The Perfect Show (A Jessie Hunt Psychological Suspense Thriller—Book Thirty-Three)

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“We’re a minute out,” Ryan said.

“This has got to be the one,” Jessie told him. “You know that, right?”

She realized that she was telling a seasoned detective something that was obvious to him, but her anxiety was getting the better of her.

“I know,” he said as he yanked the steering wheel hard right, turning onto Sienna Ford’s street. He turned off the siren so as not to announce their impending arrival.

Of course, he knew they were at the right place, just as she did. It hadn’t taken long for them to determine that Ford had to be the next intended victim. While Jessie was repeatedly calling Danielle Robertson’s cell phone and getting no reply and Ryan was informing Captain Parker that Chief Decker should definitely postpone his news conference, Jamil and Beth had called the three women that they all thought were the most likely next victims.

Jamil had reached Grace Barber, who lived in Venice. She was home with her family, which included her husband and two children. Even though it seemed unlikely that Danielle would release the poisoned canister if the kids were at home, Jamil told Grace the basic situation and instructed her to immediately take the whole family into their backyard, outside the confines of an enclosed room, and wait there until a squad car arrived.

Beth got ahold of Ashley Bailey, the divorcee from Marina del Rey. But she wasn’t home. In fact, she was clear across the country, on a holiday trip to New York with her kids. They were just wrapping up dinner before going to see a Broadway show.

That only left the other Marina del Rey resident, Sienna Ford, to contact. Neither Jamil nor Beth could reach her on her phone. Attempts to call her husband were equally unsuccessful. That combination of factors was enough to have Ryan put both the siren and cherry light on his car and speed down the 405 freeway, and then the 90 freeway before it dead-ended not far from Ford’s address.

By the time he pulled onto Outrigger Street as he shut off the siren, it was 4:28. They had made incredible time, all things considered. But as she jumped out of the passenger seat, Jessie feared it wouldn’t be nearly fast enough. Sienna Ford could already be dead. And the house they were approaching might currently be filled with poisonous gas that they couldn’t identify until it was too late.

It was only as she rushed across the front yard toward the home that she realized they hadn’t thought to bring gas masks. She stopped on the porch of the house and turned to remind Ryan of their mistake. He stood right behind her with his weapon drawn.

“Should we try the door, or should I just toss one of these patio chairs through the front window?” he asked as he caught his breath.

Jessie was just about to warn him about the risk of poisonous air inside when the front door shot open and a completely naked woman sprinted out of it, leapt off the porch, and dashed into the front yard. Jessie recognized her immediately, despite the fact that she was dripping wet with what looked like bubbles all over her.

“She’s trying to kill me!” the woman screamed.

“Sienna!” Jessie yelled at her, trying to calm her down.

The woman turned around, and Jessie saw that her forehead was bleeding profusely. Before anyone could say another word, the front door slammed shut. A loud locking sound followed. Jessie and Ryan turned in that direction, trying to discern what was going on. She caught a glimpse of movement in the window. Squinting, she saw what looked like Danielle Robertson scurrying toward the back of the house.

“It’s her—Danielle Robertson,” she said. “She ran down a back hallway and out of sight.”

“I’m going in after her,” Ryan said. “You help Ford and call for backup.”

“Be careful,” she warned. “There’s probably one of those canisters in there somewhere.”

“Was she wearing a mask?” he asked.

“I didn’t see one, but that doesn’t mean she’s not putting it on right now.”

“I’ll be careful,” he warned.

He kicked in the door, then disappeared inside. Once he was out of sight, Jessie rushed over to Sienna Ford, who was staring at her, blinking back blood from her bewildered eyes. Jessie yanked off her jacket as she got close.

“Sienna, my name is Jessie Hunt,” she said quickly but calmly, “I work with the police. I’m here to help.”

