His eyes cleared up though he still looked off.
“I told you before that I’ve never dealt with a serial killer before,” he said.“In every other case I’ve worked, the person responsible was no longer an ongoing threat, except maybe if they tried to escape capture.But we knew how to deal with that.This is new territory for me.Whoever did this seems willing to go anywhere and kill anyone.It’s a lot.”
Some small part of Jessie felt for the guy.He was right.Thiswasa lot.And for someone unused to cases like this, it was understandably overwhelming.But he had known this case involved multiple murders when he took charge of it and unceremoniously dumped Karen Bray.This was his rodeo.And he needed to get a grip.
“Webb,” she began before switching it up, “Carl, I get that this is a lot to grasp all at once.But we don’t have the luxury of time to process it like we normally would.Whoever did this is on the loose.We have no idea who they are or what their next move is.So, we need to act fast.”
“What do you suggest we do?”he asked, sounding like a lost child more than a special agent.
“First, we’ll go to Nicole Thorington’s home and learn whatever we can,” she said firmly.“I see an SUV pulling up beside the jet right now.On the way, I’ll call a friend of mine with the U.S.Marshals.He’ll contact their Fresno office and have their people take Allyson Rhodes into protective custody.Nothing against the Fresno police but this is a different threat level now and we need folks watching her who do it for a living.Luckily, Fresno is a three-hour drive from Santa Cruz, so as long as we’re dealing with just one killer, there should be time to get her safely hidden.By the way, they’re opening the jet door.Let’s get up.”
“Okay,” Webb said uncertainly.
“While we’re in the car and I’m calling the Marshals, you’ll be coordinating with the local Bureau of Investigation’s communication people.”
“Why?”Webb asked apprehensively.
“Because you’re going to have to hold a press conference,” she told him.“We don’t know the extent of this killer’s reach.Are they just going after Jason Mannix’s fake wives?Are they going after anyone who ever dated him?We need to get his photo on TV screens so that any woman who ever interacted with him romantically can take the necessary precautions.”
“But won’t that make him look like a suspect?”he asked.“We could be opening the Bureau up to legal liability now that we know he didn’t do this.”
“First of all, we don’t know that,” she corrected.“The possibility that he hired someone is still live.I doubt it but we’d be wise not to make any assumptions.More importantly, I don’t care.If showing Mannix’s face makes potential victims take steps to protect themselves, he can sue the state all he wants.But I’m guessing a guy involved in four fake marriages won’t be prioritizing that.”
Webb seemed unconvinced.
“Listen,” she said.“We’re dealing with someone brutal here, a multiple murderer who is now a cop killer too.This is no time for half measures.You wanted to handle a big-time case.You’ve got it.Now you have to step up.Can I count on you, Webb?”
His nod was far weaker than she would have liked, not that it mattered.When it came down to it, the only person she could count on right now was herself.She felt up to the task.
But she worried that wouldn’t be enough to stop the slaughter.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
After four hours without moving, Ash Pierce stood up to stretch.
It might not seem like it to an observer, but surveilling Jessie Hunt’s house was no easy task.And after four full days—and sometimes nights—of sitting in a chair staring across the street, her body was feeling the strain.
She activated the motion sensor so that she would get an alert if there was any movement near the house while she stepped away.Then she moved from Linda Crewes’s dining room into the living room, which had hardwood.That would make it easier for her to do the mini workout she had planned.
After taking off her socks and warming up for a minute, she prepped to do a series of burpees.She hoped that it would not only loosen things up, but disperse some of the nervous energy that she’d developed sitting in that chair in front of the window for so long.
It had been like this since Sunday evening, when she finally arrived here from Lake Tahoe.There had been one brief hiccup along the way.When she pulled onto the street, an officer standing beside his patrol car had waved her down and asked for identification.She happily handed over Linda’s driver’s license and pointed at the house fifty yards away, explaining that after driving for eight hours, almost non-stop, she was ready to get home and crash hard.
She’d expected additional questions but there were none.The officer waved her through.She used the remote in the console to open the garage door, pulled in, and closed it after her.She hadn’t left Linda’s house since.
In the interim, she’d gotten familiar with the routines of both the police who patrolled the neighborhood, and with Jessie and her husband, Detective Ryan Hernandez.The schedule for the cops was pretty straightforward.They circled the block at specific times and would periodically park out front, usually around the time that the couple was leaving or returning.
But Hunt and Hernandez’s patterns were more haphazard, dictated by the cases they were working.They seemed to generally leave the house together around 7:30 each morning.But when they returned home, and whether it was together or solo, varied wildly.
Ash took in a long, slow breath, squatted deeply, put her palms on the floor, and drove her legs behind her.She did a pushup, then hopped back into a squat before jumping as high as she could.She repeated the process twenty times.When she was done, she was panting heavily.She took a sip of water and set a two-minute timer to recover before she started in on the lunges.
While she waited, her thoughts returned to the home across the street and two houses over.Though she hadn’t been able to access the dwelling’s structural plans from county records (they were mysteriously and suspiciously missing), she was able to draw some conclusions about the home’s security measures based on what she saw.
There were three panels by the front door.In addition to the standard numeric code keypad, it appeared that one panel was for fingerprint identification and the other was a retinal scan.All of them had to be cleared before entry through the steel door was possible.It was obvious that she wasn’t getting in that way.
Even if she had the technical skill to bypass the keypad, and somehow got hold of the finger and eyeball of a registered entrant, the multiple cameras affixed to streetlights—some of which had facial recognition capability—would take note of the woman trying to get in.It was too big a risk.Besides, if she had the finger and eyeball of a resident, her mission would already likely have been accomplished.
There was also the garage entrance, which she suspected had the same security protocols.But that was harder to sneak up on.Someone approaching it would draw far more notice than a person walking up to the front door.And usually—though not always—Hunt and Hernandez would close the garage door before even exiting their vehicle, making accessing them when they were vulnerable nearly impossible.
