“What’s the meaning of—?” he started to say before she cut him off.
“I’m sorry to blindside you,” she said sympathetically, hoping to keep him off balance by constantly changing his perception of what she was after. “But as you surely know, Scott Newhouse died this morning. We’re here investigating that for the LAPD. Ryan is a detective and I’m a criminal profiler. Our probe so far indicates that his death wasn’t due to natural causes. And since we know you met with them late yesterday afternoon, it’s important that we determine if anything in your session with them could be helpful in learning what happened to him.”
She stopped and waited, watching as the man’s head swam with everything he’d just been told. He went from anger to bewilderment to fear and then back to something close to anger.
“May I please see your identification?” he asked tersely.
They both showed it. Jessie noted that he barely looked. It seemed that his request was more of a stalling technique intended to give him extra time to decide how to reply. Ryan obviously picked up on that too because he immediately jumped in, not giving Cleaver time to think.
“Time is a priority here, Cedric,” he said. “A man you saw just yesterday, who came to you for help, died today, either from suicide or more likely, murder. We need to know what was said in that session yesterday that could have bearing on this case. This isn’t the time for caution. We need answers.”
That seemed to get Cleaver’s back up.
“Surely you know that I can’t violate a client’s privacy like that. Even if they only visited me once, I have a professional obligation, if not to Mr. Newhouse anymore, then to his wife.”
“His wife is a potential suspect,” Ryan informed him. “You could be protecting a murderer.”
Jessie knew that he was skeptical of that theory, but she didn’t blame him for using it to his advantage. Cleaver sighed heavily, silently weighing his options. After a long pause, he finally spoke.
“I can’t tell you about the specific content of our discussion without a court order,” he said with more steel than Jessie had expected. “No client would ever trust me again. It would ruin my career.”
Jessie was about to reply but stopped herself. He wasn’t done.
“What I can tell you is that nothing in our conversation was of earth-shattering consequence. There was no ‘black box’ level revelation. They were just trying to work through standard marital issues. However—and I hesitate to even say this—I think it would be worth your while to have a frank conversation with someone else in the Newhouses’ orbit. I obviously can’t tell you why. In good conscience, all I can say is who. Even that feels mildly inappropriate, so much so that I would greatly appreciate you not sharing with this person how you came to him.”
“We’ll do our best,” Jessie said, doubting she could live up to that. “So who is it? Who should we be talking to?”
“He’s a friend of the Newhouses,” Cleaver said softly. “I believe he’s here on campus right now. I don’t recall his last name, but his first name is Matt.”
Jessie looked over at Ryan, who had the ravenous, wolf-like expression he always got when he was closing in on prey.
“Thanks, Cedric,” he said standing up quickly and fixing his eyes on her. “We should go.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Eden Roth was giddy.
She’d waited so long—weeks now—that she had started to doubt her time would ever arrive.
When she’d been activated, her instructions from Andy Robinson, passed in coded language through an intermediary, had been clear. She was to wait until Jessie Hunt was in the news again before putting her plan into action.
Only then could she begin her task, the one she promised Andy that she would complete way back when she dedicated herself to Principles, when they were both inmate patients at the Female Forensic In-Patient Psychiatric Unit at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility. She had been preparing all this time, so that everything went off without a hitch. Sometimes at night, she’d dream about it, picturing the blood of her victims, as it left their bodies, along with their life force.
She had other dreams too, ones that she felt both ashamed of and exhilarated by. They often involved her in more than a friendly embrace with Andy, sharing the same prison cell bed, spooning, with the other woman’s breath on the back of her neck, her blonde hair falling slightly into Eden’s face.
She wasn’t ashamed about how she felt toward Andrea Robinson. Rather, she was ashamed that occasionally those feelings interfered with her ability to focus on the task at hand. Sometimes she’d be sharpening a weapon or studying a map when Andy’s visage would suddenly fill her mind. She saw her so clearly: her bright blue eyes, so intense that it was hard to look at them for too long, her blonde hair tied back in a devil-may-care ponytail, her mischievous grin, her proper curves.
Eden knew that she was the antithesis of Andy: short, skinny, curveless, with wilted brown hair, pale skin, and dull, gray eyes. Despite how she saw herself, Andy thought she was beautiful. She’d told her so.
Eden knew that she was unlikely to ever see Andy in person again, much less touch her. Her mission made that a virtual impossibility. But she’d made her peace with it, consoling herself with the knowledge that they’d finally embrace again in the next world, the one Andy promised they’d share together.
The time when she would enter that next world was infinitely closer than it had been just hours ago. That was because of a story on the evening news. She was watching and taking notes, as she did every night, when the anchor mentioned the death of a prominent Los Angeles resident at a fancy Palos Verdes resort. The police were investigating it and there were unconfirmed reports that the death might be a murder, because LAPD’s HHS unit, and specifically famed criminal profiler Jessie Hunt, had been spotted at the scene.
That was all she needed to leap into action. She went to her closet and pulled out the small chest in the corner. After placing it on her bed she removed all the essential items one by one, making sure that everything was in working order. She checked the map again, and then the calendar to make sure her chosen date would still work.
Because of her preparation, she realized that there was nothing else to do but wait. Once the designated day arrived, she would take up the mantle from Livia Bucco. Livia was to be respected for being first. But Eden knew she could do better. Livia had slaughtered one young woman with a machete before they caught her and she had to sacrifice herself for the cause. That was small potatoes compared to the carnage Eden had in store for this city.
Secure in the knowledge that she was primed for what had to be done, Eden returned everything to the chest, and then to the closet. Afterward she rewarded herself with another viewing of her favorite movie, Clueless, which she watched every night. This was to be screening number 833. It never got old.
*
Andrea Robinson watched the evening news and smiled.
The second she heard Jessie’s name mentioned, she knew the rest was inevitable. She could picture Eden’s plain, gullible face lighting up as she processed that her time had come, that she could finally fulfill her mission.