Page 25 of The Perfect Deception (Jessie Hunt #40)

Elise Prager was being difficult.

Jessie had a little sympathy for her, but not much. Admittedly, they had knocked on the door of her Wilton Historic District home at 4:17 A.M., after making that planned pitstop for coffee and pastries. That was a lot for anyone to handle.

The Wilton Historic District was just a few neighborhoods and a couple of miles away from Lafayette Square. Amazingly, the homes here, of which there were less than 100, were even more imposing than those in Lafayette Square. Almost all of them were built in the Craftsman or Colonial Revival style in the first three decades of the 20th century. Prager’s was an example of the latter.

They had to wait several seconds as they heard Prager undo multiple locks on the front door. When the woman opened it, confused and bed-headed, she was in a bathrobe so threadbare that Jessie suspected she’d had it for decades. And learning that two more of her clients had been murdered clearly shook her.

But that was where Jessie’s consideration ended. After all, Prager’s business seemed to be intimately connected to the deaths of four people so far. The woman would have to sacrifice her beauty sleep. So after processing the basics of what they were telling her, Prager allowed them inside.

She led them past the foyer with the spiral staircase and down a long hallway that opened into an expansive living room. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, Jessie saw a pool in the backyard. Beyond that was a guest house that would probably sell for over $1 million all by itself.

Unlike last time, where they interviewed her in an interrogation room and she sat on a hard metal chair, at least she could sit on her own couch for this round of questioning. Despite that, getting answers was like pulling teeth. Still, after an hour there, they had learned a fair bit.

Yes, the Troppers and Patels were involved in life swaps too. Each couple had engaged in multiple swaps over the last two years, including twice with each other. No, there had been no complaints from anyone involved. That hadn’t satisfied Jessie.

“Just to be clear, once it gets a little later in the morning, we’re going to be reaching out to everyone who’s part of your swap network and instruct them to end all of that activity for the foreseeable future.”

“For how long?”

Prager balked.

“Until we catch the person killing their neighbors.”

Ryan couldn’t keep the shock out of his voice.

“It’s almost certainly someone involved in your whole project.”

Prager took offense at that.

“My vetting process is extremely careful. I do background checks on everyone involved, even if I’ve known them for years. There’s no way that some psycho could masquerade as a respectable member of our community. This is a very exclusive circle of people.”

Ryan was having none of it.

“You say that, but there are a bunch of members of this community that have no idea that, right under their noses, some of their neighbors are involved in what amounts to a fancy swingers collective. So who knows what else everyone’s missing? That’s why we’re here—to find the missing pieces. That’s why we need your help. So let’s dig into it.”

***

Because there were fifteen couples involved in the swaps, it took an hour after Ryan’s direction before they finally hit on something more useful than titillating stories about the residents.

“Who’s this guy?”

Jessie asked, holding up the paper file for an attractive man in his late twenties.

“Oh, that’s just Tommy.”

Prager waved her hand dismissively.

“Who is Tommy?”

Jessie pressed.

“He’s part of this swap network but it doesn’t look like he’s married or even lives in Lafayette Square.”

Prager sighed, as if annoyed that she even had to explain herself.

“Tommy is Thomas Golden. He’s part of an experiment that I started in the last six months.”

“What experiment?”

Ryan put down the file he was reading.

The woman smiled, seemingly excited to share.

“I hit on this idea while I was talking to him at the gym—Tommy’s a personal trainer.”

Prager got increasingly enthusiastic as she went on.

“He was telling me about how he was pretty new to L.A. and the whole social scene here. He said he wanted to get married one day but found it hard to meet people easily. Plus he was nervous that marriage might not be for him. That’s when the lightbulb went off.”

She stopped to take a sip of her coffee, clearly hoping they’d take the bait. Jessie was happy to.

“What lightbulb?”

“I thought—what if I could expand these swaps so it wasn’t just about couples? What if I could give a bachelor like Tommy the experience of married life? He could swap places with a married man and immerse himself in the world of domesticity. Meanwhile, the husband could, for a little while, go back to the single life, without all the attendant responsibilities. So, I asked around to see if folks might be interested. A few were. Tommy was into it too, so he became my guinea pig.”

Jessie fought back the urge to demand why Prager hadn’t mentioned this earlier. A guy who was new to town, didn’t have the same level of wealth as the couples he’d be interacting with, and was a trainer who likely had a fair bit of strength? That sounded like a potential suspect to her.

As she took a screenshot of the first page of his file to send to Jamil, Ryan asked the obvious next question.

“Did Golden ever have swaps with any of the victims?”

“I think so. The file should say.”

Jessie handed it to her and she flipped to the third page.

“Here it is.”

She pointed to some chicken scratch that Jessie couldn’t understand.

“He had swaps with both the Troppers and the Maplewoods, but nothing with the Dominiks or the Patels.”

It wasn’t the slam dunk that Jessie was hoping for, but if Golden was their killer, maybe he’d had some other interaction with the latter two couples that set him off.

“I hope you’re not thinking that Tommy could be responsible for this.”

Prager looked genuinely appalled at the idea.

“He’s a total sweetheart.”

“We have to consider it,”

Ryan said.

“He’s connected to two victims.”

“Not that I think anyone I recruited could do this, but he’s just not the type.”

“Not the murdering type?”

Ryan said drily.

“You feel like you could tell the difference?”

Before Prager could reply, Jessie jumped in.

“Wait, you just said ‘anyone I recruited.’ Are there other single people doing this for you?”

“A few.”

“How many?”

Prager thought about it for a moment.

“One other man and three women.”

“Have any of them been with these couples?”

Ryan asked.

“I’d have to check, but I think a few, yes.”

Jessie pushed her.

“To your knowledge, have any of these others, whether male or female, been in swaps with more than one of the couples in which someone died.”

“Not yet. I was rolling it out slowly. So far, Tommy was the only single to be with more than one couple.”

Prager’s face fell.

“But I’m telling you, he’s innocent.”

Ryan, clearly unconvinced, stood up.

“If you want to prove that, we’re going to need you to bring in all your data on the singles involved for our research team to review. Frankly, you should have included that information with the original material you handed over. And we’ll need you to come as well to help decipher it.”

“Is that absolutely necessary? I’m in no condition to go out right now.”

“It’s necessary.”

Ryan didn’t even try to sugar-coat it.

“In fact, not coming in to the station could be perceived as interfering in a criminal investigation. I assume you don’t want that.”

Prager must have been desperate because she turned to Jessie with horrified eyes.

“Look at me. I’m a mess.”

Jessie dug deep for as much pity as she could muster.

“We’ll give you a half hour to shower and get dressed. That’s our outer limit for this sort of thing when it comes to murder investigations. Better get moving.