EPILOGUE
Jessie almost didn’t answer the call.
Ryan was snoring softly in bed, and she had just changed into her sleep clothes. But it was from a contact number she knew well, and she felt she had to.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hi, Ms. Hunt,” the gravelly-voiced man replied.
“You know,” she said wearily, “in my experience, it’s never great to get a call from the administrator of the Twin Towers Correctional Facility after 11 P.M.”
“Sorry to call so late, but this felt important.”
“Go ahead,” she told him.
“I’m still at the jail,” Administrator Moore said. “With everything that happened today, we’re reviewing our security procedures. But that’s not why I’m calling. I just got word regarding Mark Haddonfield’s personal effects.”
“Okay,” Jessie said, not sure where this was going.
“When a prisoner turns in their box of effects for the length of their stay with us, they have to include someone those items will go to in the event of their death. With Mr. Haddonfield’s passing today, our folks checked on his wishes.”
“You’re not going to ask me to take his stuff to his mom, are you?” Jessie groaned. “For one thing, she lives in the Bay Area. And more importantly, I’m not interested.”
“He didn’t select his mother, Ms. Hunt,” the man said. “He selected you.”
“What?” she asked incredulously. Why?”
“I don’t know,” he said, “But he made it very clear—in writing—that only you were to be given his personal effects.”
Jessie sighed. Mark Haddonfield had murdered multiple people to get back at her for a perceived wrong that existed only in his head. He’d later tried to kill her while she lay in a hospital bed. He was responsible for the death of Kat’s fiancé, Mitch. She owed him nothing.
And yet, some part of her knew that collecting those items was the right thing to do. Before his mind had gotten so twisted, back when he was just a college kid hoping to become a profiler too, he’d viewed her as a role model, as his idol. And apparently, even after he was thrown in jail, he still considered her important enough to leave all his remaining earthly possessions to her.
Collecting them tonight would be the honorable thing. But at this moment, she was too tired to be honorable.
“I’ll come by to get them tomorrow,” she said. “Good night.”
She hung up and headed for the bedroom with only the slightest twinge of guilt. But then she let it go. Haddonfield was dead. There was no rush.
It’s not like there was anything important in that box.