Jessie held on for dear life.
As Sam tore along the surface streets toward Claire Vallejo’s Silver Lake apartment, she clung to the car’s grab handle, trying not to get bounced around like a pinball. Harper Devery, who didn’t have a siren or cherry light on his car like they did, did his best to stick right behind them.
“How much longer?” Sam asked, his eyes focused on the road.
“GPS says we’re seven minutes from her place.”
“And no word from Jamil on her location?”
Before they left research, Jessie had instructed Jamil and Beth to get an emergency judicial order to access Claire’s phone and vehicle GPS data in case she’d already left her apartment.
“No,” she said, glancing at her phone to make sure she hadn’t missed any texts. “But don’t hold your breath. Even under the best of circumstances, it could take upwards of an hour to get approval. We should assume that we’re on our own.”
They drove in silence for a few seconds before Sam muttered under his breath, “I can’t believe I got suckered. I really liked her.”
“So did I,” Jessie said. “Obviously not in the way you did, but I was taken in too. I wouldn’t have kept pushing you to ask her out if I had any clue. Don’t feel bad, Sam. I’m a criminal profiler and I didn’t pick up anything untoward. I don’t know if that means I’m losing my touch or that she’s so committed to the righteousness of her cause that it never occurred to her to feel guilt or shame over what she was doing. She never projected any of those emotions.”
She was going to say more to make Sam feel better but her phone rang before she could finish.
“It’s Mona Gaynor from Priya Kapoor’s campaign,” she said, putting the call on speaker. “This is Jessie Hunt.”
“Ms. Hunt,” Gaynor said, her voice tight. “I have an update for you. Apparently Priya never went to Sacramento. As you may know, she’s well into her pregnancy and apparently wasn’t feeling great before boarding. She decided to cancel the trip altogether and just take it easy for the day.”
Jessie felt her blood pressure rise immediately. “Where is she now?”
“I just spoke to her husband at his office. He said she went home to take a nap hoping she’d feel better when she woke up. I just tried calling her but it went straight to voicemail. She might have silenced her phone to get some sleep.”
Jessie tried to focus on the specific information she needed rather than the sudden reality that a woman she thought was safe might not be.
“All right,” she said. “I need Priya’s home address, her phone number, and if you have it, any security code to the home. And I need it all ASAP.”
Once she got the information, she plugged the address into the GPS for Sam. “Looks like they live in Los Feliz at the base of Griffith Park. That’s actually even closer to our current location than Claire’s apartment. We can be there in five minutes driving normally. I assume you can get us there faster than that.”
“Count on it,” Sam said, hitting the accelerator hard. “I’m going to go left at the next light.”
“I’ll tell Devery what’s happening, so he doesn’t freak out when we change directions,” Jessie said.
“What about Claire’s apartment?” Sam asked. “There’s no guarantee that she’s after Priya, or even if she is, that she’s left yet.”
“We’ll send multiple squad cars there,” Jessie said. “The one good thing is that if she’s home, at least she’s not out trying tokill someone. But if she has left, Priya is a logical next target. She’s our priority.”
If it was possible, Sam drove even faster.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Jessie had Sam turn off the siren and cherry light once they got close to the house.
If Claire was there, they didn’t want to warn her of their presence.
“Backup is four minutes out,” Sam said as he parked in front of the Herron’s enormous mid-century modern ranch house. “Do we want to wait?”
“I’d rather err on the side of being too aggressive than waiting out here while something might be going on in there.”
“Agreed,” Sam said. He looked at the time—4:11 P.M.—and called in to let dispatch know they were entering the house.
Officer Devery Harper was just pulling up as they got out of the car. Jessie noted that in his civilian clothes, he had little of the gravitas that his uniform provided. She hoped he didn’t carry himself that way when they entered the house.
“Let’s go,” Sam said as they jogged up the path to the front door. “Remember, stay quiet until we locate Kapoor, or if she’s here, Claire Vallejo. Weapons ready. Eyes alert. Got it?”
