That gave her the confidence to ask her next question.
“Are you willing to reconsider a night nurse, at least for a little while, until you’re a little stronger?”
He nodded again, though he didn’t speak this time. A single tear trickled down his cheek. Her heart ached for him.
“I know it’s not ideal,” she conceded. “But we’ll get through it together, like we always have. Okay?”
His breathing was clearly labored so he offered her a thumbs-up instead of words. She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, where the tear had settled.
In that moment she made them both a silent promise. She would solve this case fast. She had to, so she could get back to him, to Hannah, to her family, the most precious thing in her life.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“I’ll take the bus home,” Hannah said as Jessie pulled into the school driveway to drop her off. “I don’t want you to have to stop in the middle of the case to get me.”
“I’ll be home by dinnertime,” Jessie said, intent on making that promise a reality, no matter what. “What are we having?”
“It’s a little something I like to call ‘leftover surprise.’”
“Well, they can’t all be winners,” Jessie allowed.
“Hey, wait until you’ve tasted it before you talk smack,” Hannah said as she hopped out.
With Ryan safe at home with Nurse Patty and in good spirits when they’d left, both of them felt comfortable with a little teasing banter. Hannah was about to close the door when she seemed to think of something else.
“Now if I find this sexual slavery dude on campus, should I call you or Captain Decker?”
“Very funny,” Jessie said, pulling out of the driveway.
She didn’t say it, but Hannah’s comment sent her into a spiral of thoughts about just how girls like Marla ended up in a fancy Pacific Palisades house, servicing the basest desires of men who used them and then tossed them away. She was tempted to call Decker to get an update but forced herself not to. He might not even have briefed Gaylene Parker yet. She had to give it a little time.
Instead, as she worked her way along the choked rush-hour streets, making the seventy-minute drive back to Otis Estate, where she planned to meet Karen Bray, she called Jamil Winslow. As she had anticipated, he was in and answered on the first ring.
“Winslow, Research.”
“Hey, Jamil, how’s your Monday morning treating you?” she asked.
“Busy, Ms. Hunt, very busy. I already have a few updates if you’re interested.”
“I’m always interested in what you have to share,” she replied.
“Okay, how about we start with the victim’s husband, Beto Estrada. You wanted to see if we could independently confirm his claim that he was home all night.”
“Right,” she confirmed. “Any luck?”
“Some,” he said. “Based on a check of his GPS data, his phone never left the house after five p.m. and his car never moved from the driveway. But as we both know, that’s not definitive proof of anything on its own. So I checked the cottage. Estrada is renting it from a management company. They use motion-activated security cameras on the exterior of all their properties. I don’t know if Estrada was aware of that. In any case, I got them to send me the footage from Saturday night.”
“Don’t keep me in suspense, Jamil.”
“It shows the same thing. There was no movement outside the cottage after five. So, either he was home all night or he’s one stealthy middle-aged guy.”
“Good to know,” Jessie said. She didn’t say it but she was secretly glad that Estrada seemed to be in the clear. It would have vastly complicated the credibility of the Marla tape if he had been lying about his alibi. “What else have you got?”
“I don’t know whether this next bit is good news or bad news, but here goes. Tech has already done facial recognition on the camera footage from outside the main house during the party. Of the eight people you referred to us based on your research at the law firm yesterday—the ones who seemed like credible suspects based on their past criminal cases—all but two alibi out.”
“How can you be sure?” Jessie pressed, as she zipped past an old pickup truck belching out dark clouds of exhaust.
“Because all six of them are clearly visible on camera, leaving the estate prior to the established window of death, from three o’clock to three fifty. We followed up using phone data