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“You can’t explain it to me?” Ryan asked, clearly frustrated as he sat across from Jessie at the conference room table.
She was equally exasperated. Not with him, but because she was unable to find the words to convey what was eating at her.
“I’m trying,” she said, “but every time I think I’ve got a handle on the idea, it fades away, like I’m trying to grab a wisp of smoke.”
“Okay,” he said calmly, “tell me what you were thinking about when you got the tingly feeling.”
“It was something about Hannah,” she said, “and how, despite how far she’s come, she can still be immature. That’s when the bells went off in my head.”
“What, like she reminded you of one of our suspects who was immature? Selfish maybe? That’s certainly true of some of them, although we could say the same thing about some of victims too. Maybe that was it?”
“Maybe,” Jessie said, unconvinced.
Ryan continued. It was clear to Jessie that he hoped that by throwing out suggestions, he might unlock whatever thought she couldn’t access.
“Clarissa Langley, for one, seemed more interested in ensuring that her seven-year-old son gets into a good college than in letting him enjoy his holiday break,” he noted. “And Naomi Hackett doesn’t even live with her family during the week because she’s so fixated on her tech startup.”
Jessie was about to chastise Ryan for criticizing Hackett for the exact same professional “selfishness” that so many hard-charging men regularly displayed, when another thought burst into her brain. This wasn’t about selfishness or immaturity. She’d been thinking about Hannah earlier because sometimes her little sister was still, at heart, just a kid. That was the idea that had been circling around in her head all this time: this was about the kids. She looked up at Ryan.
“Did we ever follow up on the GPS location data for our suspects other than Mitchell Vaughn?” she asked, “to determine when they were last at the victims’ houses and make sure those dates and times matched what they told us?”
Ryan’s face scrunched up in uncertainty.
“I think Jamil and Beth set those searches aside when our focus turned to Vaughn,” he said.
“Let’s see how far they got,” she replied.
“Okay,” Ryan said as he called the research office and put his phone on speaker. “Should we just start in order of how we found them: Powers, and then Robertson?”
“Actually,” Jessie countered, “I think we should start with Danielle Robertson.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure yet,” she admitted, “but I think all this has something to do with the victims’ children.”
“Hello?” Jamil said when the call connected.
“Hey guys,” Jessie launched in, “Did you ever get the GPS location data from our earlier suspects’ phones and vehicles?”
“We started,” Jamil told her, “but we hadn’t finished when we had to switch our attention to Vaughn. But our preliminary data validated everything from their statements.”
“Even for Danielle Robertson?” Jessie pressed.
“Like I said, we hadn’t finished, but what we’ve pulled to date backs up her claims.”
Jessie realized she’d been holding her breath in anticipation of something that wasn’t forthcoming and exhaled in frustration.
“Why are you so interested in Danielle Robertson?” Ryan asked, “Do you really think, based on our interview with her, that she would put the kids she worked with at risk by exposing them to canisters full of poison?”
“No, I don’t,” Jessie conceded, slightly embarrassed, before the brain tingle returned, more potent than ever before. She continued excitedly, “I don’t believe that! And that’s why we need to do a deeper dive on her.”
“What are you thinking?” Ryan asked, clearly sensing that she thought she was on to something big.
”Think about it,” she said, having trouble getting her words out as fast as they entered her head. ”The canisters in each of these women”s homes released the poison when their children weren”t around. Tabitha Reynolds”s daughter, Susannah, was on a camping trip with her ex-husband. Remember, the coroner told us that we caught a lucky break because no one else was in her loft at the time the poison was released. Otherwise, we could have had multiple victims. But what if that wasn”t luck at all?”
Ryan looked like he wanted to respond, but Jessie was on a roll now and not about to stop.
