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Jessie set asidethe pain she knew Olivia Hackett was soon in for and nodded, adding to thepoint.
“Maybe that’s why,unlike the other two victims, she was able to at least get to her front door.It’s possible that the poison hadn’t fully overwhelmed her system at thatpoint. But something must have happened in the interim to prevent her fromgetting outside. Maybe the effort to get to her door used up all the strengthshe had. Or maybe she fell and couldn’t get back up to reach her neighbor’sdoor.”
“Hopefully thecoroner and crime scene folks will have some answers on that by morning,”Kenton said.
“Not until then?”Ryan asked, surprised.
“It sounded likeit was going to take more than a few hours,” the sergeant replied. “The hazmatfolks wanted to take extra precautions because the aerosol canister seemed tohave been activated so recently.”
“So what are wesupposed to do in the interim?” Jessie asked.
Ryan shrugged inshared frustration..
“I guess all wecan do is make sure that research gets all this info so they can input it inthe databases,” he replied. “Hopefully something will pop. Other than that, Ithink our best bet is to get some sleep and start fresh in the morning.”
Jessie fought backa snort. The idea that she could get any sleep when there was someone outthere, poisoning unsuspecting women in their own homes, was ridiculous. Buttelling Ryan that wouldn’t do any good. He’d just worry about her. So she keptit to herself and hoped that the morning would bring some good news.
CHAPTER NINE
Hank Costabile wasgrinding his teeth again.
He tended toforget that he was doing it until the headache kicked in, which was happeningnow. He knew he should get a mouthguard to help with the issue, but that wasthe least of his concerns at the moment. He was more focused on ending JessieHunt.
There wassomething cathartic about knowing that he didn't have to bide his time anylonger. Now that he'd made the decision to follow through on his plan forpayback, all the little things that had been bothering him the last monthseemed too small to worry about. Then again, he was still grinding those teeth,so maybe he wasn't as relaxed as he thought he was.
He suspected thatthe remaining tension he felt was more about the job he had to do than theindignities he’d suffered up to this point. And there had been a lot of thelatter.
It wasn’t thatlong ago that he, formerly a decorated LAPD sergeant, had been incarcerated atthe California State Prison in Lancaster, where he’d spent eighteen months of atwenty-year sentence. He’d been convicted on charges that included trying to impede aninvestigation into his former boss, who had been paying an underage pornactress for sex, as well as attempting to have Jessie Hunt, the profilerinvestigating that porn actress’s murder, killed.
While theallegations may have been “officially” accurate, he still seethed at how he hadpaid the price for protecting that thin blue line. It was only atechnicalityinvolving inadmissible evidence at his trial that led to him being freed on theday before Thanksgiving.
Of course,"freed" was a relative term. In his case, it meant that he was beingsurveilled day and night by plainclothes officers assigned to thejob by none other that LAPD chief Roy Decker. That wasn’t a surprise to Hank.
After all, Deckerwas once the captain at Central Station, where HSS was based, and according topeople in the know, the old man considered Jessie Hunt the daughter he neverhad. As a result, he was using precious department resources to protect herfrom any potential threat from Hank. And he was smart to do so.
Hank had beennursing his hatred for Hunt ever since his conviction. It fully flowered whilehe was in prison, where he had little to do other than pump iron, avoid gettingshivved, and fantasize about how he would kill her. And now that he was out,that hatred had overflowed the pot, consuming almost all of his wakingthoughts.
He’d had to watchher celebrity status grow while he was behind bars. The entire city viewed heras a guardian angel of sorts, the one who could keep Los Angeles safe whereothers failed. It was disgusting. The truth was that Jessie Hunt was a nosy,self-righteous bitch who needed to be put down. And he was just the man for thejob.
He knew that therewere people in the police department and city government at large who agreedwith him. Some had gotten word to him through intermediaries. Others told himdirectly.
But up until veryrecently none of them were willing to do anything about it. No one wouldactively help him out of fear of being discovered by Decker.…until now. One ofhis old confidential informants, an ex-con as bald and thick-bodied as Hank,had offered his assistance. In addition, he’d learned from a former colleaguein Valley Division named Trevor Tinsley, who frequented the same bar as him,that a dispatch sergeant at Central Station resented how many resources at thestation were devoted to HSS priorities.
According toTinsley, who was now Deputy Chief of Operations, that dispatch sergeant, whosename was Crowley, was able to track Hunt’s whereabouts when she was working acase. He’d agreed to keep Hank updated on her movements so that he could assesswhen she was most vulnerable and make his move.
But even if Hankgot to Hunt at the perfect moment, taking her out would be a challenge. He’dlearned the hard way not to underestimate her. She was smart. She knew how touse a gun. She could fight. And even though he was aware that she’d recentlyhad brain surgery, she still looked to be in good shape.
Of course, so wasHank. He studied himself in the bathroom mirror of his crappy studio apartment.He admired his gleaming bald head, his thick, muscled biceps and forearms. Hewas proud of his massive chest, which seemed to jut forward independent of therest of his shredded body.
But he refused toget too cocky. After all, Jessie Hunt wasn’t alone. She worked her cases withher husband, Captain Ryan Hernandez, who was no pushover. He was as physicallyformidable as Hank, despite the fact that Hernandez hadn’t spent every afternoonfor the last year and a half in a prison yard lifting weights.
No, Hank wouldneed to show the proper respect to these people, even if he despised them. Ifhe wanted to get his vengeance, he needed to stay vigilant. Only then would heget the opportunity to grab Jessie Hunt and rip her head right off hershoulders. He imagined himself bathing in the spray of blood as it shot out ofher neck like an open fire hydrant. His mouth watered at the thought.
He ordered himselfto calm down. The time for that would come. But until then, he needed to keepcool. He tried to focus on his escape route for after the deed was done. Hankhad no intention of returning to prison and he’d prepared an elaborate strategyto get out of town and to a country where he couldn’t be extradited.
The biggestobstacle to that, and to getting close to Hunt, was these damn cops that ChiefDecker had assigned to keep tabs on him. When he got the word from the CentralStation dispatch sergeant, he had to be ready to shake his tail.
But as witheverything else, he had a plan for that too. Hank rubbed his bald head, excitedfor what was coming, excited to finally deliver justice long delayed.
