if he was still alive. For a while, he was awake but eventually he lost consciousness so the man would hold up a mirror to his mouth and nose to see if he was breathing.”

She paused for a few moments and Jessie thought that Ryan would have to prompt her but then she resumed. When she spoke again, there was a catch in her voice.

"One time he did that routine and there was nothing—no fog on the mirror, no blood pressure reading at all. He looked up at me and made this formal pronouncement that my husband had died at 10:41 pm Then he got up and left."

“He didn’t say anything else?” Jessie asked, speaking for the first time in a while.

“No,” Whitaker said. “He just left me tied up, alone with my husband’s dead body and all these terrible thoughts. I did the math in my head. From the time we got home around 9 pm until he died was close to two hours. There was lots of time to save him, if that madman would have allowed it.”

Jessie didn't say anything, but so far, every response from Whitaker, along with her body language, reinforced her credibility. One could never be completely certain, but Jessie was inclined to believe her story.

“How did you get free?” Ryan asked.

"For a long time, I didn't even try," Whitaker said. "I just sat there, broken, trying to process what had happened. When I did finally work up the strength to try, it took forever. The man had zip-tied my hands together behind my back and then tied them to a leg of the table. I had to figure out how to press up on the bottom of the table, which was heavy, while getting my hands low enough to slide them out from under the table leg. I gave up multiple times. But then I started to get angry, and I used that fury. It gave me the power I needed to lift the table and slide out. Then I went to the kitchen and got a knife out. It took me a while to cut myself loose. That’s how I got these.”

She held up her hands to show the bandages on both wrists. That explained the blood that Jessie had seen on the zip ties and on the kitchen floor.

“Are we done?” Whitaker asked.

“Almost,” Ryan assured her. “We understand that your husband was an investment banker. Did he have any enemies? Ever mention a falling out with a co-worker or reference an angry client?”

“He didn’t really get into the details of his work with me,” Whitaker answered. “I mean, I know he played hardball and there were probably a lot of people who didn’t like him. But he never specifically mentioned anyone who made him feel physically threatened.”

Ryan nodded as if satisfied.

“Mrs. Whitaker,” he said carefully. “May we have permission to search the rest of your house and your husband’s office?”

“I assumed you already had,” she replied.

“We’ve done a cursory search of the crime scene but for something more involved, we need a warrant, unless you authorize us to go in without one.”

“Of course,” she said. “Do whatever you need to. I want this person caught.”

Suddenly, she gasped.

“What is it?” Jessie asked.

Whitaker shook her head, upset.

"I was just going to ask that you not disturb our son's room when I realized I have to tell him."

Jessie and Ryan exchanged confused looks. Whitaker saw it and explained.

"Our son, Rob, is away at college in New Hampshire," she said, choking up. "I'm going to have to call him and tell him his father is dead, that he was murdered. I don't know how I'm going to do that."

Even though it wasn’t standard protocol, Jessie moved toward the woman and put her hand on top of Whitaker’s.

“As someone who has been in your situation, my one suggestion is to be supportive but direct. No ‘he passed on’ or ‘he’s not with us anymore.’ Tell Rob that his father died. It will be painful, but he’ll process it better if you’re forthright about things.”

“Thank you,” she said, squeezing Jessie’s hand.

“I’m sorry I can’t help more.”

“You can,” Whitaker said. “Just do what you always do—catch the bastard responsible for my husband’s death. That’s all I ask of you.”

“We’ll do our best,” Jessie promised.

***

Ryan was already on the phone with Jamil Winslow, the head of the HSS research department, moments after they left Sarah Whitaker.

“We want a list of every employee and customer at the restaurant, Daddio, from last night,” he explained, “along with as much info as you and Beth can get on Whitaker’s co-workers and clients at his firm, Wiley McComb.”

Beth was Beth Ryerson, Jamil’s lone employee in the research department. Whatever he said in response to Ryan was brief. Based on everything Jessie knew about him, it was likely something along the lines of “we’re already doing all that.”

After Ryan hung up, they walked out of the hospital in relative silence. Jessie was focused on what kind of person would force someone to watch their loved one die slowly over the course of hours, and why he would want to be there for the process.

Most killers she investigated preferred their murderous violence to be more dramatic. Whether via shooting, stabbing, or strangling, they typically favored the thrill that came with the suddenness of death at their hands. But not this one.

She glanced over at Ryan and saw that he was deep in thought too.

“Any epiphanies yet?” she asked him.

He seemed startled by her question.

“I wasn’t actually thinking about the case, at least not in the way you’d expect,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s just—I was thinking about the call that Sarah Whitaker is going to have to make to her son and it reminded me of the conversation we had last week with the adoption counselor.”

Jessie recalled the meeting. It was the first formal step they'd taken to explore the idea of adopting a child. For months now, they'd been sparring over the idea of having a baby. Ryan wanted one. Jessie was less enthusiastic, worried about the impact of a pregnancy on her career and her physical health after suffering multiple serious injuries since becoming a profiler for the department. She'd eventually suggested that they investigate the possibility of adoption, which led to the meeting last week.

“What about the conversation?” she prompted.

"Well, do you remember how the counselor said that they sometimes worried about placing children with couples that have high-risk jobs?"

“Of course,” Jessie said. “She said that many of these kids are without parents because of some trauma related to abandonment by a parent, or even their death.”

“Exactly,” Ryan said, “so hearing Sarah Whitaker talk about breaking the news of a father’s death to his son made me wonder what would happen to a child we adopt—one who might already have lost a parent. It would be a double trauma if they settled into a new life and then lost one or both of us. I don’t know if the adoption service would consider us too risky, or if we should even be putting ourselves in that situation.”

“It’s definitely something to think about,” Jessie agreed, though she was less concerned about the issue than him. She’d lost both her birth mother and her adoptive parents to murder, and she was still plowing ahead.

Of course, she periodically had a near-uncontrollable desire to inflict bodily damage on those she deemed guilty of a crime. So maybe she wasn't all that emotionally healthy after all. Beyond that, part of her wondered if this was some coded hint from Ryan that they should reconsider having a child themselves. She chose not to engage on the issue for now.

"Let's worry about our parental risk level later," she said crisply. "Right now, we've got a killer to catch."