The Perfect Mistress (A Jessie Hunt Psychological Suspense Thriller—Book Fifteen) Read online

  It was one of the more eclectic groups of people she’d encountered in some time, and she lived on the outskirts of Hollywood, where eclectic was the norm. On the patio just outside where she sat, an older, hippie-ish woman with long, braided hair of at least three colors was talking to two bikers in leather jackets with chains on their belts.

  In the corner of the coffeehouse, a skinny, nervous-looking guy in his late teens with unkempt hair unpacked his cello for an imminent set. As he did, he talked to a female barista who looked like a model who had just left a photo shoot advertising some coffee product. She was breathtakingly gorgeous, and though the cellist was well aware of it, she seemed breezily oblivious to the impact she was having on him.

  Hannah’s attention was diverted by a loud ruckus near the door. Her shoulders involuntarily tensed up until she realized it was just a bunch of teenagers, all around her age, coming in for an after-school snack and caffeine hit. But they definitely didn’t look like the kids from her high school.

  Several carried instruments. One had a large portfolio case and an easel under his arm. Another had a camera bag slung over her back. There were tattoos and piercings everywhere and the attire varied from punk to goth to one girl who removed her jacket to reveal what looked like a debutante gown. None of them seemed to think they looked out of the ordinary. Neither did any of the coffeehouse regulars.

  Jessie tried not to stare, but glanced up from her phone as often as she could without drawing attention to herself. After they ordered, a couple of them sat down on a large love seat adjacent to her chair. The debutante gown girl, who had long, flowing blonde hair with intermittent green and pink streaks, looked over at her and smiled.

  “You starting new this semester?” she asked.

  “Excuse me?” Hannah replied, not sure what she meant.

  “I didn’t recognize you so I just assumed you had come up for the spring semester at the conservatory.”

  “The conservatory?” Hannah repeated, knowing she sounded foolish.

  “The Wildpines Arts Conservatory,” the guy beside her with the easel and portfolio said. “It’s just off 243 on Brookgate Road. We’re all students there.”

  “Oh, no—I’m just here visiting the town,” Hannah admitted. “I didn’t even know there was a school here.”

  “Sorry for assuming,” the debutante girl said. “You just had the look. I’m Patrice by the way.”

  “Hi, I’m Ha…Heidi,” she quickly corrected. “What look do I have?”

  Patrice looked over at the easel boy and smiled before turning back to her.

  “It’s hard to put my finger on it,” she explained. “Everyone at the conservatory has an artistic bent. That’s why we’re there. You just gave off the vibe. Are you sure I pegged you wrong?”

  “I love to cook,” Hannah offered. “Does that count? I was actually thinking about going to culinary school after graduation.”

  “That must be it,” Patrice said.

  “And sure it counts,” the easel boy added. “I’ll bet you like your meals to look like works of art, am I right?”

  Hannah pretended not to be gob smacked by his sky blue eyes or the thick blond hair that was almost as long as hers.

  “Now that you mention it, I do spend a lot of time on presentation.”

  “See, we knew it,” the boy said. “Also, I’m Chris.”

  “Hi,” Hannah said, sensing she was on the verge of doing something she never did: blush.

  “You know,” Patrice said, “They have a summer program in Indigenous Culture and Cuisine. It might not be the same as training under a James Beard Award winner, but I guarantee it’d be a kick. You should look into it; have your folks schedule a campus tour.”

  “Thanks, I’ll mention it,” Hannah said, her guard suddenly going up at the reference to “folks.” Hers—both birth and adoptive—were all in the ground.

  “I hope so,” Chris said, grinning broadly, his white teeth gleaming in the late afternoon sun. “Unfortunately, we have to get out of here. Salvatore over there always starts his solo cello gig at 3:30 and he considers it rude if people leave once he begins.”

  “Besides, even though it’s an arts school, we still have homework,” Patrice added. “Speaking of, it’s sweet that you can visit up here on a Wednesday. Are you still on winter break or something?”

  “No,” Hannah said, unable to think of a convincing answer, “it’s a little complicated, kind of a family thing.”

  “Don’t interrogate the girl, Patrice,” Chris chided. “Anyway, we’re all going to be hanging out later tonight at Wildyology around nine. They have an outdoor patio overlooking Blueberry Creek. We like to play board games by the fire and listen to bad cover bands. It’s cheesy fun. You should come, Heidi.”

  Hannah’s insides bubbled nervously. It had been a while since she’d been invited to any kind of social event she felt safe attending, especially by someone as cute as Chris.

  “I’ll think about it, thanks,” she replied, hoping she sounded appropriately casual.

  The rest of their group had gotten their food and drinks and were waiting politely by the door, so Patrice and Chris got up to join them.

  “Remember my warning about Sal,” Chris whispered in her ear before walking off. The heat of his breath on her skin sent a shiver down her neck.

  Once they left, she decided to do the same. She wasn’t sure how much longer she’d have before Jessie and Ryan came to collect her and she wanted to get more of a sense of the town while she could. She watched all the students pile into a van with the conservatory logo on the side and waited until it was out of sight to step out of Elevated Grounds.

