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Jessie knew Dolan well. They'd worked together on a case soon after she joined HSS, and he was instrumental in helping when she was kidnapped on her wedding night by Andrea Robinson, a murderer who had become obsessed with her. Dolan also credited Jessie with helping him get into recovery after years of alcoholism.
“You sure he wasn’t holding anything back?” she asked.
“I’m sure,” he said. “If there was something he couldn’t share, he would have at least told me that. He said that it was as if Pierce had dropped off the face of the earth. With her background in espionage and all her resources in this city, he thought she could hole up for a while without exposing herself.”
“Well, that’s great news,” Jessie replied bitterly. “I’m guessing it’s too much to hope that the HSS team is having better luck in the search for Haddonfield.”
“Nothing definitive yet,” he acknowledged. “But we haven’t exhausted all the angles. I sent Detectives Bray and Nettles up to San Jose to interview his mother. I’m hoping she might be able to offer some insight into him that will help us. And we got a search warrant to go through Haddonfield’s college cloud account and his academic records. Detectives Valentine and Goodwin are poring over that stuff as we speak. Maybe something will pop. And Jamil and Beth are still searching for hits on any purchases using his accounts. They also continue to actively run the facial recognition program in case he shows up on any city cameras.”
It sounded like everyone was doing all they could within the bounds of police department protocol. But as Jessie knew well, that entailed limitations, which is why she had a backup plan.
“I guess I’ll keep my fingers crossed,” she said, making no mention of her alternative option. “When do you think you’ll be home?”
“I’ve got a call with Chief Decker in a few to tell him everything I just told you. Then I’ll do a pass around the station to check on everything. That shouldn’t take too long. I figure I can be there in an hour or so.”
“Great,” she told him. “Just remember to give us a heads up when you’re close. You don’t want Grover thinking you’re an intruder and taking a shot at you.”
“That would be a very unpleasant ‘welcome home, dear,’” he said drily. “See you soon. I love you.”
“I love you too,” she replied, then hung up.
She allowed a moment to appreciate the reduction in tension between them. It felt like just that first couples’ counseling session with Lemmon this morning had opened the door a crack to better understanding between them. She hoped they could build on it.
But for now, that would have to be put on hold because she had one more call to make tonight. She dialed the number and waited anxiously. To her relief, she didn't have to wait long.
“I was wondering when you’d call,” Kat said after picking up.
“Sorry,” Jessie said. “It’s been a busy day and I wanted to wait until we could speak freely. Are you able to?”
“As a matter of fact, my personal bodyguard is currently in the other room talking to your buddy Grover, no doubt informing him that I’m the most difficult protectee that she’s ever dealt with, so yeah, this is a good time.”
“I think we may be both in the running for that title,” Jessie replied, “but I’m hoping that your troublesome nature has led somewhere useful?”
“We may find out tomorrow,” Kat said. “I finally heard back from a contact who gave me a tip that might lead to something,”
“That sounds incredibly vague,” Jessie noted.
“That’s partly for your own protection,” Kat said. “Look, when you asked me to pursue a parallel search for Mark Haddonfield, you made it pretty clear that you didn’t want me to feel bound by the legal and ethical restrictions that the Los Angeles Police Department has to adhere to. So I’ve gone down some fairly sketchy investigative alleyways, which I assume that you, as an LAPD employee, don’t want to know about.”
“Thanks for protecting me,” Jessie replied, “but can you at least give me a hint as what you’re looking at so when I go to sleep tonight, I have something positive to cling to?”
Kat sighed deeply before responding.
“Let’s just say that our theory—that the leg injury Haddonfield suffered when he attacked Hannah might require treatment—has borne some fruit,” she said semi-cryptically. “But I don’t yet know if it’s ripe or rotten. I hope to find out more tomorrow.”
As ambiguous as that explanation was, Jessie decided that it was enough to reasonably hang her hat on, at least for one night.
"That'll tide me over for now," she said. "So, how are you doing otherwise? Is this bodyguard okay? I hear she’s pretty intense.”
"That's an understatement," Kat replied. "She was in some super-elite Israeli unit. To give you a sense of it, she turned up her nose in disdain when I told her I used to be an Army Ranger. And I know she hates that I won't just stay put at my place. She pretty much seems annoyed all the time. But it's clear that she knows what she's doing, so I'll probably keep her around. How's it going for you?"
Jessie smiled to herself.
“I think Grover’s at his wit’s end with me,” she said. “I’ve been unofficially looking into the murder of a friend of Janice Lemmon’s. Each time that I take little baby steps into the investigation pool, he balks. But it’s like that frog metaphor—if I do it slowly enough, he won’t notice that the water’s heating up. I’m hoping that by the time he realizes it’s boiling, we’ll be too deep in the case for him to hop out.”
“So in this scenario, you want to boil your bodyguard to death?”
“Something like that,” Jessie said.
