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But Kat wasn’t atthe top of her game right now and mostly seemed oblivious to being so closelyobserved. It was understandable. After all, it was barely two weeks ago thatKat’s fiancé, Mitch Connor, was gunned down as the two of them were leaving amovie theater.
That would havebeen bad enough, but Hannah knew that Kat’s pain was compounded by unjustifiedguilt. The young man who shot Mitch, a punk named Jimmy Platt. He wascommitting the act at the behest of Mark Haddonfield, a serial killer Jessiehad captured who had sent out a manifesto calling on followers to harm thosethat Jessie loved. But Mitch hadn’t been the target. Kat was.
When her fiancéstepped in front of her as the gun was fired, he took the bullet intended forher. Even though she hadn’t said it out loud, Hannah knew that Kat feltresponsible for the death of the man she loved.
In the weekssince, Kat had a circle of people caring for her as she navigated the policeinvestigation of the crime, the funeral, and the processing of Mitch’s personaleffects. Jessie and Ryan were around, along with several people from the HSSteam. But they all had to eventually return to work. So Hannah decided sheneeded to pick up the slack.
She had justwrapped up the fall quarter at UC Irvine and had planned to spend winter breakat Jessie’s house, where she’d spent the last two years of high school. But shejust couldn’t justify spending lazy afternoons lying on her old bed, scrollingthrough her phone, when the woman who had taken her under her wing last summerand mentored her in the minutiae of private investigations was suffering alonein her downtown apartment. So Hannah temporarily moved in.
She didn’t ask forpermission. She didn’t warn Jessie and Ryan that she’d be doing this. Insteadshe had just shown up four days ago with the duffel bag she’d packed whenleaving school and announced that she would be sleeping on the living roomcouch for a little while. Kat had offered token protest before giving in.Truthfully, she seemed relieved.
In the days thatfollowed, they didn’t do much. Yes, Kat had gone to see Dr. Lemmon twice inthat time, including earlier this afternoon. But other than that, she’d hardlyleft the apartment, which left Hannah to do the shopping, pick up morningcoffee and take-out meals, and communicate with Kat’s clients, who’d all beentold their cases were temporarily on hold unless they wanted to be referred tosomeone else.
Hannah did herbest to be constantly available to Kat, which was both physically andemotionally exhausting. She hadn’t realized the wear on her body until shecaught a glimpse of herself in the bathroom mirror earlier today.
On the surface,she thought that she still looked presentable. With her five-foot-nine height,blonde hair, green eyes (the same shade as her sister’s), and once-skinny-but-now-athletic frame, she made a good first impression. But upon closerinspection, the hair was less bouncy and vibrant than usual. The eyes hadshadows under them. And she just didn’t feel as strong as usual. She hadn’tworked out once since she’d arrived here.
But she found theemotional component of caring for her new charge far more taxing than thephysical one. She didn’t realistically think that Kat was in such a bad placethat she would harm herself. But she sure wasn’t engaging in a lot ofself-care. She had to be coaxed to shower, change clothes, and sometimes, evento eat.
Hannah washesitant to be too forceful. After all, she was dealing with a woman who had served inAfghanistan as an Army Ranger. That was where Kat saw multiple friends killedor injured grievously. It was also where she was injured in an IED explosionthat left her with damage both internal and external, including multiple facialburn marks and a long scar that ran vertically down her left cheek from justbelow her eye. Hannah didn’t want to insult her by suggesting she couldn’thandle sorrow and suffering.
Still, she’d neverseen Kat like this before. The combination of grief, guilt, and dashed dreamsseemed to have undone her. More troubling than Kat’s depression was her growingobsession with Ash Pierce.
It wasunderstandable. Kat had a long, unpleasant history with Pierce. The latter wasa hitwoman who feigned being a client in order to lure Kat out into the desert,where she intended to livestream herself torturing and murdering her. She’dbeen hired for the job by a killer that Jessie had captured and who wantedpayback. Luckily Hannah, who had been working for Kat at the time, arrived intime to outwit and nearly kill Pierce before ultimately, reluctantly leavingher to the authorities.
Months later,Pierce escaped while being transported from one prison to another and wenthunting for Hannah. That search ended in a confrontation in a hospital boilerroom, where Hannah and Kat worked together to defeat the killer. The conflict,which involved hand-to-hand combat and a knife, ended with Hannah stabbingPierce in the neck and Kat using CPR to save the dying woman.
