Page 2 of The Perfect Illusion (Jessie Hunt #39)

Jessie Hunt made a sharp right turn at the last second, nearly clipping the curb.

Then she glanced behind her to see if any cars had followed them down the one-way side street. Her passenger did the same thing. Neither of them noticed anything unusual so far.

She would be glad when this sort of thing was no longer required, but for the time being she was trying to be patient. So she continued to engage in these unconventional driving maneuvers.

After all, in just three days, her best friend Kat Gentry, who was seated beside her in the car, would be moving into her new apartment.

That meant she'd be moving out of the home of Jessie and her husband, Detective Ryan Hernandez.

It also meant that Jessie would no longer have to follow Kat's elaborate driving routine to avoid being followed.

Jessie understood where Kat was coming from.

After all, her friend was legitimately concerned about the hitwoman who’d been paid to kill her.

Even though Ash Pierce had escaped from prison and the country just two weeks ago, there was the very real possibility that she might try to return to the U.S to finish the job, if she wasn’t already back.

So Kat had set up elaborate protections for herself. Living with Jessie and Ryan in their fortress of a home until she found a new place was one of them. Changing the location of her private detective office was another. And so was altering her route from Jessie’s place into work every day.

Unfortunately, that meant that Jessie—and sometimes Ryan—had to engage in all manner of driving trickery. That included running red lights, making unexpected U-turns, occasionally going down one-way roads, and as in this instance, making out-of-the-blue last second turns onto side streets.

That was only half the battle. Once Jessie eventually dropped her friend off at a mall, or a metro station, or in this case, at a crowded mid-morning farmers market, Kat would bob and weave her way through people to get to her rideshare driver, who was waiting to take her to another location, where she would follow the same evasion procedure before finally getting dropped off at the parking garage where her recently purchased used car was waiting to finally drive to her office.

“Can you make a left at the next intersection?” Kat asked, a request that would send them back in the direction they’d originally come from.

“Not a problem,” Jessie assured her. “How far away is today’s farmers market?”

“About six blocks to the west,” Kat told her. “Do you think I should order the rideshare now or wait another minute?”

"Tough call," Jessie acknowledged. "You don't want to be standing around waiting for the car, but if you're not there when they show up, they might bail. I'd probably err on the side of waiting to order it. You can always dart around the market for an extra minute until they show up."

“That makes sense,” Kat agreed. “Okay, I’ll hold off a little longer. You’re headed into the station after you drop me off?”

The station was LAPD’s downtown Central Station, where Jessie was the criminal profiler for a dedicated unit called Homicide Special Section, or HSS.

The small unit, consisting of five detectives and two researchers, specialized in cases with high profiles or intense media scrutiny—typically involving multiple victims or serial killers.

Her husband, Ryan, ran the unit’s day-to-day operations and was overseen by Captain Gaylene Parker.

“Yeah,” Jessie said. “Since my case from yesterday wrapped up late, Captain Parker said I could sleep in today. I’m hoping to get in by 10:30.”

“I noticed that Ryan was already gone when I woke up this morning,” Kat said.

“Yeah, he was assigned to a different case,” Jessie explained. “He’s paired up with Jim Nettles. I was working with Karen Bray.”

“Your husband didn’t need your profiling services for his case?” Kat teased.

“Apparently not,” Jessie replied, before jokingly adding, “Maybe I’m not as valuable as I’d like to think I am.”

Kat nodded, though her expression suggested she wanted to say something more.

“What is it?” Jessie asked.

“Nothing,” Kat said, before going ahead anyway.

“It’s just that you and Ryan are usually paired together so I found it odd that you weren’t this time.

Also, I’ve noticed a hint of tension since I’ve been staying with you guys.

I’m worried that I’ve been invading your ‘couples’ space’ for too long now. I swear that I’ll be out this weekend.”

“It’s fine,” Jessie said, not expounding beyond that.

The truth was that, while Kat’s continued presence was a bit of a strain on their personal space, she wasn’t the primary reason for the simmering tension she accurately sensed. That had more to do with issues she had no part in.

