The Perfect Wife Read online

  “Oh, I don’t work for the FBI. I haven’t even gotten my degree yet.”

  “Trust me—that doesn’t matter. They all think you’re a real-life Clarice Starling. My over/under on serial killer references is three.”

  Kimberly had underestimated.

  “Do you sit in the same room as these guys?” asked a woman named Caroline with hair so long that some strands reached her backside.

  “It depends on the rules of the facility,” Jessie answered. “But I’ve never interviewed one without an experienced profiler or investigator with me, taking lead.”

  “Are serial killers all as smart as they seem in the movies?” a mousy woman named Josette asked hesitantly.

  “I haven’t interviewed enough to say definitively,” Jessie told her. “But based on the literature, as well as my personal experience, I’d say no. Most of these men—and they are almost always men—are no smarter than you or me. Some get away with it for a long time because of sloppy investigating. Some manage to evade capture because they choose victims no one cares about—prostitutes, the homeless. It takes a while for people to notice those folks are missing. And sometimes they’re just lucky. Once I graduate, my job will be to change their luck.”

  The women politely pummeled her with questions, seemingly uninterested in the fact that she had not even graduated, much less formally taken on a profiling case.

  “So you’ve never actually solved a case?” asked one particularly inquisitive woman named Joanne.

  “Not yet. Technically, I’m just a student. The pros handle the live cases. Speaking of professionals, what do you do?” she asked in the hopes of redirecting her.

  “I used to be in marketing,” Joanne said. “But that was before Troy was born. He keeps me pretty busy these days. It’s a full-time job all on its own.”

  “I’ll bet. Is he somewhere napping now?” Jessie asked, looking around.

  “Probably,” Joanne said, glancing at her watch. “But he’ll be up soon for snack. He’s at daycare.”

  “Oh,” Jessie said, before broaching her next question as delicately as possible. “I thought most kids in daycare had working moms.”

  “Yes,” Joanne said, apparently not offended. “But they’re so good over there that I couldn’t not enroll him. He doesn’t go every day. But Wednesdays are a challenge, so I usually take him then. Hump days are hard, right?”

  Before Jessie could respond, the door from the garage opened and a burly thirty-something guy with a shock of unruly red hair burst into the room.

  “Morgan!” Kimberly exclaimed happily. “What are you doing home?”

  “I left my report in the study,” he replied. “My presentation is in twenty minutes so I have to get back fast.”

  Morgan, apparently Kimberly’s husband, didn’t look at all surprised to see half a dozen women in his living room. He barreled through them, offering general greetings to the group. Joanne leaned over to Jessie.

  “He’s some kind of engineer,” she said quietly, as if it was some kind of secret.

  “For whom? One of the defense contractors?” Jessie asked.

  “No, for some real estate outfit.”

  Jessie didn’t understand why that merited such discretion but decided not to pursue it. Moments later, Morgan blasted back into the living room with a thick ream of paper in his hand.

  “Nice to see you, ladies,” he said. “Sorry I can’t stick around. Kim, remember I’ve got that thing at the club tonight so I’ll be back late.”

  “Okay, sweetie,” his wife said, chasing after him to secure a kiss before he rushed out the door.

  When he was gone, she returned to the living room, still flushed from the unexpected visit.

  “I swear he moves with such purpose, you’d think he was a criminal profiler or something.”

  The comment sent the group into a wave of giggles. Jessie smiled, not sure exactly what was so funny.

  *

  An hour later, she was back in her own sitting room, trying to find the energy to open the box in front of her. As she carefully sliced through the tape, she went over the coffee outing. There was something odd about it. But she couldn’t quite place what.

  Kimberly was a sweetheart. Jessie genuinely liked her and especially appreciated the effort she was making to help the new girl. And the other women were all nice and personable, if a little bland. But there was something…mysterious about their interactions, as if they were all in on some shared secret that Jessie wasn’t privy to.