Pierce ended up ina coma, leaving Kat to obsess over her decision to save the assassin. She cameto regret it, especially when Pierce eventually woke up claiming no memory ofthose recent clashes, or any of her time as a killer for hire. The last thing shesaid she could recall was her work as a Marines Special Operations element leaderand later, a CIA asset who, according to her, conducted covert assassinationsfor the agency, eliminating enemies on behalf of her country.
Kat was skepticalabout Pierce’s amnesia, and regularly went to the secure hospital ward whereshe was recuperating. She befriended the nurses and tried to get proof thatPierce was lying. When, weeks later, Mitch was shot by Jimmy Platt, who wasshouting “I will complete the mission begun by my predecessor. I am theassassin now!” Kat assumed he had done it at Pierce’s behest and went to thehospital ward, ready to return the favor. Only Jessie talking her down lastminute prevented her from shooting Pierce, which would have almost certainlyled to a murder charge.
But even thoughKat was eventually persuaded that Platt was acting on Mark Haddonfield’sdirective and not Pierce’s, she couldn’t let go of her fixation. In the dayssince Mitch’s funeral, she had become increasingly convinced that Ash Pierce’smemory loss was all a ruse. She believed that the hitwoman was playing a longgame, either to create doubt in the minds of a future jury judging her manycrimes, or to get the security contingent guarding her to let down their guardfor another escape attempt.
Hannah wasgenerally inclined to agree with her. Everything she knew about Piercesuggested she was capable of that kind of manipulation. They’d both alreadybeen the victims of the woman’s skills at deception. But Kat had taken hersuspicions to a different level entirely.
She’d pored overstudies about the legitimacy of post-coma amnesia. She’d talked to the wardnurses, trying to learn about any behavioral discrepancy that might prove thewoman was faking. She’d even tried to go back to the hospital again this weekbefore Hannah had convinced her that it would be an extremely bad look.
She’d suggestedthat Kat address her obsession at her appointment with Dr. Lemmon today. Sowhen the woman returned to the apartment, Hannah waited what she thought was anappropriate amount of time, and then broached the subject.
“Did you talk toDr. Lemmon about Ash Pierce at your session today?” she inquired casually, asif she was asking if Kat wanted tea.
Kat shook herhead.
“I wanted to, butI just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I can barely talk to you aboutit. Being judged by a professional therapist is more than I can handle rightnow.”
Hannah didn’tpoint out that Kat, rather than being barely able to discuss the topic withher, brought it up constantly. As frustrating as it was to seemingly be thewoman’s sole release valve, Hannah understood. She’d been in a similar positionherself.
It wasn’t thatlong ago that that she’d discovered something unsettling about herself. Maybeit was because her and Jessie’s shared birth father was a serial killer whoslaughtered her adoptive parents right in front of her. Or maybe it was becauseshe’d been kidnapped by a different murderer who tried to convince her that sheshould get in on the killing game too, starting with her own sister. Or perhapsit was nearly being murdered by Jessie’s ex-husband, who snuck into their homeand tried to take them both out, along with Ryan.
Whatever thesource, Hannah had discovered an unnerving element in her own character. Shehad what could only be described as bloodlust. It had developed over time butfully flowered when she shot an elderly serial killer even after he’d beensubdued by Jessie and Ryan. The act had given her a thrill like nothing she’dever experienced before.
Even though theshooting was conveniently deemed self-defense, she knew the truth: she had doneit on purpose, just to see what it felt like. After that, she began seeking outother confrontations in which she could mete out vengeful justice against perceivedwrongdoers. On more than one occasion, it nearly led to her committing violenceagainst people who probably didn’t deserve what she had in mind.
Ultimately, she’dgone to Dr. Lemmon, confessed how she was feeling, and agreed to go to along-term treatment facility to work on controlling her urges. It had worked onthe whole, and she’d tried to channel her need to dole out punishment in moreconstructive ways, most recently by helping fellow college students who’d beenwronged in some way.
She was modelingherself after her sister, who had admitted that she too sometimes felt the pulltoward violence against transgressors but had found a release valve byredirecting those darker desires toward a more noble goal: getting justice forthe victims of the offenders.
But the tickle wasalways there in the back of Hannah’s gut, that longing to make people pay,sometime in bloody fashion. And listening to Kat go on about Ash Pierce, awoman who had tried to kill Hannah on multiple occasions, did little to temperthat craving.
