your dinner. I think the late football game started a little while ago so I’ll put that on for you. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
She left the room with a smile plastered on her face, fully aware that he was watching for any sign that she had given up on him. Hannah was sitting at the kitchen island.
“How is he?” she asked.
“Agitated, discouraged, irate, take your pick. How are you?”
Hannah looked at her without any of her usual cynicism.
“I was really scared. I was outside resting in the hammock and I heard this thud. When I got inside, he was on the floor. I knew he hadn’t just fallen out of the bed because the sidebar was up. It was like he tried to walk somewhere, but he didn’t even use the walker. At first he wouldn’t even let me help him up.”
She looked away quickly.
Jessie thought she might be fighting back tears and it broke the dam inside her, one she hadn’t realized was holding so much back. This was her fault. She should have been here to prevent this, to protect her already traumatized sister from carrying another burden that wasn’t hers.
“I’m really sorry,” she said. “I had no idea he’d try something like that. Clearly I misjudged his desire to get moving, even at the expense of good sense. I shouldn’t have left you here to take care of him alone, even for a short time.”
It looked like Hannah was about to agree with her, but the girl seemed to catch herself. When she spoke her voice was firm.
“I really think we should have an in-house nurse all the time for the first few weeks—day and night. With me at school and you taking this case, it’s just too much. What if I’m in the bathroom when he tries this again? We need to have the ability to get groceries or take a walk and know he’s safe.”
Jessie nodded.
“You’re right,” she said. “In fact, Kat texted something similar to me earlier. I guess I thought—more like hoped—that we could handle the nights. But that was clearly overly optimistic, at least for now. After I get him squared away for the evening, I’ll call the service. This will be the only night we have to honcho this alone. I promise. He won’t love it but he’ll just have to deal.”
She paused for a moment before changing subjects.
How was your day?”
Hannah gave her a “you’re kidding, right?” look.
“Maybe we should just talk about your day,” she suggested. “Interesting case?”
Jessie decided to forgo her usual closemouthed attitude toward cases in the interest of changing subjects.
“It’s certainly high profile,” she answered as she got out the smoothie fixings. “A woman was murdered at the Otis Estate.”
“Otis Estate as in Jasper Otis, the rich jerk?”
“The very same,” Jessie confirmed.
“Is he a suspect?” Hannah asked, animated in a way she hadn’t been moments earlier.
“You know I can’t get into that. But I promise that once we solve the case, I’ll share all the juicy details.”
“Can you at least tell me who the victim is?”
“No one famous,” Jessie said. “It’s just a normal woman. But what was done to her was pretty awful. The bastard who did it is going to rot if I have anything to say about it.”
Her thoughts drifted to the anonymous “Marla.” She wondered if she’d ever get to be so definitive about the punishment for her abusers.
“What aren’t you telling me?” Hannah asked.
Jessie continued to be amazed at how perceptive Hannah was at picking up on nonverbal cues and how often she still underestimated her own sister.
“I was actually thinking about something else,” she said as she tossed protein powder and fruit into the blender. “I stumbled across another potential case while working this one, involving potential sex trafficking of teenage girls, right here under our noses. They supposedly even house a bunch of them at a fancy mansion. I’m just wondering how much of that sort of thing sneaks below the radar, maybe in schools like yours, because these girls have been indoctrinated into a culture of silence, made to feel like this is what they deserve.”
Hannah seemed to be seriously pondering the question.
“Have you ever thought of putting undercover cops in the schools where you think it’s happening? Maybe you need someone with street level perspective to see what you can’t.”
Jessie considered the idea. It wasn’t a bad one.
“That could work,” she said. “But we have so little information. It would hard to know where