As she wrapped up Ford, who had begun to shiver, likely from a combination of shock, cold weather, and lack of clothing, she studied the wound on the woman’s head. There was a deep gash where her forehead met her hairline. Jessie noticed more blood coming from the back of Ford’s left hand, which appeared to be broken, and guessed that the injury was a defensive wound when Ford put up her hand to protect herself from a second blow.

“Listen,” Jessie said sharply, grabbing the woman by the shoulders and staring hard at her, “I have to go help my partner in there, but I need you to give me some quick information first. You were attacked by Danielle Robertson, yes?”

“Yes,” Ford said, her voice quavering.

“What weapon did she use?”

“A golf club. She hit me in the head with it as I was getting out of the tub. I managed to block her second swing and just started running.”

“Was she wearing a gas mask when she attacked you?” Jessie pressed. “Did you rip one off her face?”

“No,” Ford said, befuddled by the question.

“You were in your bathroom when the attack occurred?” Jessie confirmed.

Ford nodded.

“I feel like I’m going to throw up,” she said weakly.

“I’m going to call for an ambulance,” Jessie said, before pointing at her car. “In the meantime, I want you to go sit in that vehicle. It’s unlocked. There are napkins in the glove compartment. Grab a bunch of them and press them against the wound on your head until help arrives. Do you understand?”

Ford nodded. Jessie again pointed her in the right direction, then turned and dashed toward the house. As she did, she called for backup, along with a hazmat unit and an ambulance. She unholstered her weapon and hurried through the door, then back in the direction she had seen Robertson go earlier.

As she made her way down the hallway, the relaxing sounds of Sade’s “Paradise” could be heard throughout the house. Jessie tried to shut the music out as she fixed her attention on each open doorway along the hallway. A trail of blood drops on the hardwood floor led to the end of the hall, where she could hear voices other than the singer’s.

She stepped into the last room at the end. It was a giant bedroom, Laid out on the bed were an elegant dress, along with a bra and panties. Just beyond that were french doors leading to a bathroom. She made her way over.

When she got to the threshold, she took in the scene. Ryan was just in front of her, his weapon pointed at a closet door that was cracked slightly open. In that small slit, Jessie could see the face of Danielle Robertson, hidden behind a gas mask.

“How’s it going in here?” she asked as nonchalantly as she could under the circumstances.

“Oh, hey, Honey,” Ryan said, not turning around. “I was just talking to Danielle, who has requested that we call her Junior instead. She tells me that she has her finger on a remote control device that will activate a canister on the counter, releasing poison gas. I was letting her know that I thought that a bad idea.”

Jessie glanced over at the vanity countertop and saw a familiar metal canister sitting just behind a bottle of mouthwash. It was less than five feet from her.

“Okay, good to know,” Jessie said, trying to adopt the relaxed tone that her husband had cultivated. “Junior, how are you doing?”

“I’ve been better,” the young woman shouted back, her voice muffled by the mask. “Things didn’t go how I was hoping here.”

“You were hoping to kill Sienna Ford,” Jessie confirmed, “just like Avery Sinclair and the other clients we talked to you about this morning,”

“She had it coming,” Danielle said with righteous certainty.

“What exactly did she do wrong?” Jessie wondered.

Danielle sighed heavily, as if explaining the enormity of the woman’s crimes was a burden she could hardly bear.

“She was twisting her daughter into something ugly, just like all those other mothers were doing to their children,” she said, the venom clear through the mask. “If I didn’t do something to change things, all these kids were going to reach the point of no return, when they couldn’t be salvaged. There’s still time for them, but not with these women guiding them.”

And all at once, Jessie understood. Her theory had only been half right. She thought that Danielle was targeting these women because they reminded her of the mean girls who had made her youth such a living hell. But this wasn’t just about vengeance.

In her own unhinged way, Danielle thought she was helping, trying to prevent the cycle that had destroyed her childhood from repeating itself, with the very children she’d been tasked to help. Something had set her off, causing her to believe that she had to act now to prevent the kids she tutored from becoming someone else’s torturer, if they weren’t already.

