Page 38 of The Perfect Deception (Jessie Hunt #40)
Hannah glanced at her phone.
The text was from Ryan, saying he was finally allowed to take Jessie home. With that concern no longer hovering over her, she could focus all her attention on her date, or whatever this was.
It was 8:14—prime date time. But neither she nor Dallas had used that word. It was a get-together. It was a meet-up. It wa.
“grabbing a bite to eat.”
But no one had busted out the word “date.”
She almost had to cancel. By the time she’d delivered Jessie’s spare clothes to the hospital and checked in on her, it was 7:15 and the non-date was set for 7:30.
“Go,”
Jessie had insisted as soon as Hannah mentioned that she might have to get a rain check with Dallas.
“That’s why I have a husband, to chauffeur me around. You go on your ‘casual, no pressure’ get-together. I’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure?”
she’d asked.
“We’re both sure,”
Ryan said. With their blessings, she left. As she walked away, she heard Ryan’s half-amused voice as he said to Jessie.
“chauffeur?”
The fact that he was teasing Jessie reassured Hannah that it was okay to go. She would have felt terrible if she’d had to beg off on the meet-up, especially when Dallas had come all the way down from Bakersfield. Yes, he was hanging out the rest of the weekend with a buddy from school, but that was down in Costa Mesa. He’d made a special trip to join her in the heart of L.A. at a café she’d recommended.
She glanced at her half-eaten salad and debated whether to have a bit more or wait until Dallas returned from the restroom. Deciding that it would be rude to finish her meal when he still had more than half of his sandwich left, she held off.
Things had gone really well so far. He talked about his work at the animal shelter in Bakersfield and showed her a photo of a scruffy little guy that he said he was tempted to adopt. She'd shared that she'd just come from bringing her sister new clothes because her old ones were covered in the blood of a serial killer she'd saved. That had freaked Dallas out before Hannah jokingly reminded him that her sister did this sort of thing for a living.
Things were so comfortable that she’d even considered bringing up Finn. She was tempted to bounce some of her theories off Dallas, since neither Jessie or Ryan would engage when she talked about how she wanted to find out the location of the hospice where he was being kept. Maybe just speaking to someone removed from the situation would help give her clarity.
But she held off. That’s because the reality was that Dallas wasn’t totally removed from the situation. He might not have known Finn, but Finn knew who he was and didn't like him. He'd badmouthed Dallas repeatedly.
And while Hannah had grown to resent that, she also wanted to respect Finn’s wishes. The last thing Finn Anderton would want was for her to talk about his health and welfare with a guy that he despised. That felt like a betrayal of Finn. So she said nothing.
Of course that didn’t mean she would do nothing. She still had every intention of locating Finn. Everything about his surreptitious removal from the hospital five weeks ago was sketchy, as was his family’s sudden refusal to let her see him at his new hospice.
In addition, something else was fishy with the family. Hannah had tailed them multiple times, following them in the hopes that they would lead her to Finn’s location. Most of the times she did so, they went to boring places like the mall or supermarket. But on a few occasions, they would go somewhere and park their car, which would remain in the same spot for hours.
That struck Hannah as extremely suspicious. And when she tried to follow them inside a few times, they always managed to lose her, almost as if they knew she was around. But this was just a regular family from Newport Beach, whereas she had extensive experience tailing and surveilling people after her summer working for Kat’s private investigation business. These civilians shouldn’t be able to evade her. And yet they had—on multiple occasions. Something wasn’t right.
Her attention was pulled back to the present when she saw Dallas come out of the restroom. He wasn’t alone. Some guy, roughly the same age as him, was chatting him up. Dallas didn’t seem to be enjoying the conversation.
In fact, when he replied to the guy, Dallas looked borderline angry, like they were in some kind of argument. For half a second, it appeared that things might get physical, before Dallas said something and they both settled down. He headed back to the table and sat down.
“What was that about?”
she asked.
“What?”
“That guy you were talking to outside the restroom. It looked like you two weren’t playing very nice.”
“Oh that. It was nothing.”
Hannah squinted at him hard. He was lying and not doing a very good job of it.
“Okay, now you have to tell me, because it clearly wasn’t ‘nothing,’ and I’m not going to be able to think about anything else.”
Dallas stared back at her. For the briefest of moments she thought he might be about to run right out of the café. But then he seemed to regroup.
He leaned in close and spoke quietly.
“I knew him in the first couple of years of high school, back in Bakersfield. It was during a time when I was really lost. My dad had recently died. I think I told you that I got into some trouble—a few fights, issues with drugs. I eventually managed to turn things around. The guy you saw was from that first year or so. I got high with him a few times. I guess he lives down here now. When I bumped into him in the restroom, he was asking if I wanted to do that again sometime. I told him that’s not my life now, hasn’t been for half a decade. I guess I got a little upset when he kept at it. It’s not a time in my life that I’m very proud of.”
Hannah felt a mix of guilt at having pushed him, and respect for how forthright he was being. Before she could think about it too much, she leaned across the table and gave him a little kiss.
“Sorry to pry,” she said.
He smiled and his cheeks turned pink. They were both quiet for a moment. Then he found his words.
“Would you have any interest in going camping with me?”
“What?”
He clarified. "Maybe up in the mountains, or out in Malibu. We could hike and camp out for a few nights. I'd say this weekend, but I'm hanging out with my buddy, Curtis, as you know. Maybe next weekend? I could come back down from Bakersfield."
“Wow!”
Her tone was playfully teasing.
“One little kiss and you want to spend the weekend together?”
Dallas’s cheeks went from pink to red.
“It was just a crazy idea. I’m just trying to be the tip of the spear when it comes to keeping you entertained.”
She smiled.
“I’ll think about it.”
***
This one was too close for comfort.
As Dallas Henry said goodbye to Hannah and left the café, he tried to project more calm than he felt.
He thought he’d covered pretty well. She seemed to buy it. And his pivot to camping had taken her mind off his interaction with Bryan. Thank goodness, because Bryan Ballantine wasn’t just a guy from high school.
Bryan was also part of the nascent men’s rights movement that Dallas had immersed himself in soon after his father’s suicide. Most of his interactions with like-minded guys had been on the deepest part of the dark web, where he could hide his identity. But he had shared his thoughts on the way women emotionally castrated young men with a few people in real life. Bryan had been one of them.
Once Dallas realized that he’d have to hide all his connections to the movement if he was going to effectively embed himself in this man-hating, female-centric society, he knew he had to cut ties with people like Bryan. Seeing the guy now could put all his plans at risk. What if Bryan ran into Hannah elsewhere and Dallas wasn’t around? What if Hannah didn’t buy his story and tracked Bryan down on her own? She was good at that sort of thing.
That would destroy all his hard work and put Hannah on her guard. Neither was acceptable. As he returned to his car, he wondered if he had no choice but to eliminate Bryan from the equation entirely. If he ultimately had to, he’d need to do a better job than he had with Finn Anderton. That guy might be a vegetable, slowly rotting to death and unlikely to hurt Dallas. But Anderton was still alive because he hadn’t finished the job. He wouldn’t make that mistake twice.
Nor would he make a mistake with Hannah. He held out real hope that she’d say yes to the camping trip. She looked intrigued. If she agreed, then he could take her to one of the isolated spots he’d scouted out over the last few months.
Once he got her there alone, there was no limit to the amount of damage he could do to her