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“All CaptainParker said was that there was another victim, this time found in an apartmentin Playa Vista. Same M.O. as the others. She texted me the address. That’s allwe know.”
“Okay,” Jamilsaid, “we can flesh things out for you a little bit. Do you want to start,Beth?”
"Sure,"Beth Ryerson, the junior researcher, replied. "So our victim's name isNaomi Hacket, age 33. She and her family moved here from the Bay Area lastyear, where she had worked at both Google and Facebook. The odd thing is thather primary residence is in Pacific Palisades. The apartment where she wasfound was on a six-month lease."
“A secret lovenest?” Ryan proposed.
“I don’t thinkso,” Jamil said. “The apartment is less than a quarter mile from her newcompany’s offices and the rental is prominently listed in the financials. Itdoesn’t look like she was trying to hide anything from her husband. In fact,the rental listing data semes to suggest that she used the place as a crash padduring the week, which would make sense.”
“Why is that?”Jessie wondered.
"Well, itlooks like her company, Hackett Insights, is launching in the spring," heexplained, "but they have a huge marketing push planned for right afterthe New Year. Hackett was a first-time CEO. This company is her baby. It'spossible that she was just burning the midnight oil to get ready and figuredthat driving back and forth to the Palisades every weekday was too much of ahassle."
“I wonder how muchher family loved that,” Jessie mused. “Did she have kids?”
“Yes, one,” Bethanswered. “A five-year-old girl named Olivia.”
“That can’t havebeen easy,” Jessie mused before muttering almost to herself. “It won’t be fungiving them the death notification.”
Ryan nodded inagreement before posing another question.
“What does thehusband do?”
“He’s anenvironmental lawyer,” Jamil said. “His firm has offices in the Bay Area anddown here, so it doesn’t look like the move impacted his work too much.”
They were allquiet for a moment. Jessie watched as they zipped past other cars on the 90Freeway. Even though Ryan had turned off the siren, he’d left the cherry lightin place to alert other vehicles to their presence. At this rate, they’d be atthe apartment in less than a minute.
“Hey guys,” shesaid as a new thought occurred to her. “You said that Naomi Hackett wasplanning a big marketing push for the company at the start of the year. Anychance that Clarissa Langley’s firm was involved?”
Nobody replied atfirst, which told her the idea hadn’t occurred to either of them.
“We’ll check andget back to you,” Jamil said.
"Okay,"Ryan replied. "We're almost to her place, so just text us when youknow."
“Nice work, youtwo,” Jessie added. “It’s good to have this background when we go in there.”
They hung up justas Ryan pulled off Jefferson Boulevard. They could see the massive residentialsection of Playa Vista, a huge mixed-use community that sprouted up, seeminglyout of nowhere, in less than two decades.
“If we goin there,” Ryan said quietly.
“What?” Jessieasked, not getting the reference.
“You said thisbackground info will be helpful when we go in there,” he reminded her,“but if this crime scene is anything like the others, we might not be let in atall.”
***
Ryan turned out tobe right.
Not only were theynot allowed inside Naomi Hackett’s apartment, but the entire building had beenevacuated. They found Sergeant Kenton, who was having as busy a night as them,standing just outside the police tape. He looked like he’d been waiting forthem.
“I’m sorry we haveto see each other again under these circumstances,” he said, speaking aloudtheir shared sentiments.
“Agreed,” Ryansaid. “What can you tell us so far, Sergeant?”
"Before weaddress the situation here, I wanted to update on something we learned from theprior scenes," Kenton said. "As promised, we got all the footage fromthe security cameras at those residences. Our initial pass came back negative foranything overtly suspicious. It's all been sent to your team at HSS for a morecomprehensive review. But I looked at it myself, and there's no sign of anyoneentering or even approaching either home immediately prior to or in the windowof death. Of course, with everything going on, I wasn't able to look back muchfurther than that. And we don’t have anything from here yet, though I doubtwe’ll have much more luck.”
“Thanks forchecking,” Jessie said. “We’ll have our people go back quite a while beyondthat. It’s sounds like, with the timer and motion sensor components on thecanisters, they could have been placed in these homes hours, or even days inadvance of being activated.”