“I get it,” Jessie said.

“Sure you do,” Danielle spat back sarcastically. “It all makes sense to you.”

“No, I can’t pretend to understand everything you’ve gone through, Junior,” Jessie replied gently, “but I can imagine what led you to this place. Let me try. You were brutally, relentlessly attacked every day when you were young, by girls who probably grew up to be just like your clients. They pushed you to the brink, taunted you, saying you should end your own life. And when you finally fought back. you were the one who got punished. You were sent away. How am I doing so far?”

“So you got access to my records,” Danielle scoffed. “Big deal, that doesn’t mean you know me.”

“No, of course not,” Jessie conceded. “But I want to. I want to understand why a young woman who managed to overcome such obstacles and went on to such a promising future ended up in this position.”

“Are you kidding?” Danielle shot back. “I’m rescuing these children. That’s a pretty great position to be in. The world might not comprehend it right now, but history will.”

“But who’s going to rescue you?” Jessie asked. “Right now, you’re locked in a prison of your own creation. You insist on being called by the hateful, insulting name those girls gave you all those years ago, rather than your own beautiful one. Instead of countering these mothers’ insidious life lessons with your own empathetic ones, you’ve turned them into martyrs in the eyes of their kids, and you into the monster that can’t be trusted. Surely that isn’t what you wanted. And now you’re threatening to kill two people who haven’t wronged you or harmed any children.”

“There’s still time for you to do that,” Danielle muttered.

“Maybe,” Jessie told her, deciding now was as good a time as any to be completely honest. “I don’t even know if I want to have children. Truthfully, I’m worried that I’d screw them up, that I’d pass on all my fears and failures to them. I have a lot of them. But one thing I know for sure is that if I was ever in that position, I’d try my damnedest to do right by them, to keep them safe, and to give them a brighter childhood than the one I had. And the man standing next to me isn’t just my partner. He’s my husband. And I know he feels the same way. Are you going to deny us that chance because your plan has fallen apart? Are you going to make our hearts stop beating in our chests because we got in the way of your attempt to turn children into orphans? Is that what you really want, Danielle?”

“Call me Junior!”

“I won’t do that,” Jessie said, ignoring Ryan, who visibly stiffened beside her. “That’s a name given to you by people who don’t deserve to have power over you anymore. You are not Junior or Chip. You’re Danielle, a brilliant young woman who wants to do the right thing and made some terrible choices in the service of what she thought was an honorable path. There’s still time to salvage the real Danielle. Come out of that closet. Turn yourself in. Tell your story at your trial. Let the world know what can happen when kids are put through what happened to you. You can be a cautionary tale and a source of hope for a different future. You can still make a difference in the world, maybe not in the way you thought, but still valuable, still meaningful. Please, Danielle.”

Jessie stopped talking. She didn’t know what to say. They waited silently for the woman’s decision, both aware that if she made the wrong one, they likely couldn’t get out of that bathroom in time to avoid the effects of the poison.

After what felt like an eternity, she pulled open the closet door and lifted her hands in the air. Neither Jessie nor Ryan made a move as they both saw that the remote control was still being held in her right hand.

She walked toward them, her heavy breathing fogging up the mask she wore, then stopped just feet away. She extended the hand with the remote control, her finger still on the trigger button. Then she gently rested the remote on the vanity countertop, pulled the mask off and dropped it on the ground. Her glasses were covered in condensation and her curly, sandy-colored hair was limp. She interlaced her hands behind her head and dropped down to her knees.

“I officially surrender,” she said.

“That’s good,” Jessie told. “Now Detective Hernandez is going to handcuff you and read you your rights, okay?”

“Okay,” Danielle said. “And just for the record, I think you might make a good mom.”

“Why do you say that?” Jessie asked, bewildered that this was what was on the woman’s mind.

“Because you’re worried that you’ll be a bad one,” Danielle said. “A bad mom wouldn’t care.”