  Part of her thought she was paranoid to suspect such a thing. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d incorrectly jumped to faulty conclusions. Then again, all of her instructors in the Forensic Psych program at USC had praised her for her intuitive sense. They didn’t seem to think she was paranoid so much as “suspiciously inquisitive,” as one professor had called her. It had sounded like a compliment at the time.

  She opened the box and pulled out the first item, a framed photo from her wedding. She stared at it for a moment, looking at the happy expressions on her and Kyle’s faces. On either side of them were family members, all beaming as well.

  As her eyes drifted over the group, she suddenly felt the melancholy from earlier rise up again inside her. An anxious tightness gripped her chest. She reminded herself to take deep breaths but no amount of inhaling or exhaling calmed her down.

  She wasn’t sure exactly what had brought this on—the memories, the new environment, the fight with Kyle, a combination of all of it? Whatever it was, she recognized one fundamental truth. She was unable to control this on her own anymore. She needed to talk to someone. And despite the feeling of acute failure that began to overwhelm her as she reached for the phone, she dialed the number she had hoped she’d never have to use again.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  She made an appointment with her old therapist, Dr. Janice Lemmon, and just knowing that going would necessitate a visit back to her old stomping grounds set her at ease. The panic had subsided almost immediately after she scheduled the session.

  When Kyle came home that night—early even—they ordered takeout and watched a cheesy but fun movie about alternate realities called The 13th Floor. Neither of them formally apologized but they seemed to have rediscovered their comfort zone. After the movie, they didn’t even go upstairs to have sex. Instead, Kyle just climbed on top of her right there on the couch. It reminded Jessie of their newlywed days.

  He’d even made her breakfast this morning before he headed out for work. It was awful—burnt toast, runny eggs, and undercooked turkey bacon—but Jessie appreciated the attempt. She felt a little bad about not telling him her plans for the day. But then again, he hadn’t asked so she wasn’t really lying.

  It wasn’t until she was on the freeway the next day, in sight of the downtown Los Angeles skyscrapers, that Jessie truly felt the gnawing pit of nervousness in her gut subside. She had made the midday trip from Orange County in under an hour and got into the city early just so she could walk around a bit. She parked in the lot near Dr. Lemmon’s office across from the Original Pantry at the corner of Figueroa and West 9th.

  Then she got the idea of calling her former USC roommate and oldest college friend, Lacey Cartwright, who lived and worked in the area, to see if she could hang out. She got her voicemail and left a message. As she started down Figueroa in the direction of the Bonaventure Hotel, Lacey texted her to say she was too busy to hang out that day but that they’d hook up the next time Jessie was around.

  Who knows when that will be?

  She put her disappointment out of her head and focused on the city around her, taking in the bustling sights and sounds that were so different from her new living environment. When she hit 5th Street, she made a right and continued ambling.

  This reminded her of the days, not so long ago, when she would do this exact thing multiple times a week. If she was struggling with a case study for class, she’d just step outside and stroll along the streets, using the traffic as white nois
e as she turned the case over in her mind until she found a way to approach it. Her work was almost always strongest if she’d had time to wander around downtown and noodle with it a bit.

  She kept the imminent discussion with Dr. Lemmon at the back of her head as she mentally revisited yesterday’s coffee at Kimberly’s house. She still couldn’t pin down the nature of the mysterious secretiveness of the women she’d met there. But one thing did jump out at her in retrospect—how desperate they’d all been to hear the details of her profiling studies.

  She couldn’t tell if it was because the profession she was entering seemed so unusual or simply that it was a profession at all. Looking back, she realized that none of the women worked.

  Some used to. Joanne had been in marketing. Kimberly said she used to be a real estate agent when they lived in Sherman Oaks. Josette had run a small gallery in Silverlake. But they were all stay-at-home moms now. And while they appeared happy with their new lives, they also seemed hungry for details from the professional world, greedily, almost guiltily devouring any morsel of intrigue.