  She looked around for a minute, trying to determine which way to go. After a moment, she decided to walk up the hill on Central Circle Drive in the direction of a funky-looking strip center that included a clothing shop, a stationery store, and a place that apparently sold both ice cream and beef jerky.

  Even though it was less than fifty yards away, by the time she got there she was wheezing slightly. Her recent lack of exercise, combined with the elevation, was doing a number on her. She stopped into the ice cream joint and got a small mint chocolate chip cone to tide herself over until dinner. Then she went to the stationery store next door.

  An older woman stood behind the register. She was pleasantly plump, with curly, gray hair and glasses attached to a cord, so that she could take them off without losing them. The glasses frames were adorned with what looked like hand-drawn flower petals. She wore a green apron, also decorated in a floral design. In cursive letters near the top of the apron was the name “Maude.”

  For some reason, she reminded Hannah of the elderly man she’d found lying in the street just over a week ago. He was having a heart attack and she had rushed him to the hospital, where he’d died holding her hand. Later she’d learned that he was a Holocaust survivor named Edward Wexler who eventually established a legal foundation that repatriated family heirlooms stolen by the Nazis and brought the perpetrators to justice.

  Whenever she felt sorry for herself, she remembered what that man had suffered through and how he’d overcome it. Looking at the woman now, she realized the connection between them. They shared the same eyes: weary but kind.

  “Is it okay if I bring this in?” Hannah asked the woman, holding up her cone.

  “Yes, dear,” the woman said, her voice all grandma warmth, “just be careful please.”

  “Thanks,” Hannah said.

  There was no one else inside so she didn’t feel bad about taking her time perusing the greeting cards section. After that she came to a wall of souvenir-style trinkets. One of them was a charm bracelet with a lone pine tree. She was just trying it on when three middle-aged couples entered the store, loud and boisterous.

  Somehow, she knew immediately that they were from L.A. Maybe it was their clothing or the way they talked, but she had no doubt. Grandma Maude, as Hannah had mentally taken to calling her, looked briefly bewildered. One
of the couples immediately headed for the register as the wife asked something about personalized printing. Grandma Maude seemed not to understand the question.

  Without even thinking about it, Hannah found herself ambling casually toward the door. No one was paying any attention to her. She felt a familiar surge of adrenaline as she realized she was on the verge of walking out of the store with the unpurchased charm bracelet on her wrist. Just one more step.

  CHAPTER NINE

  As she pushed the door open, the thrill of the moment was muddied slightly by another, far less familiar emotion: shame.

  What the hell are you doing? After all the work you’ve done with Dr. Lemmon, are you really going to throw it all away for the excitement of shoplifting a $13 charm bracelet from the store of a local grandma?

  She stopped on the porch front just outside the door and stood there silently, debating how to proceed. After several seconds of unpleasant churning in her stomach, she turned and walked back in the store. The couple who had been accosting the employee had moved back over to their friends. They were all chirping at each other loudly.

  Hannah walked over to the register and to Grandma Maude, who looked relieved to be talking to anyone other than the couple who’d just left her.

  “I’m sorry,” Hannah said quietly, leaning over the counter. “I was in such a rush to leave when those noisy folks came in that I walked right out with this charm bracelet on my wrist without thinking. Unless you’d rather have me arrested, I’d like to buy it.”

  “What a darling you are,” Grandma Maude said. “Thank you for coming back. You know some people wouldn’t have.”

  “Really?” Hannah asked, doing a solid job of feigning shock.

  “You’d be surprised,” Grandma Maude conspiratorially. “So let’s see, I believe that charm is $13. How about I give you a mid-week honesty discount? Let’s call it $8.”

  “On no, I couldn’t,” Hannah replied. “You shouldn’t reward me for being belatedly honorable.”

  “I insist,” Grandma Maude said. “$8. Will that be cash or charge?”

  “Let’s make it cash. I don’t want you stuck with the service fee after you’re already giving me a deal.”

  “See, you are a darling,” Grandma Maude said, taking the $10 dollar bill from her.

  Hannah wondered if this might be a worthwhile racket—leaving stores with items, then immediately returning, all apologetic, in the hopes of getting a solid discount. She shook her head in frustration at her seeming inability to just function like a normal person in society.

  As she watched Grandma Maude count her change, the ding of the door opening sounded and an unsettling feeling came over her. She turned around to see that a burly man wearing all black had just entered the store. He looked to be in his forties, with a thick, well-trimmed beard and dark sunglasses. Despite the shades, she could tell he was staring at her.

  “Here’s your change, dear,” Grandma Maude said, handing over the bills.

  Hannah thanked her and quickly pushed past the man, who only made a token effort to stand aside so she could get out. Glancing back as she walked along the porch front, she saw that the man was still watching her. On instinct, she stopped into the clothing store next door and moved immediately to the back corner, behind a rack filled with mittens, gloves, and earmuffs.

  A few seconds later the man walked in and took off his sunglasses. His dark eyes surveyed the store. Hannah did the same and noticed that there were no other customers inside. In fact, she didn’t see any employees either.

  The man began to move in her general direction and she felt her heart start to thump louder. Just then, a young guy in his twenties stepped out from the back of the store. He saw Hannah in the corner and smiled.

