“What did you do?” Ryan pressed.

  “I saw that award on his shelf, the one with the scroll on it and I thought how heavy it must be. I grabbed it. His back was to me but he must have heard me pick it up. He turned around.”

  He stopped talking for a moment and Jessie thought he might be done, but then he continued. Tears were streaming down his face as he spoke.

  “The only thing I regret is that he only had about half a second to process how badly he’d miscalculated before the thing crushed his skull in. I would have liked for him to have suffered a little more.”

  No one said anything for several seconds. Jessie recalled how upset she would have been if she’d had to bring in one of Tobias’s young victims for his murder. This was almost as bad. Some part of her couldn’t blame Bratton for what he had done. If Hannah had been victimized in the same way, would she have acted any differently? She wasn’t sure she could say no. Finally, Ryan stood up, returning her to the moment.

  “You know we have to take you into custody now, Mr. Bratton,” he said quietly. “We can call your wife on the way downtown. She’ll probably want to pick up your son before this breaks in the news.”

  Bratton nodded and stood up, holding out his hands.

  “I assume you need to handcuff me,” he said.

  “I’m afraid so,” Ryan told him, as he unhooked them from his belt. “It’s a bit of a drive, maybe an hour at this time of day, so if you want to go to the bathroom, now would be the time.”

  “I’d appreciate that, thanks,” Bratton said, somehow maintaining his good manners despite being arrested for murder. “All of a sudden, I really need to go.”

  Jessie stood up too and turned off the recorder on her phone. They had all they needed.

  “That’s fine,” Ryan said. “But I’ll have to go with you. No offense, but there are a lot of potential weapons in bathrooms and you’ve lost the benefit of the doubt.”

  “I understand,” Bratton said, pausing for a moment to think. “In that case, there’s one right over there in the corner, next to the stairs.”

  As they walked over, a thought came to Jessie.

  “Those UCLA officers are probably close to arriving at the station with Daryl Hinton,” she told Ryan. “I’ll call Decker and let him know not to make any announcements regarding the case just yet. We can give him more details on the way in.”

  “Sounds good,” Ryan said as Bratton led the way to the bathroom and Jessie started dialing.

  Bratton was about to open the door when Ryan stopped him. “I need to check it out first,” he said.

  “Of course,” Bratton said, stepping to the side.

  Ryan opened the door to the darkened room and was just reaching in to turn on the light when, without warning, Bratton lunged at him and slammed his shoulder into his back. Ryan disappeared from sight.

  CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

  Jessie got a sickening pit in her stomach as she heard a repeated thudding sound like Ryan was tumbling down a flight of stairs.

  Before she could react, Jason Bratton slammed the door shut, grabbed a small, heavy-looking lamp from a table by the door and smashed it against the doorknob, knocking it off completely. Then he turned to face Jessie, holding a thick, pointed, porcelain shard from the destroyed lamp in his hand.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said, before darting through an adjoining door and out of sight.

  “Hello,” she heard Decker say on the phone. She had completely forgotten that she’d just called him. His voice sounded muffled and distant. “Hunt, is that you?”

  Her body was frozen in shock at what she’d just seen. Had Bratton just killed Ryan right in front of her? The horror of that thought threatened to overwhelm her as she felt her knees buckle.

  “Hunt, answer me!” Decker barked from a million miles away.

  She reached out for the arm of the couch to steady herself as the world started to spin around her, a world without the man she loved.

  And then a voice in her head shouted silently at her: Stop this! You are in danger. Get control of yourself. Deal with the situation. Mourn later.

  She stood upright, shook her head forcefully, and pulled out her gun as she moved carefully toward the door.

  “Captain Decker, send multiple units to 837 ½ Fifth Street in Santa Monica. Detective Hernandez is down. A suspect is unsecured and armed inside the house. Suspect’s name is Jason Bratton.”

  “Repeat that, Hunt,” Decker ordered. “Did you say Hernandez is down? Is he injured or dead?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered as she inched closer to the door. “Gotta go.”

  “Hunt!” Decker bellowed just before she hung up on him, never taking her eyes off the open space where Bratton had gone.

  “Ryan!” she yelled as she peered around the corner into the room, which looked to be the kitchen. “Ryan, answer me. Are you okay?”

  There was no response. She wanted to keep calling out to him or find another way to open the door but that wasn’t the smart move. She had to eliminate the threat first.

  Forcing herself to be quiet and focus, she stepped through the doorway into the kitchen. Her eyes darted everywhere, looking for any possible hiding place. There was an island in the middle of the room, which she edged around slowly. She glanced at the knife block on the counter and saw that nothing was missing from its slots. That offered her a moment of relief until she remembered that the porcelain lamp piece Bratton had been holding could do just as much damage as any knife.

  She moved past the island and found no one there. The sliding door to the backyard was locked, which meant that Bratton was still inside. She kept her back to the door as she shuffled over to the pantry, keeping her eye on the only other doorway to the kitchen, next to the fridge on the opposite wall. The pantry door was closed but that didn’t mean he wasn’t inside. She turned the handle quickly and kicked the door open, then leapt over to get a clear view. It was empty.