For example, it wasn’t Kat’s fault that Jessie and Ryan had been at loggerheads for months over the idea of having a child, either naturally or through adoption.

Jessie had been adamantly opposed to giving birth herself for both professional and health reasons.

And once Ryan had made peace with the alternative idea of adopting, another complication had cropped up.

Actually, "cropped up" was a diplomatic term for the situation.

In recent weeks, Ryan had cast cold water on the idea of adopting, primarily because of a concern to them both.

The concern was Jessie's ongoing and increasingly intense desire to exact violent retribution against anyone she perceived to be a wrongdoer.

More specifically, Jessie felt a relentless bloodlust, one that she’d always had inside her but until recent months, had managed to subdue by identifying and capturing killers in order for them to face the justice system.

Of late, she’d determined that perhaps she should be doling out justice rather than the courts.

This bloodthirsty desire to punish the guilty had been with her for a long time, an unwanted gift from her now-dead serial killer father. Known as the Ozarks Executioner, he’d slaughtered dozens of people over decades before Jessie eventually stopped him.

But whereas his need to kill had manifested in the murders of countless innocents, Jessie had somehow managed to channel her cravings—ones she believed she’d inherited from him—into something more constructive.

She studied forensic psychology at school and eventually became a criminal profiler, using her own darkness to better understand how and why killers did what they did.

For a long time, catching these twisted offenders satiated her desire for vengeance. Knowing that they were off the streets and in prison, where they couldn’t hurt anyone else, was enough for her. But not anymore.

On multiple occasions in the last few months, she'd come dangerously close to using her own hands to make these killers pay. In at least two instances, only last-second questions or comments from her partners snapped her out of a violent moment.

That was what had Ryan so concerned. He reasonably wondered—if she couldn’t control herself when it came to the work she’d dedicated her life to, what would happen if that lack of control manifested itself in their personal life?

It was a legitimate issue, one she’d tried to resolve in multiple ways. Her long-time therapist, Dr. Janice Lemmon, had been working with her to find some way to get a handle on her compulsions. But so far, they’d proved fruitless.

Just last week, she made a disastrous attempt to curb her desires through medication.

Unfortunately, while the pill had reduced her craving for violence, it also made her a fuzzy-headed, rundown mess.

That was a bad combination for someone who depended on her powers of perception to solve crimes.

In that instance, she managed to fake it long enough for the effect of the medication to wear off, but she knew she’d been lucky.

Jessie had investigated another option. Her younger half-sister, Hannah Dorsey, had expressed similar urges, and even acted on them in an incident that was later generously determined to be self-defense.

When Hannah admitted to her struggles and asked for help, Dr. Lemmon had found a treatment facility where she spent several months learning how to redirect her desires into more constructive directions.

That was great for Hannah, who had been a high school senior at the time. She was able to continue her studies at the facility, where no one knew her identity. It wasn’t so easy for Jessie. For one thing, she couldn’t just take off several months for treatment.

Another problem was that because of her success at apprehending multiple serial killers, she was a minor celebrity in Los Angeles, often seen on the local news. When she and Ryan visited a facility near Santa Barbara, two people had recognized her. That was a problem.

If her presence at a residential facility was discovered, it could jeopardize her job.

Even if higher-ups in the LAPD assumed she had a substance abuse issue rather than a psychological one in which she wanted to violently end people, it could be a death knell for her career.

So, at least for now, she was stuck treading emotional water.

Even though Kat was her best friend, she wasn't aware of the magnitude of this issue, and Jessie wanted to keep it that way. So she kept it to herself. Kat seemed to sense that she wasn't willing to go into anything personal, so she changed gears.

“How’s your head doing?” she asked. “No bumps or bruises working your most recent case?”

Kat was referring to Jessie’s multiple concussions while engaging with suspects, which had led to her being diagnosed with Second Impact Syndrome, a dangerous, potentially deadly condition that had led her neurologist to keep her away from field work for months.

