Page 4 of The Perfect Deception (Jessie Hunt #40)

Katherine “Kat”

Gentry decided the speeding ticket wasn’t worth it.

So she dropped down from 90 mph to a more defensible 79 and tried not to stress too much. She thought she’d make it on time.

It was currently 12:38 P.M. and Jessie’s flight was supposed to arrive just after two. Kat’s GPS told her that she was 77 minutes from LAX. Barring an accident on the freeway ahead, which was always a possibility, she should make it back in time to join Ryan and Hannah to greet her best friend at baggage claim.

It was her own fault that she was cutting it so close. The drive back from Las Vegas was well over four hours, even in the less-trafficked middle of the day. She should have left earlier than she did. But she had to check one last lead and it had taken longer than expected. The frustrating part was that it amounted to nothing.

When it came finding Ash Pierce, she’d been following every investigative path possible, no matter how unlikely. And so far at least, despite the fact that she was a professional private detective, she had nothing new to show for it.

She did know that the hitwoman was back in the States. She’d seen the surveillance footage from when the Fiesta Jamboree cruise ship docked in Long Beach. It showed a woman disembarking that facial recognition, even from a distance, said was a 93% match to Pierce.

Any doubts she had were put to rest when the body of an unidentified woman was found floating in a burlap sack off the coast of Ensenada, Mexico, two days after the ship returned. She was in bad shape, nibbled apart by fish and worse, and her teeth and fingertips had been removed. The second Kat heard that, she knew who the culprit was.

But it was only after co-workers of a Santa Clarita accountant named Camille Overton reported her missing when she didn’t return from her cruise vacation on the Jamboree that Kat put it all together. She checked the physical description of Overton and found that her height, weight, and skin coloring were a near-perfect match for Ash Pierce.

The fact that the cruise had stopped in Ensenada one day after a cargo ship arrived there from Guayaquil, Ecuador, where Kat knew Pierce had been hiding, was further proof that the assassin had carefully selected Overton as her doppelg?nger victim. The final piece came when Kat checke.

“Overton’s”

purchases after returning to the ship in Ensenada.

All her meals for over 36 hours were via room service. According to phone interviews Kat did with crew, she learned that “Overton”

always requested that the food be left outside her room rather than brought in by waitstaff. Ash Pierce was clearly making sure that no one would see her and realize that she was not Camille Overton.

But by the time Kat put all that together, Pierce had been back in the States for nearly a week. Since Jessie was out of the country and shouldn’t be disturbed anyway, Kat immediately warned Ryan. Not only should he be aware in his professional capacity that a violent assassin had returned to the country, but there was also Hannah to think about.

Kat knew that she, not Hannah, was Pierce’s primary target, the one who got away. She’d studied the hitwoman enough to understand that Pierce felt like she needed to finish the job, both to maintain her reputation, and as payback.

But likely next on her hit list was Hannah, who’d actually outsmarted the killer and got her captured. There was no way Pierce would allow that to stand—being outwitted by a girl who was a high school senior at the time. Thus the call to Ryan.

Unlike Kat, who had put detailed measures in place to change and hide where she now worked and lived, Hannah was just a college student, doing the best she could to get good grades and make friends. Finding her wouldn’t be hard for someone with Pierce’s skills.

So together, Kat and Ryan came up with a plan. They initially discussed having Hannah live at home and take her classes online for the remainer of the spring quarter. UC Irvine was only about an hour from their mid-city house, which—by necessity—Jessie had turned into a veritable fortress.

But ultimately, they decided that would be too disruptive to Hannah’s life. The girl had been through so much already in her nineteen years. Getting uprooted from a place where she was thriving was a last resort.

Instead, after talking with Jessie and getting Hannah’s go-ahead, Ryan hired a private security firm called Security Analysis Services, or SAS, that he and Jessie had worked with before, and which had helped protect Hannah from a prior threat to her life.

The owner of SAS, a former British Special Forces officer named Grover Nix, assigned a familiar face to protect Hannah. Gila Jabarin was a former Israeli Special Forces soldier who had extensive experience with demolitions and weapons, including sniper training. She was also an expert in hand-to-hand combat. Most importantly, she’d squared off with Pierce once before and knew her tendencies.

With Jabarin constantly watching her back, Hannah was able to finish out the remainder of the school year at UC Irvine. But unlike her dorm, which had several levels of security, the hospital where Hannah would visit her friend Finn was far more vulnerable, even with Jabarin around. It was only after Finn was moved out of the hospital that they felt real confidence that Hannah could be kept safe.

Kat glanced at the speedometer and then back at the road ahead of her. Traffic was still moving fast, but she felt increasingly anxious and had to remind herself not to press her foot down too hard. She tried to remember that she had less cause to be anxious now than back when she’d first learned of Pierce’s return.

At least now Hannah was protected all the time. Once the school year ended, the soon-to-be college sophomore took a job working as an intern in the HSS research department. Kat was glad she’d made that choice. The previous summer, Hannah had actually worked with her, learning the ins and outs of the private investigation business. But this was much safer.

Rather than being in Kat’s ratty car all the time, exposed to danger, she was working in a police station, surrounded by dozens of armed officers. At home, her sister’s husband, a decorated police detective, could keep an eye on her. And the home itself, which had all manner of security systems—not to mention a panic room—was more fortified than some banks. Ryan even felt comfortable enough to pull Gila Jabarin off the job, except when Hannah wanted to go on a social outing.

But none of this was sustainable. They had to find Pierce before she came for them. That’s why Kat had been in Vegas. And that’s why she was at risk of being late for her friend’s return to the country after two months away.

She punched the accelerator back up 90