  She turned back around immediately. Now she had a clear view of both kitchen entry doors. She moved toward the one by the fridge, looking for any sign of movement, any hint of a shadow that might indicate Bratton was waiting there. She saw nothing.

  Taking a deep breath, she prepared to dive into the hallway, when she heard a loud bang come from the den. She immediately ran that way, and rolled out of the kitchen into the room she’d just left. There was another bang. It was coming from the door Bratton had pushed Ryan through.

  “Ryan?” she yelled, moving toward the door. “Ryan, can you hear me?”

  She put her ear to the door and strained to hear a voice. But before she could detect anything on the other side, she heard a rustling sound from off to her right, just like the legs of a pair of casual slacks as someone ran in them.

  She turned that way just in time to see Bratton flying at her from around the corner near the stairs. His arm was raised high above his head and he was gripping the porcelain shard from the lamp in his hand. There was no way she could raise her gun and shoot him before he plunged the thing into her.

  So she did the only thing she could—lunge right back at him. She could only hope that by closing the space between them before he could bring the shard down, he would over-swing and miss her entirely.

  Their bodies collided hard and she could hear him grunt as her shoulder slammed into his ribs. But her advantage was temporary as the force of his weight sent a shudder through her body and she felt herself toppling backward. She released her gun and threw her arms back, hoping to break her fall.

  Her elbows hit the carpeted floor first and offered enough resistance to prevent the back of her head from slamming too hard. But a fraction of a second later, the full force of Bratton’s body collapsed on her, knocking the wind out of her.

  She lay there on her back, trying to gasp for air, as all 230 pounds of her attacker crushed her into the carpet. After a few eternal seconds, she managed to gulp down some air. As she did, she realized that Bratton was doing the same thing. He must have lost his breath in the fall as well.

  She knew she didn’t have long before he recovered, so she shoved her right hand against his ribs, hoping to roll him off her. The move seemed to shake him out of his inaction. He sucked in a greedy glug of air and looked down at her.

  “Let me up!” she gasped.

  He looked around and saw the same thing as she did. To his right, only a few feet away, was the porcelain shard, still intact, still a good four inches long.

  “I’m sorry,” he wheezed. “I can’t. I still have time to get my family, maybe make it to Mexico. But not if you’re alive.”

  He leaned over, straining to grab the shard. She clutched at him with her left hand, trying to prevent him from getting to it. Suddenly another slam from the locked door rattled the room, along with both of them.

  “Jessie!”

  It’s Ryan! He’s alive!

  She looked at the door, hoping it would pop open. There was another slam but nothing happened. Heartened by that, Bratton reached for the shard again. Jessie clutched at him once more but her eyes were focused elsewhere. When she’d looked at the door, she had seen something else: her gun, lying on the floor, just out of reach.

  But maybe not. If she released her grip on Bratton, he would have to lift off her slightly to reach the shard. That might allow her enough space to grab the gun. It was just a matter of who would get to their weapon first.

  She ignored the rattling door and fixed her eyes on her gun. Without another thought, she released her grip on Bratton’s side. He wasn’t expecting it and slumped to his right harder than anticipated, slightly off balance.

  Jessie used her improved freedom of movement to thrust her body rightward, grabbing the gun handle just as she felt Bratton regroup on top of her. She didn’t look to see if he had the shard in his hand. Instead, she gripped the gun and slammed its butt hard into his left temple.

  He looked momentarily stunned, hovering over her like a tree that had been cut but had yet to fall. She didn’t wait to see if he would, rearing back and smashing the butt of the gun into the same spot as before. She felt his body slacken—not completely, but enough for her to shove him off her.

  He toppled to his right, woozy but not unconscious. He was lying on his side, holding the shard in his hand, though he didn’t seem to realize it.

  Jessie rolled to her right and scrambled to her knees, pointing the gun at him.

  “Drop the shard,” she ordered over the constant slamming of the nearby door, her voice still raspy from lack of air.

  Bratton looked down at his hand, only then comprehending that he was still holding a weapon.

  “I can’t,” he said. “Either I kill you and escape with my family or you kill me and they can start over.”

  “Those aren’t your only options, Jason,” she said, using his first name in the hopes it might help reach him. “Your family loves you. Your kids need you. They would rather have you in their lives somehow than not at all. Trust me. I speak from experience.”

  He started to respond when they heard another loud bang. The locked door suddenly sprang open and Ryan shot through, collapsing onto the floor between them. Bratton turned to look at him in confusion. Jessie didn’t.

  Instead, she switched the gun to her left hand, pulled out her taser, and turned it on as she dove at Bratton. He looked back at her just as she shoved it against the exposed skin on his neck. A garbled sound, part scream and part groan, exploded from his throat just before he tumbled to the ground, twitching.

  She flicked the shard of porcelain away from his now empty hand, rolled him onto his stomach, holstered her gun and taser, pulled out her handcuffs, and slapped them on his wrists. A few feet away from her, Ryan pushed himself off the ground and maneuvered himself into a seated position on the floor.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, climbing off Bratton and crawling over to him.

