CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
Jessie thought it would be harder.
Michael Pearson wasn’t home. And she assumed that the home of a guy who created security systems for a living would have had an impenetrable one protecting his. But it turned out that Pearson was renting the Hollywood Hills house that they were currently walking through. Apparently, the property owner and landlord had declined to give him permission to add extra security measures, despite repeated requests.
Understandably, the owner had originally balked at giving Jessie and Susannah access to the home without a warrant. Normally, they’d need one. But soon after their arrival, the officers who checked Pearson’s new startup offices said he wasn’t there. So Susannah, sounding as tired and irritable as Jessie felt, let the owner know where things stood.
“These are exigent circumstances,” she told him sharply, “and not letting us in is tantamount to interfering with a police investigation.”
He caved right away. The circumstances became even more exigent when they got a call from Jim Nettles.
“We’re at Thomas Reed’s house now,” he said. “He was uncooperative at first but when I mentioned the phrase ‘Special Friend Event’ in front of his wife, he offered to get very chatty with us in private. I’ll cut to the chase. The guy was at a convention in Chicago from last Thursday until late Sunday night. He has receipts and everything. We’ll need to reconfirm that the story holds up, but it doesn’t look like he was in Los Angeles for either of the murders.”
Upon getting that news, their next call was immediately to Jamil. He picked up on the first ring.
“It looks like Thomas Reed is in the clear,” Susannah said quickly. “We need you to prioritize locating Michael Pearson. Work on getting approval for accessing his geolocation data. He’s not at his office, and he’s not at his house. I’m worried that he might already be with his next potential victim.”
Jessie had the same fear and began moving more quickly through the house, looking for anything that might help them find Pearson. They split up, searching different rooms. Jessie took the bedroom wing, which had a main one and three others. At the end of the hall was a locked door that she assumed led to one more. She called to the landlord.
“What’s this room?” she asked.
“It’s a bedroom,” he said, “but Mr. Pearson asked if he could convert it to a study. After our disagreement on the whole additional security issue, I didn’t want there to be any hard feelings, so I relented and told him it was okay.”
“I need you to unlock the door,” she said.
There shouldn’t be any lock,” he said, surprised. “If there is one, he added it without my permission.”
Susannah had heard the discussion and joined them. Her face was determined.
“Hate to tell you this, sir, but you have two options,” she told him. “We can smash this door open, or I can shoot out the lock. Option two is louder, but option one will cause more damage in the long run. What’s your preference?’
After getting over the initial shock, the man said, “shoot it.”
Susannah didn’t need to be asked twice. As she unholstered her weapon, Jessie guided the man out of the bedroom wing. A moment later, they heard a loud bang.
“It’s open,” Susannah called out.
When they rounded the corner, Susannah was already in the room with the light on.
“Jessie, you better get in here,” she yelled.
Jessie dashed down the hall. Some small part of her feared that they were too late and there might be a naked body in the room. But when she stepped inside, she understood that Susannah’s urgency had been for another reason entirely.
On the wall above the desk in the corner of the room was a corkboard. Affixed to the board were photos of multiple people with addresses handwritten below. Jessie immediately recognized three of them as Richard Hartley, Cynthia Hartley and Evelyn Channing. But that wasn’t what had Susannah so anxious. There were four other photos on the corkboard: three women and one man.
“I’m going to call all these in right now,” Susannah said. “We’ll have units go to each address.”
“Okay,” Jessie said.
While the detective made the call, Jessie moved closer to the corkboard to get a better look. She noticed something right away. At first, she thought that her fatigued, bleary eyes were playing tricks on her. But they weren’t. Three of the addresses were transcribed in meticulous handwriting. But one of them was scrawled more haphazardly, to the point that she had to squint to read all the letter and numbers.
“Send units to the other three, but we’re taking this one,” she said to Susannah as she pointed at the photo of the severely attractive brunette whose name was apparently Claire Hoffman.
“Hold on a second,” Susannah said to the dispatcher on the other end of the line, then asked, “Why?”
“For one thing, it’s close,” Jessie said. “This address is just down the hill in West Hollywood. We’re probably five minutes away. And two, because she’s going to be his next victim.”
“How do you know that?” Susannah demanded.
“Look at the difference in how he wrote her address information compared to the others,” she said, her blood pumping faster as she spoke. “He couldn’t control himself. She clearly brings out strong feelings in him, and not good ones. We need to get to her place right now!”