  Jessie stopped, realizing she had somehow arrived at the Biltmore Hotel. She’d been here many times before. It was famous for, among other things, hosting some the early Academy Awards in 1930s. She’d also once been told it was where Robert Kennedy was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan in 1968.

  Back before she decided to do her thesis on NRD, Jessie had toyed with the idea of profiling Sirhan. So she’d shown up one day unannounced and asked the concierge if they gave tours of the hotel that included the site of the shooting. He was perplexed.

  It took a few embarrassing moments for him to understand what she was after and several more for him to politely explain that the assassination had not occurred there but at the now-demolished Ambassador Hotel.

  He tried to soften the blow be telling her that JFK had gotten the Democratic nomination for president at the Biltmore in 1960. But she was too humiliated to stick around to hear that story.

  Despite the shame, the experience taught her a valuable lesson that had stuck with her ever since: Don’t make assumptions, especially in a line of work where assuming wrong might get you killed. The next day she changed thesis topics and resolved to do her research from then on before she showed up at a location.

  Despite that debacle Jessie returned often, as she loved the old-fashioned glamour of the place. This time, she immediately settled into her comfort zone as she meandered through the halls and ballrooms for a good twenty minutes.

  As she passed through the lobby on her way out, she noticed a youngish man in a suit standing nonchalantly near the bellhop station, perusing a newspaper. What drew her attention was how sweaty he was. With the air-conditioning blasting through the hotel, she didn’t see how that was physically possible. And yet, every few seconds, he dabbed at the beads of perspiration constantly forming on his forehead.

  Why is a guy just casually reading a paper so sweaty?

  Jessie moved a little closer and pulled out her phone. She pretended to be reading something but put it in camera mode and tilted it so she could watch the guy without really looking at him. Every now and then she took a quick photo.

  He didn’t seem to actually be reading the paper but rather using it as a prop while he intermittently looked up in the direction of the bags being placed on the luggage cart. When one of the bellhops began pushing the cart in the direction of the elevator, the man in the suit put the newspaper under his arm and ambled along behind him.

  The bellhop pushed the cart into the elevator and the suited man followed and stood on the other side of the cart. Just as the doors closed, Jessie saw the suited man grab a briefcase from the side of the cart that wasn’t visible to the bellhop.

  She watched the elevator slowly go up and stop at the eighth floor. After about ten seconds, it began to descend again. As it did, she walked over to the security guard near the front door. The guard, an amiable-looking guy in his late forties, smiled at her.

  “I think you’ve got a thief working the hotel,” Jessie said without preamble, wanting to give him the situation fast.

  “How’s that?” he asked, now frowning slightly.

  “I saw this guy,” she said, holding up the photo on her phone, “swipe a briefcase from a luggage cart. It’s possible that it was his. But he was pretty sneaky about it and he was sweating like a guy who was nervous about something.”

  “Okay, Sherlock,” the guard said skeptically. “Assuming you’re right, how am I supposed to find him? Did you see what floors the elevator stopped on?”

  “Eight. But if I’m right, that won’t matter. If he’s a hotel guest, I gather that’s his floor and that’s where he’ll stay.”

  “And if he’s not a guest?” the guard asked.

  “If he’s not, I’m guessing he’ll be coming straight back down on the elevator that’s returning to the lobby right now.”

  Just as she said that, the elevator door opened and the sweaty, suited man stepped out, newspaper in one hand, briefcase in the other. He began walking to the exit.

  “I’m guessing he’s going to stash that one somewhere and start the whole procedure over again,” Jessie said.

  “Stay here,” the guard said to her, and then spoke into his radio. “I’m gonna need backup in the lobby ASAP.”

  He approached the suited man, who saw him out of the corner of his eye and picked up the pace of his stride. So did the guard. The suited man broke into a run and was just pushing his way out the front door when he collided with another security guard running in the opposite direction. Both of them sprawled out on the ground.

