CHAPTER THREE
Jessie Hunt looked at her phone and almost immediately regretted it.
“They’re actually yours,” Dr. Lemmon corrected. “But considering that I don’t normally come in until ten and made an exception for the great criminal profiler Jessie Hunt, I think your undivided attention isn’t too much to ask.”
“The ‘great criminal profiler?’” Jessie asked. “Isn’t that a little passive aggressive for a therapist?”
“Nobody’s perfect,” Lemmon told her unapologetically. “Now let’s get back to the issue at hand.”
“I forgot what it was.”
“How convenient,” Lemmon noted tartly. “I’ll remind you. We were talking about that pesky ‘bloodlust’ problem you’ve been dealing with.”
“Oh yeah, that.”
“Yes, that.”
Dr. Lemmon was referring to an issue Jessie had been dealing with for months now.
Of late, she’d felt a nearly unquenchable urge to exact violent retribution against the criminals that she hunted as an LAPD profiler.
Of course it wasn’t unusual to have dark feelings in her line of work, but her colleagues typically managed to check that at the door, arresting the perpetrators and handing them off to the justice system to mete out punishment.
But over the course of several months, Jessie had felt an increasing craving to mete it out herself.
On multiple occasions, she’d nearly shot or stabbed suspects who were already in custody.
Eventually she did kill one, albeit a woman who was a multiple murderer and who was trying to kill Jessie with a hunting knife.
After Jessie turned the tables and plunged the attacker’s knife into her heart, she knew her actions were defensible, but were they necessary?
Could she have stabbed the woman elsewhere on her body and then taken her into custody?
She still wasn’t sure. What she did know was that as she’d pressed the knife into the woman’s chest, she felt a rush that still scared here when she thought about it now.
In the months since then, she’d done everything she could to work through what had happened.
There were her intensive sessions with Lemmon.
There was medication, which only ended up leaving her groggy.
She’d even taken a sabbatical and secretly gone to a private treatment facility on the island of Sicily for two months. That had, at best, mixed results.
But one thing seemed to be working. Several months ago, the husband of a woman whose murder she was investigating had given her the idea.
A famous baseball player, he’d explained a technique he used to deal with the stress and pressure of playing big games in front of tens of thousands of people, some of whom were relentlessly heckling him. He called it “focused detachment.”
He used it to shut out everything except the microscopic details of the task in front of him.
For example, how much was the pitcher that he was facing sweating?
Was the wind making the flags at the back of the stadium blow at all?
Was the bat he was holding positioned at the perfect angle?
He claimed that honing in on the minutiae allowed him to block out any distractions.
And in the aftermath of his wife’s murder, he was employing the technique to get through the emotional pain of the loss.
Jessie tried it once while under duress, and found it useful.
In fact, the more she used the technique, the more effective it became.
Rather than allowing the killer’s crimes to fill her with vengeance, she would focus on tiny details, like the color of the person’s shoes or the eyes of a baby she’d just saved from a horrible fate at the killer’s hands.
The more she used it, the better she got. Just last week it had helped her navigate the moments after an attack by a murderous librarian who had stabbed her in the shoulder with a letter opener. Instead of shooting the woman, she kept her cool until backup arrived to take her into custody.
“Like I was telling you earlier,” Jessie reminded Dr. Lemmon, “I’ve been getting better and better.
I feel like the librarian experience was a real turning point.
I’m not saying that I finally have a handle on this.
I know it could crop up again if I don’t stay on top of it.
But I no longer live in constant fear that my next encounter with a suspect will end in me, you know, executing them. ”
“Well, that’s a relief,” Lemmon said with a wry smile. “So with your urges causing less strain on you, does that mean things have improved between you and Ryan?”
Ryan was Jessie’s husband, Detective Ryan Hernandez.
In addition to being married, they were both part of Homicide Special Section.
HSS was a small unit, consisting of five detectives and two researchers, that specialized in cases with high profiles or intense media scrutiny—typically involving multiple victims or serial killers.
But Lemmon wasn’t referencing their working relationship.
She was talking about the ongoing source of conflict between them recently: having children.
Ryan, who had been married once before without having kids, desperately wanted them.
For a variety of reasons, including health and career concerns, Jessie was far more reluctant.
It was only last week that she’d finally told him that for now at least, the idea was a non-starter.
“Actually, things have been really good lately,” she said.
“Ever since I told him definitively that this wasn’t the right time for me, it’s been different.
He seems to have truly let it go and it’s like a weight has been lifted off our marriage.
To be honest, things have been more romantic—and spicier—than they were for months prior. ”
“I’m really glad to hear that,” Dr. Lemmon said. “You two could use a break from all the heaviness. But you should be prepared for it to come up again at some point. I know he loves you, but this is something he cares about too, and it’s not just going to go away forever.”
“I get that. But for now, I’ll take the win.”
She considered saying something more, something she’d originally intended to broach today. But now she was having second thoughts. Of course, Lemmon picked up on her hesitation.
“What is it?” she asked. There was no point in trying to dodge now. Lemmon would never it go.
“It’s just that—you are well aware of familial past.”
“Are you alluding to the birth father that you and your sister share who was also a notorious serial killer?”
“That’s the one,” Jessie confirmed.