  “May I help you?”

  “Yes,” Hannah said quickly, aware that the burly man would now be alerted to her location. She stepped toward the young guy and leaned close. “Do you have a bathroom I could borrow? I’m not feeling great all of a sudden.”

  “Of course,” he said, clearly not wanting to press the issue. “It’s just back there to the left.”

  “Thank you so much,” she said and then added in a whisper. “By the way, I saw that man looking at your Merino wool scarves. You may have a big spender on your hands.”

  “Thanks for the tip,” the young guy said and immediately moved in the man’s direction.

  Hannah walked back, noticing the store’s back exit was right next to the restroom. She opened the bathroom door and looked back. The burly, bearded guy was watching her but his attention was diverted when the salesman began speaking to him. Hannah used the opportunity to dart out the back door.

  Once outside, she found herself in a narrow alley behind the strip mall, which abutted the edge of the forest. She hurried back down the hill along the back alley in the direction of the town square, passing behind a second strip mall. Then she cut between two strip centers so that she was near the main road again.

  She looked back up the hill in the direction of the clothing store. The burly man was nowhere in sight. Hoping that he’d fallen for her ruse and was waiting for her to exit the restroom, she joined a family of four crossing the street, walking on the right side of the father to hide herself.

  Once across the street, she hurried back to the coffeehouse and went inside. It was less crowded than earlier. Apparently not everyone loved Salvatore the cellist, who was in the zone, his eyes closed and sweat on his brow. Hannah moved to the small alcove where the restrooms were and tried to open the ladies’ room door. It was locked.

  She poked her head around the alcove corner and looked up the street. She had a clear view of the strip center she’d just left. She also had a clear view of the burly man, who was now on her side of the street, walking back downhill in the direction of the coffeehouse.

  This was weird at best and bordered on truly scary. She didn’t know if the guy was a marshal secretly assigned to watch her. If so, he was doing a terrible job of making her feel safe. She knew he wasn’t the Night Hunter. She’d seen him up close and he was about half this man’s size. Was he just a standard variety creep? Could he be the person Ryan and Jessie were here to catch?

  Despite her pride and hating herself as she did it, she pulled out her phone. With her fingers trembling and her eyes fixed on the front door, she texted Jessie.

  CHAPTER TEN

  There was no one guarding Sarah Ripley’s cabin. Jessie was about to raise a stink when Rich beat her to it.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” he said as he parked on the side of the road, “no one here to ward off looky-loos or troublemakers. That’s true but we didn’t have much choice with our limited manpower. We closed off the area for most of the morning, took lots of photos and video. And even though the house isn’t even a mile out of town, this road isn’t highly trafficked. There are only three other homes further up the hill and two of them are currently unoccupied. Like I said earlier, word hasn’t gotten out about Sarah Ripley’s death yet. No one has any legitimate reason to come up here. That’s why I’m not too worried about contaminating the scene.”

  Jessie wasn’t entirely satisfied but held her tongue. From his sharp exhale in the backseat she could tell that Ryan felt much the same way that she did. Rich must have sensed that they were holding back and continued even before they were out of the car.

  “Having said that, we can’t just assume the best of folks. Someone out here is a killer, seemingly two times over. That’s why I left this little fella here.”

  He walked over to the stone mailbox at the edge of the driveway and pulled out a camera embedded in the snow next to it. It had been well hidden among a pile of dead leaves.

  “I set it up when we left this morning,” he said. “It’s motion-activated and records to the camera, our phones, and to a server back at the station. We get an alert when there’s any activity. I haven’t gotten any. Like I said, we’ve got limited resources up here so we have to get creative.”


  Jessie nodded and walked over to the area that had piqued her interest even before he had finished speaking. There was a thin, dark line of frozen liquid that extended midway from the mailbox to a large, dark section in the snow. The latter was almost like a tracing on a piece of paper. The long line was where blood must have sprayed out after Sarah Ripley was stabbed. The dark section was clearly where her blood had pooled and eventually frozen along the edges of her body. It formed a loose outline of a person from the head down to about the stomach. Inside the outline was an indentation where Sarah Ripley had lain, and slowly sank, until she was discovered.

  “Who found her?” she asked.

  “Eddie Tillman,” Garrett said. “He’s one of our snowplow drivers. There wasn’t much snow last night but our drivers always check these isolated roads in the morning. Because of the lack of traffic they tend to ice over more easily than the streets in town. He drove by around 5:15 a.m. The sun wasn’t even out yet, but he saw a weird mound in his headlights and pulled over. He said at first he thought that someone might have hit a deer. But then he noticed that the front door was wide open. He pulled over and checked it out. Then he called me. Once I confirmed it was a body, I called Rich. She wasn’t even wearing a coat.”

  “That’s when I reached out to our mutual friend in the department,” Rich said, obliquely referring to Captain Decker. “This combined with the incident on Sunday made me feel like we could use some specialized assistance.”

  Jessie stared at the sunken snow where Sarah Ripley must have lied unattended for hours. Had she died quickly or suffered for a while?

  “How many times was she stabbed?” she asked.