“And think about all the other victims,” she continued. “Clarissa Langley’s son, Lansing, was at a Clippers game with his father. And Naomi Hackett’s daughter, Olivia, was at the family’s Pacific Palisades home when Hackett was murdered at her Playa Vista apartment. They were all safely out of danger at the time the poison was released. And other than their parents, who would know those kinds of details about these kids’ schedules? How about their private tutor, who could easily ask them about their upcoming plans without drawing suspicion.”
Ryan was quiet and there was silence on the other end of the phone line, suggesting that Jamil and Beth were also pondering her theory.
“That’s interesting,” Ryan finally said, “But aren’t you forgetting something? Danielle Robertson never taught Olivia Hackett at the Playa Vista apartment, so how would she have gotten in there?”
Jessie had an answer for that one.
“First of all, that conclusion is based on what Robertson told us. We don’t know if it’s true. And even if it is, that doesn’t mean she was being honest about never visiting the apartment. Maybe she casually ‘stopped by’ one day. It wouldn’t be crazy. She lives in Westchester. That’s only minutes from Hackett’s apartment. And Playa Vista is all mixed use. There are condos and apartments right next to ice cream parlors and sushi bars. How hard would it be to manufacture an unexpected run-in? If that happened, I could easily see Hackett inviting Robertson up to her place for a minute. Or maybe Danielle asked to use her bathroom? In either case, who would be able to tell us about it? Naomi Hackett is dead. The only person who would ever know is Robertson. That’s why we need to check her GPS location data for recent stops anywhere near Hackett’s apartment.”
“Checking now,” Jamil said. Jessie could hear his fingers flying across his keyboard.
“I hate to constantly be negative,” Ryan said, “But that’s not the only speed bump here. Let’s not forget that Avery Sinclair didn’t even employ Danielle Robertson as a tutor. We have no evidence that they knew each other at all.”
Jessie sat with that for a moment, but only that long.
“That’s true,” she agreed, “but she did have kids, right?”
“Yes, two,” Beth interjected. “A four-year-old daughter named Riley and an eight-year-old son named Rhett.”
“Okay,” Jessie continued, “The girl is a little young, but the boy is right in Robertson’s tutoring age window. And Sinclair lived in the Palisades, where we know Robertson had at least one other client, Naomi Hackett.”
“Actually,” Beth volunteered, “From her client roster, it looks like five of the kids she worked with lived in that area.”
Jessie gave Ryan a satisfied grin.
“So then how surprising would it be for Avery Sinclair to have heard about Danielle Robertson from other parents, and maybe even talked to her at some point about hiring her?”
“Bad news,” Beth said. “We already cross-checked every victim’s phone logs for the last three months with every suspect, and there’s not one call between Avery Sinclair or her husband and Danielle Robertson.”
Jessie’s grin faded. She was stumped. Everything in her told her she was headed down the right road, but she kept meeting roadblocks.
“Beth,” Ryan said, a flicker of light in his eyes. “Can you check the call logs of any of Robertson’s Palisades-area clients, say for the last month, and see if any of them had calls with Avery Sinclair?”
“Give me a minute,” Beth said.
Jessie smiled at Ryan. “Am I turning you into a believer?” she asked.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Hunt,” he replied. “This could be nothing.”
Moments later, Beth contradicted him.
“It’s not nothing,” she said eagerly.
“What do you mean?” Jessie asked.
“One of Danielle Robertson’s clients is a woman named Shane Willoughby, whose son is eight, just like Avery Sinclair’s. And Willoughby clearly knew Sinclair.”
“Why do you say that?” Ryan asked.
“Because I count nine calls between them this month alone, some as long as forty-five minutes. I’m guessing that either Sinclair was Willoughby’s real estate agent or the two of them were friends.”
Jessie looked over at Ryan, doing her best to hide the mix of expectation and anticipation she felt. But she failed miserably, as another hopeful smile peeked out.
Ryan shook his head, trying not to give in to her enthusiasm. Still, when he spoke, she could tell he was starting to buy in.
“Do you want to call Willoughby or should I?”