LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Pretty much. In fact, I think he wanted me to convey that to you, kind of like a warning.”

      “Okay, noted,” Jessie said, debating briefly whether to tell Ryan about her meeting with Garland Moses.

      Ryan knew that Hannah was her half-sister but not much more. Furthermore, she hadn’t informed him of whom she had met with or why. He seemed to assume she was meeting with Kat Gentry and she hadn’t corrected his impression. She was concerned that the more he knew about her efforts to learn about Hannah’s case, the more vulnerable position he would be in professionally. She didn’t want him to have to lie on her behalf to the boss if the issue came up.

      Then again, not telling him felt like a personal betrayal of sorts. She glanced over at Ryan Hernandez, two years her senior, and quietly asked herself what she owed him. After all, while he was a detective and she was a profiler, they worked most cases together and were informal partners, even if it wasn’t official.

      Beyond that, over the last few years, their relationship had evolved from purely professional to professionally friendly, to genuine friendship, and now to something else. Ryan’s wife had filed for divorce a few months ago after six years of marriage and, after some awkward verbal dancing, Ryan had recently confessed to Jessie that he was interested in her as more than just a partner.

      She had felt the same way for some time but never acted on it. She’d found him attractive ever since she’d first encountered him, giving a guest lecture at a class she attended. That was even before she learned of his impressive pedigree as a detective with an elite unit of LAPD’s robbery-homicide division called Homicide Special Section, or HSS. HSS dealt with homicide cases that had high profiles or intense media scrutiny, often involving multiple victims or serial killers.

      All that only enhanced the already dashing figure he cut. Ryan was six feet tall and two hundred pounds of street-hardened muscle. And yet, underneath his short black hair, his brown eyes exuded unexpected warmth.

      Now, with only their own mountains of personal baggage to prevent them from taking the next step, they were feeling each other out. There had been one kiss but nothing more. To be honest, Jessie wasn’t sure if either of them was ready for more.

      “Tell me about the case,” she said, deciding to hold off on telling him about the Garland Moses meeting, at least for now.

      “I don’t know much yet,” Ryan said. “The body was discovered by housekeeping in the last hour—a male, forty-something, naked. Wallet was empty—no identification, credit cards, or cash. Initial cause of death seems to be strangulation.”

      “Can’t they ID him by checking who booked the room?”

      “That’s a little weird too. Apparently the card that was used to hold the room is registered to a shell company. And the name on the register is John Smith. I’m sure it will get unraveled but right now we’re dealing with a John Doe.”

      They arrived at the massive Bonaventure Hotel, with its multiple towers and famous exterior elevators, the ones made memorable in the movie In the Line of Fire. Ryan flashed his badge to get past the police barricade and pulled up near the loading dock entrance.

      A uniformed officer met them and led them to the freight elevator and from there, to the massive central lobby. As they walked through it to get to the main bank of elevators, Jessie couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by the size and number of atriums and crisscrossing hallways and stairwells. It was as if the place had been specifically designed to confuse.

      She trailed behind Ryan and the officer, taking her time, allowing the complications of the morning to fall away as she focused in on the task at hand. Her job was to profile this crime, to determine potential perpetrators. And that meant staying aware of the surroundings in which the crime had taken place—not just the room but the hotel as well. It was possible that something that happened out here may have impacted the events in that room. She couldn’t ignore anything.

      They passed a group of tourists excitedly heading for an exit in attire that suggested they were going to a famous amusement park. Just beyond them, in a circular, open bar called the Lobby Court, several men in suits were getting an early start on their drinking. A few burly men in identical blue blazers wandered around, wearing earpieces, clearly security. Jessie couldn’t decide whether they were intended to be genuinely discreet or just to give that surface impression.

      As they reached the elevators, one of the blazer guys joined them and silently waited for one to arrive.

      “How’s your morning going?” Jessie asked him chipperly, unable to treat the guy with the solemnity he was clearly after.

      He nodded but said nothing.

      “You finishing your shift or starting it?” she pressed as her tone became more severe, annoyed at his lack of responsiveness.

      He looked at her, then at Ryan, who stared at him coldly, and reluctantly replied.

      “I started at six. We got the call from housekeeping at seven,” addressing the topic she was clearly hinting at.

      “Why did housekeeping go in the room so early?” Jessie asked. “Was there a cleaning request on the doorknob?”

      “She said there was a smell coming from the room.”

      Jessie looked over at Ryan, who had a resigned expression.

      “Sounds like a fun way to start the morning,” she said, reading his mind.

      The elevator arrived and they stepped inside. The guard accompanied them to the fourteenth floor. As they shot up in the air, Jessie couldn’t help but marvel at the view. The elevator faced the Hollywood Hills, and on this fairly clear morning, the white Hollywood sign gleamed back at them, seemingly close enough to touch. Griffith Park Observatory was nestled nearby at the top of a hill in the park. Various studio soundstages peppered the expanse in between, as did thousands of vehicles on the traffic-choked streets.

      A soft ding brought her back into the moment and Jessie stepped out, following the guard and Ryan to the end of the hallway. They were only halfway there when Jessie got a whiff of what must have captured the maid’s attention.

      It was the smell of putrid, bacteria-laced gases in the victim’s body building up and leaking out, often with equally foul-smelling fluids. While it was always unpleasant, Jessie had gotten somewhat used to it. She doubted a housekeeper would be as familiar or as comfortable with it.

      An officer waiting outside the door recognized Ryan and handed him and Jessie plastic slippers as he lifted the police tape so they could enter. To her admittedly petty satisfaction, the officer refused to allow the hotel security guard entry.

      Once inside, she stood by the door and took in the scene. There were several CSU techs taking photos and fingerprinting the room. Multiple small indentations in the carpeting had been noted and marked with evidence numbers.

      The body lay on the bed, naked, bloated, and uncovered. The initial description of the victim seemed accurate. He appeared to be in his forties. As Jessie got closer, it was clear that he had indeed been strangled. Blueish-purple finger marks covered his neck, though notably, there were no indentations or cuts that might suggest nails digging in.

      The man was in decent shape if you ignored the bloating. He was clearly well off, with recently manicured fingernails, a hair transplant that had been painstakingly done to give him a smattering of gray amidst his black hair, and some craftsman-like Botox injections near the eyes, mouth, and forehead.

      His socks, now straining at the excess fluid building up at his ankles, clung mournfully to his feet. His shoes rested by the side of the bed. His clothes—comprised of an expensive-looking suit, boxers, and a T-shirt, were folded neatly over a desk chair.

      There were no other obvious personal materials in the room—no luggage bag, no extra clothes, no watch or glasses by the bedside. She glanced in the bathroom and saw the same thing there—no toiletries, no used towels, nothing to suggest that he’d spent much time in the room at all.

      “Cell phone?” Ryan asked the officer standing in the corner.

      “We

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