“Nope,” Jessie assured her, as she punched the gas to speed through a light that was just changing from yellow to red. “Everyone I work with is diligent about jumping into danger so I don’t have to. It’s both heartwarming and guilt-inducing.”

“Guilt is better than the alternative,” Kat reminded her. “Remember, you’re not a detective. You’re a profiler. You do the brain work and let the cops do the heavy lifting.”

“Hey,” Jessie objected. “They do brain work too. You make it sound like my husband is a dock worker or something. He solves crimes just like I do.”

“You know what I mean,” Kat said with a dismissive wave before quickly switching subjects to avoid further ire. “Heard from Hannah lately?”

Jessie decided to let her friend off the hook.

“We were texting last night,” she said of her sister, who was currently in the last quarter of her freshman year at UC Irvine, about an hour away. “She’s planning to come home this weekend.”

“Any more word on her romantic situation?” Kat asked, turning slightly pink.

She was clearly a bit embarrassed to be asking about a nineteen-year-old’s love life, but she still couldn’t help herself. Jessie noted that the long vertical scar on the left side of her face—the result of an IED explosion during her time as an Army Ranger in Afghanistan—remained white.

“She’s pretty cagey about that stuff these days,” Jessie said as she slowed down suddenly on the mostly empty street to see if any of the few vehicles behind them would do the same. None did. “I think things are a little sketchy with that frat boy she’s been on and off with. I try not to pry.”

“But she’s good otherwise?” Kat asked, keeping an eye on the passing cars for any paid assassins she might recognize. “You know I consider myself her Aunt Kat, so I have to stay up on things.”

“She views you the same way,” Jessie assured her, “although maybe not as much when she was interning for you at the detective agency last summer. Aunt and boss are an odd combo. But to answer your question, she’s doing great.

I know her classes this quarter have been harder than the last two, but she seems to be handling them okay.

I hope to learn more on all fronts this weekend. ”

“Maybe I’ll delay my move-out by a day so I can get the skinny,” Kat said, before adding, “Just kidding. I know she’ll want to sleep in her old room without me cramping her style.”

Jessie didn’t reply as she was focused on crossing four lanes of traffic in quick succession so she could make one final turn onto the street with the farmers market.

“You better get out here,” she said when she saw the traffic backup in front of them. “I’m going to be stuck here for a minute and I assume you’ll want to keep moving to avoid detection.”

“You know me too well,” Kat said, already opening the door of the still-moving vehicle. “I’ll catch you tonight back at the house.”

She slammed the door closed before Jessie could respond and quickly jogged over to the plaza, which was filled with multiple vendor stands.

In less than five seconds, she had completely disappeared from view, which was exactly what she'd intended.

Even Ash Pierce would find it challenging to keep up with her in that crowd.

As Jessie waited for the light to change, her thoughts drifted to how she needed to clean up the house a little for Hannah's return. One piece of that process was finding a spot for the bankers box sitting on the living room floor. Of course, it wasn't just any old box.

This particular one contained the personal effects of a serial killer named Mark Haddonfield, who had been adamant that she receive it after his recent death. But even after looking at every item in the box multiple times, she still had no idea why Haddonfield had been so insistent that she get it.

She still recalled the cryptic message that Haddonfield had said to both Hannah and herself before his death: If you want to be independent, you have to go to the mattresses. She didn’t know what that meant. But his insistence on repeating the phrase told her it was somehow significant.

She was debating whether to review the contents again tonight when her phone rang. Glancing down, she saw that it was Captain Parker, who ran Central Station and oversaw HSS.

“Hey Captain,” Jessie said, putting the call on speaker. “What’s up?”

“Where are you?” Parker asked in her typically gruff, no-nonsense way.

"On my way into the station," Jessie said. "I should be there in less than ten minutes."

“Change of plans,” Parker said. “I need you to head to Brentwood.”

“Brentwood?” Jessie repeated, surprised. “Isn’t that a little out of our station’s jurisdiction?”

“When it comes to unconventional murders, our jurisdiction is pretty much everywhere, Hunt, and this one is pretty unconventional.”