  “I think so,” he said uncertainly. “Everything seems to be in working order. But I guess I’m not back at full ‘smash through the door’ strength.”

  “Well, you were shoved down a flight of stairs,” she pointed out. “Give yourself a minute.”

  “Yeah,” he replied. “I wasn’t expecting a basement in a house in Santa Monica. It took me by surprise.”

  “Me too,” Jessie said, fighting off a sudden lump in her throat. “I thought I’d lost you.”

  He gave her a kiss and then pulled back with a wry grin on his face.

  “No way,” he said sarcastically. “I had to stick around to rescue you.”

  They both surveyed the wreckage in the room, the handcuffed man on the floor, and Ryan’s minimal involvement in all of it. Jessie smiled back.

  “My hero.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

  They were halfway to Central Station when the idea came to Jessie.

  She couldn’t say anything right away because they were in the middle of talking to Decker. Jessie was driving because Ryan still felt a little shaky after his tumble. Soreness and exhaustion were taking their toll on her too, but she kept that to herself.

  “So I guess we’re releasing this Hinton guy,” the captain said.

  “Yes, sir,” she replied. “Even if we didn’t have Jason Bratton’s confession, I just got word from Jamil that Hinton’s GPS data shows him at home. He’s in the clear.”

  “He’ll be happy,” Decker said wryly. “He’s only been in lockup for about ten minutes and he’s already begging for his wife.”

  “I think he’s hoping this is what will get her to come back to him, “Ryan said. “He shouldn’t hold his breath.”

  “All right,” Decker said. “I’ll give him the good news. What about that admissions officer, Justin Carper? When are you charging him for taking those payoffs?”

  Jessie knew that was coming but sighed anyway.

  “I was hoping that we could explore getting him immunity if he helps make a case against the Orange County congresswoman who paid to get her son admitted,” she said. “He was a victim of Tobias too. If we can nail a corrupt politician and avoid ruining this guy’s life, I’d like to try.”

  “Talk to the D.A. to see if they’ll get on board,” Decker said. “In the meantime, when is the squad car with Bratton getting here?”

  “It’ll be there before us,” Jessie said. “We wanted to stop by the UCLA station first to thank Lieutenant Schrader for his help. I’m also coordinating with their campus CARE program to set up a meeting with all of Tobias’s victims together. I’m hoping to coordinate a support group where they can try to make sense of what happened to them. They’re going to need each other.”

  “Okay,” Decker said. “I’ll see you soon. Good work, you two. I look forward to throwing this back in Chief Laird’s face, though that’s off the record.”

  He hung up before Jessie could thank him for that. They came to a red light, where Jessie stopped, pulled out her phone, and quickly sent a text. Then she turned to Ryan.

  “You still doing okay?” she asked.

  “I’ll survive,” he told her, “but I may need to lie in a bath of liquid Advil for a few hours tonight.”

  “I’m not sure that’s how that works,” she cracked as her phone buzzed. She read the message, and then added, “but I might have another idea that might ease your pain a little.”

  “I’m all ears, “Ryan said, settling into his seat as the light turned green and they started up again.

  “I was thinking,” she continued, her eyes focused on the road. “Almost losing you today again really crystallized things for me. I think we should get married.”

  Ryan laughed.

  “I thought we were already doing that.”

  “No,” she said, “I mean soon, like before the end of the month.”

  Ryan popped up in his seat.

  “Are you serious?” he asked. “The end of this month is in two weeks!”

  “I know but I don’t want to wait,” she said. “I was thinking, those folks down at the Peninsula resort in Palos Verdes might help us out on short notice. We did solve a murder in their spa and save them from a ton of bad publicity. I think they’d be willing to accommodate a tiny wedding party. All told, we’re probably talking a dozen people.”

  Ryan had a goofy grin on his face, as if he was on the first drop of a massive rollercoaster.

  “I think it might be slightly bigger than that, Jessie,” he said. “I know we’re keeping it small, but there are going to be more than a dozen people who will show up, whether you invite them or not. Regardless, we should definitely ask.”

  Jessie tried and failed to stifle a giggle.

  “What?” he demanded.

  “I already did,” she said, holding up her phone. “I just texted Hugo, our friendly neighborhood head of security at Peninsula. He says they’d be honored to have us and that they’d give us a discounted rate of $0. He suggested the 26th, pending your approval. Do you approve?”

  “Do I approve? If you weren’t driving a vehicle in L.A. traffic, I’d kiss you right now.”

  “Before or after your Advil bath?” she teased.

  Before he could answer, her phone rang. Reluctantly, she glanced at it.

  “It’s Kat,” she said. “I better take it.”

  She’d barely hit “accept” before Kat started speaking.

  “You guys okay?” she asked. “I heard over the scanner that you had an incident in Santa Monica.”

  “It was touch and go there for a while, but we’re okay now,” Jessie replied. “Ryan decided to jump down a flight of stairs.”

  “Not even close to accurate,” he noted drily.

  “Well, it sounds like you’re in good moods, so I hate to bring things down,” Kat said, “but I have bad news.”

  “Go ahead,” Jessie replied, trying to keep the apprehension out of her voice.

 

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