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“I’ve spoken to Banner,” he said. “He’s willing to talk in person. I searched him and he’s not carrying. I’m open to bringing him to you if you promise to follow my instructions.”
“Okay,” she said, heartened at his success but suspicious of Banner’s willingness to be so accommodating, “Bring him on over. I’ll be by the porta-potty.”
“Why there?” Grover asked.
“Your car is hot and it’s the only shade around here.”
She got to her destination and sat down in the shadiest dirt patch to wait for the men. The odor wasn’t overly objectionable, and she allowed herself to settle in. Without warning, a loud thud off to her left made her whole body tense up. Instinctively, she dropped to her stomach.
She had a mental flash of a human body dropping heavily onto the nearby dirt. Had Mark Haddonfield somehow followed them here? Was he choosing this moment to make his move? Had he just shot someone, eliminating an obstacle to reaching her? If so, she was a sitting duck.
Jessie, still on her belly, pulled out her gun and waited, scanning the area. After several seconds of silence, she got to her knees and glanced in the direction of the noise. It only took a second to determine the source of the sound. A bag of cement had fallen off the second floor of the house being built. Though she couldn’t hear their voices, two workers standing high above the bag were pointing down at it and clearly arguing over who would go down to get it.
Jessie re-holstered her gun, rolled over, and returned to a sitting position. She resolved to keep this particular incident to herself. Two minutes later, Grover came into view with a short, wiry guy in blue jeans and a work shirt with straw-blond hair and a sunburn. Jessie clambered to her feet.
“Mr. Banner, this is Jessie Hunt,” Grover said as they arrived. “Ms. Hunt, meet Judd Banner.”
“I’ve agreed to do this,” Banner said urgently, without extending his hand in greeting, “but we have to keep it quick. I don’t need my boss asking why I’ve got visitors. Anything I do that makes him testy puts my job at risk.”
“Fair enough,” Jessie said. “Do you know why we’re here?”
“Your British buddy here said that I might be in a lot of trouble or no trouble at all, depending on how honest I was with you. I don’t need any hiccups in my life, so I said okay, even though I don’t appreciate you people coming out here and putting me on the spot like this.”
“We’ll try to make this as painless as possible, Mr. Banner,” Jessie said, before adding bluntly. “If you’re honest with me, it’ll go fast. If you play ex-con games, it could get messy, like ‘reach out to your parole officer’ messy. Do we understand each other?”
“Yeah, yeah, let’s just get it over with,” he grumbled.
Jessie wiped the sweat from her brow and took a step closer to the mobile toilet, trying to stay under its protective shadow.
“Do you know either Gemma Britton or Isabel Shea?”
He didn’t visibly react at hearing either name.
“I don’t think so. Should I?”
“They’re both psychiatrists,” she said, watching him closely.
“Oh wait,” he said, his expression suddenly full of recognition, “I don’t know about the first one you said but I do remember Dr. Shea. She worked in the re-integration program at Corcoran Prison for a while. She’s pretty cool, actually."
“Have you spoken to her since you got out?”
He shook his head.
“Nah. She left the program before I got out. I didn't remember her until you said the name. She was nice and all, but I'm not looking to reconnect with people from that part of my life. No offense to her."
“And you don’t know a Dr. Gemma Britton?” Jessie pressed.
“The name doesn’t ring a bell.”
"She was involved in a research study at Corcoran about seven years ago," she told him. "You were a part of it."
“If you say so,” Banner offered. “To be honest with you—you said that’s what you wanted—seven years ago I was still getting high. I didn’t join a program for another couple of years after that. So I don’t even remember any study, much less who did it.”
Jessie could feel the potential of this lead slipping away with every word he said. She could also feel the weight of the sun bearing down on her like a weighted blanket she couldn’t throw off.
“You like your job?” she asked.
"It sucks, but it's the best one I could get right now. And it pays the bills, mostly."
