LITMIR.BIZ

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wasn’t visible from any other angle emanated from the rim around the hole, an indicator that the unit had not been forcibly accessed. Had it been, the rim around the peephole would have been red.

      In addition to the Nest doorbell camera she’d had installed, there were also multiple hidden cameras in the corridor. One had a direct view of her door. Another focused on the hall facing back to the elevator and the adjoining stairwell. A third pointed in the other direction of the second set of stairs. She’d checked them all on the way over in the cab and found no suspicious movement around her place today.

      The next step was entry. She used a traditional key to open one bolt, then swiped her card and heard the other sliding bolt open as well. She stepped inside as the motion sensor alarm warning went off, dropped her backpack on the floor, and ignored the alarm as she rebolted both doors and pulled the sliding security bar across as well. Only then did she punch in the eight-digit code.

      After that she grabbed the nightstick she kept by the door and hurried to the bedroom. She lifted up the removable picture frame beside the light switch to reveal the hidden security panel and punched in the four-digit code for the second, silent alarm—the one that went straight to the police if she didn’t deactivate it in forty seconds.

      Only then did she allow herself to breathe. As she inhaled and exhaled slowly, she walked around the small apartment, nightstick in hand, ready for anything. Searching the whole place, including the closets, shower, and pantry, took under a minute.

      When she was confident that she was alone and secure, she checked the half dozen nanny-cams she had placed throughout the unit. Then she evaluated the locks on the windows. Everything was in working order. That left only one place to review.

      She stepped into the bathroom and opened the narrow closet that held shelves with supplies like extra toilet paper, a plunger, some bars of soap, shower scrubbers, and mirror cleaning fluid. There was a small clasp on the left side of the closet, not visible unless one knew where to look. She flipped it and tugged, feeling the hidden latch click.

      The shelving unit swung open, revealing an extremely narrow shaft behind it, with a rope ladder attached to the brick wall. The tube and ladder extended from her fourth-floor unit down to a crawl space in the basement laundry room. It was designed as her last-ditch emergency exit if all her other security measures fell through. She hoped she’d never need it.

      She replaced the shelf and was about to return to the living room when she caught sight of herself in the bathroom mirror. It was the first time she’d really studied herself at length since she left. She liked what she saw.

      On the surface, she didn’t look that different from before. She’d had a birthday while at the FBI and was now twenty-nine, but she didn’t look older. In fact, she thought she looked better than when she’d left.

      Her hair was still brown, but it seemed somehow bouncier, less limp than it had been when she left L.A. all those weeks ago. Despite the long days at the FBI, her green eyes sparkled with energy and no longer had the dark shadows underneath that had become so familiar to her. She was still a lean five feet ten, but she felt stronger and firmer than before. Her arms were more toned and her core was tight from endless sit-ups and planks. She felt…prepared.

      Moving into the living room, she finally turned on the lights. It took her a second to remember that all the furniture in the space was hers. She’d bought most of it just before she’d left for Quantico. She hadn’t had much choice. She’d sold all the stuff from the house she’d owned with her sociopathic, currently incarcerated ex-husband, Kyle. For a while after that, she crashed at the apartment of her old college friend, Lacy Cartwright. But after it was broken into by someone sending a message to Jessie on behalf of Bolton Crutchfield, Lacy had insisted she leave, pretty much right then.

      So she’d done exactly that, living in a weekly hotel for a while until she found a place—this place—that met her security needs. But it was unfurnished, so she’d burned a chunk of her money from the divorce all at once on furniture and appliances. Since she’d had to leave for the National Academy so soon after buying it all, she hadn’t gotten a chance to appreciate any of it.

      Now she hoped to. She sat down on the love seat and leaned back, settling in. There was a cardboard box marked “stuff to go through” sitting on the floor beside her. She picked it up and began rifling through it. Most of it was paperwork she had no intention of dealing with now. At the very bottom of the box was an 8x10 wedding photo of her and Kyle.

      She stared at it almost uncomprehendingly, amazed that the person who had that life was the one sitting here now. Almost a decade ago, during their sophomore year at USC, she’d started dating Kyle Voss. They’d moved in together soon after graduation and gotten married three years ago.

      For a long time, things seemed great. They lived in a cool apartment not far from here in downtown Los Angeles, or DTLA as it was often called. Kyle had a good job in finance and Jessie was getting her master’s degree. Their life was comfortable. They went to new restaurants and checked out the hot bars. Jessie was happy and probably could have stayed that way for a long time.

      But then Kyle got a promotion at the company’s office in Orange County and insisted they move to a McMansion there. Jessie had consented, despite her apprehension. It was only then that Kyle’s true nature was revealed. He became obsessed with joining a secret club that turned out to be a front for a prostitution ring. He began an affair with one of the women there. And when it went bad, he killed her and tried to frame Jessie for it. To top it all off, when Jessie uncovered his plot, he tried to kill her too.

      But even now, as she studied the wedding photo, there was no hint of what her husband was ultimately capable of. He looked like a handsome, amiable, rough-around-the-edges future master of the universe. She crumpled up the photo and tossed it toward the trash can in the kitchen. It dropped right in the center, giving her an unexpected cathartic rush.

      Swish! That must mean something.

      There was something freeing about this place. Everything—the new furniture, the lack of personal mementos, even the borderline paranoid security measures—belonged to her. She had a fresh start.

      She stretched out, allowing her muscles to relax after the long flight on the tightly packed plane. This apartment was hers—the first place in over half a dozen years she could truly say that about. She could eat pizza on the couch and leave the box lying around without worrying about anyone complaining. Not that she was the type to do that. But the point was, she could.

      The thought of pizza made her suddenly hungry. She got up and checked the fridge. Not only was it empty, it wasn’t even turned on. Only then did she remember that she’d left it that way, not seeing any reason to pay for the electricity if she was going to be gone for two and a half months.

      She plugged it in and, feeling restless, decided to make a grocery run. Then she had another idea. Since she didn’t start work until tomorrow and it wasn’t too late in the afternoon there was another stop she could make: a place—and a person—she knew she’d eventually have to visit.

      She had managed to put it out of her head for most of her time at Quantico but there was still the matter of Bolton Crutchfield. She knew she should let it go, that he had been baiting her during their last meeting.

      And yet she had to know: had Crutchfield really found a way to meet with her father, Xander Thurman, the Ozarks Executioner? Had he found a way to reach out to the murderer of countless people, including her mother; the man who left her, a six-year-old child, tied up next to the body to face certain death in a freezing, isolated cabin?

      She was about to find out.

      CHAPTER THREE

      Eliza was waiting when Gray got home that night. He arrived in time for dinner, with a look on his face that suggested he knew what was coming. Since Millie and Henry were sitting right there eating their mac & cheese with hot dog slices, neither parent said anything about the situation.

      It was only after the kids were down for the night that it came up. Eliza was standing in the kitchen when Gray walked in after putting them to sleep. He had taken off his sport coat but was still wearing his loosened tie and slacks.

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