  Jessie’s guard grabbed hold of the suited man, lifted him up, yanked his arm behind his back, and slammed him against the hotel wall.

  “Mind if I look in your bag, sir?” he demanded.

  Jessie wanted to see how it would all play out but a quick glance at her watch showed that her appointment with Dr. Lemmon, set for 11 a.m., was in five minutes. She’d have to skip the walk back and catch a cab just to make it in time. She wouldn’t even have the chance to say goodbye to the guard. She worried that if she tried, he’d insist that she stick around to give the police her statement.

  She barely made it and was out of breath and just sitting down in the waiting room when Dr. Lemmon opened her office door to invite her in.

  “Did you run here from Westport Beach?” the doctor asked with a chuckle.

  “Actually, I kind of did.”

  “Well, come in and get comfortable,” Dr Lemmon said, closing the door behind her and pouring them both glasses of water from a pitcher filled with lemon and cucumber slices. She still had the same awful perm that Jessie remembered, with tight little blonde ringlets that bounced when they touched her shoulders. She wore thick glasses that made her sharp, owl-like eyes appear tinier. She was a small woman, barely over five feet tall. But she was visibly wiry, probably a result of the yoga she’d told Jessie she did three times a week. For a woman in her mid-sixties, she looked great.

  Jessie sat down in the comfy easy chair she always used for sessions and immediately settled back into the old vibe she was used to. She hadn’t been here in a while, well over a year, and had hoped to keep it that way. But it was a place of comfort, where she’d struggled with, and intermittently succeeded in, making peace with her past.

  Dr. Lemmon handed her the water, sat down across from her, picked up a legal pad and pen, and rested them on her lap. That was her sign that the session had formally started.

  “What are we discussing today, Jessie?” she asked warmly.

  “Good news first, I guess. I’m doing my practicum at DSH-Metro, NRD Unit.”

  “Oh wow. That is impressive. Who’s your faculty adviser?”

  “Warren Hosta at UC-Irvine,” Jessie said. “Do you know him?”

  “We’ve interacted,” the doctor said cryptically. “I think you’re in good hands. He’s prickly but he knows his stuff, which is what matters for you.”

  “I�
�m glad to hear that because I didn’t have much choice,” Jessie noted. “He was only one The Panel would approve in the area.”

  “I guess that in order to get what you want, you have to color inside their lines a bit. This is what you wanted, right?”

  “It is,” Jessie said.

  Dr. Lemmon looked at her closely. An unspoken moment of understanding passed between them. Back when Jessie had been interrogated about her thesis by the authorities, Dr. Lemmon had shown up at the police station out of the blue. Jessie remembered watching as her psychiatrist spoke quietly to several people who’d been silently observing her interview. After that, the questions seemed less accusatory and more respectful.

  It was only later that Jessie learned Dr. Lemmon was a member of The Panel and was well aware of the goings-on at NRD. She had even treated some of the patients there. Looking back, it shouldn’t have been a surprise. After all, Jessie had sought this woman out as a therapist precisely because of her reputation for expertise in that area.

  “Can I ask you something, Jessie?” Dr. Lemmon said. “You say working at NRD is what you want. But have you considered that the place may not give you the answers you’re looking for?”

  “I just want to better understand how these people think,” Jessie insisted, “so that I can be a better profiler.”

  “I think we both know you’re looking for much more than that.”

  Jessie didn’t respond. Instead she folded her hands in her lap and took a deep breath. She knew how the doctor would interpret that but she didn’t care.

  “We can come back to that,” Dr Lemmon said quietly. “Let’s move on. How’s married life treating you?”

  “That’s the main reason I wanted to see you today,” Jessie said, happy to change subjects. “As you know, Kyle and I just moved from here to Westport Beach because his firm reassigned him to their Orange County office. We’ve got a big house in a great neighborhood within walking distance of the harbor…”

  “But…?” Dr. Lemmon prodded.