Lemmon was referring to Hannah Dorsey, her 19-year-old half-sister, and to their murderous father, Xander Thurman, aka The Ozarks Executioner.
“What about him?” the psychiatrist asked.
“Well, we’ve discussed this before, but I’ve always wondered if those urges I get are an unwanted gift handed down from him. After all, Hannah had them too for a while. If there is some hereditary component—what if I passed it down to my child?”
“That’s a legitimate question,” Lemmon acknowledged. “Unfortunately, I don’t have a good answer for you on that one. But we should definitely explore how you feel about it.”
“Maybe we hold off on that one until next session, Doc,” Jessie said, suddenly not sure just how much she really wanted to explore the question. “I don’t think I’m ready to go there just yet.”
“Fair enough. We’ll circle back when you’re ready,” Lemmon said before abruptly changing subjects. “How’s the shoulder?”
“Better every day,” Jessie said, lifting her arm above her head for effect and pretending not to notice the slight twinge of discomfort. “I got to take the sling off on Monday and have been doing the physical therapy exercises they gave me religiously since.”
“And you’re cleared to go back to work?”
“I only had to miss Friday,” Jessie said. “I used the weekend to rest up and was back at the station on Monday. I’ve dealt with far worse than a letter opener.”
“I’m aware,” Lemmon said. “So it sounds like you’re doing great. Since you mentioned your sister, how is Hannah doing?”
“You might be a better judge of that than me,” Jessie countered. “Wasn’t she just here?”
“On Monday, yes,” Lemmon confirmed. “And as you already know, we’re working on her recent bout of agoraphobia in the wake of everything she’s been through. I was looking for more of a lay person’s view on the situation.”
Jessie thought that the phrase “everything she’s been through” was putting it mildly. In the last few months, Hannah had been through a lot. And that was saying something, considering that her adoptive parents were slaughtered just two years ago by her birth father.
In just the last few months, a friend and fellow student at UC Irvine, where she was about to start her sophomore year, had been stabbed, ending up in a coma that he’d only recently awoken from.
The culprit turned out to be another UCI student, one who Jessie was semi-dating.
Unfortunately, he turned out to be a secret incel who intended to kill her on a camping trip.
Through her own resourcefulness and Jessie’s last-minute arrival in a police helicopter, she’d escaped that nightmare.
But she was dealing with another one: Ash Pierce.
Pierce was a former government assassin and later a hitwoman for hire.
She’d been paid by a killer that Jessie had caught awhile back to torture and kill her loved ones, specifically Hannah and Jessie’s best friend, Kat Gentry.
Hannah had outwitted Pierce, leading to her arrest. It was an indignity the hitwoman couldn’t abide.
She was on the lam after having escaped custody.
But no one was under any illusions. Eventually she’d return with vengeance in mind.
That was why it wasn’t certain that Hannah could return to college when it started up again in just over a month.
Pierce knew she was a student there. And Pierce was why Hannah had been holed up at Kat’s unlisted downtown apartment for weeks now.
Everyone agreed that was a safer location than Jessie’s house.
The security measures in place at the home were impressive but Pierce knew that address.
As a result, she’d developed what Lemmon called “mild agoraphobia.” In recent days, she’d pushed herself out of her comfort zone and made several forays outside, even helping Kat investigate a stalking case. But there was still a long way to go.
“In my opinion, she’s doing as well as could be expected, all things considered,” Jessie told Dr. Lemmon. “Kat mentioned that yesterday she went for a run on downtown sidewalks rather than on a treadmill in her building’s fitness center. I thought that was a big step.”
“I tend to agree,” Lemmon said. “She’s making great strides. Unfortunately, until Ash Pierce is caught, she’s never going to feel truly safe. So, I’d recommend you get on that.”
“Thanks for the suggestion,” Jessie said, unable to hide the snark. “Up until now, everyone’s been mostly twiddling their thumbs.”
Lemmon was about to reply when Jessie’s phone pinged. That was a bad sign. She had it on silent for everyone except Ryan and Hannah, both of whom knew she was here now and wouldn’t text unless it was an emergency.
“I have to check it,” she said without waiting for a response.
The message was from Ryan. It read: Murder in Windsor Park last night. Everyone else is on a case except Bray. Parker wants you two to partner on it. She’s pretty exercised about this one. Call when you’re done.
Jessie appreciated that his message presumed that she could finish the session.
But he had to know, as she did, that it wasn’t possible.
There was no way she’d be able to focus on the minutiae of her emotional life when a murder victim was waiting for her to help catch their killer. Their time was up.
“We’re going to have to cut this short,” she told Lemmon. “I’ve caught a homicide.”
“Okay,” Lemmon said, closing her notebook with an unsurprised look on her face. “But you’re paying for the whole hour.”
“You’ve never charged me for a single session, not since the first time I saw you back in college,” Jessie reminded her, “even though I’ve begged to pay you.”
“That was clearly a mistake, considering how loaded you are,” Lemmon said dryly. “If I had charged you, I could probably be retired by now.”
They both knew that Janice Lemmon had no intention of retiring any time soon, no matter how much of a nest egg she’d squirreled away. It was a running joke about who would quit first, especially considering that Lemmon was 40 years older than her.
“See you next week?” Jessie said, standing up.
“I hope so. Be careful out there.”
Jessie would have liked to promise that she would, but they both knew better.