Hell's City: Hell's Vengeance Series Book 2

199 pages

Chapter 3: The Mask Behind the Man

Jessop’s voice cracked, and tears ran down his cheeks. His face had flushed red, and he struggled in the cuffs that held him to the interrogation table.

He had refused to say anything more about Mary-Ann Brewster at the hospital, only that they needed to release him if they wanted to find her. They’d left him there and returned to the precinct. At the very least, they would need authorization to spend another round listening to him and playing along—not that either of them wanted to do such a thing.

But his description of Brewster had been spot-on. He had taken her. He knew where she was—whether she was alive or dead was a different story—and he was their best chance of finding her. At some point, they would have to play his game.

Sandoval went to brief their captain while Jacinta called Shane to give him the rundown of what she’d experienced. She had talked to him a couple of times since coming back from Canada and mentioned the case. But until there was evidence of the supernatural, she hadn’t been certain Jessop was more than a criminally insane murderer. Now that she’d caught up to him, interviewed him, and spent time in the same room, she was pretty certain. The way he spoke, the eerie feeling he seemed to exude were pretty suggestive—something had possessed Jessop and led to his crimes. And if that was true, she needed Shane’s help again. He agreed without question. The way he drove, he’d be in town already; she was sure.

Their captain spent most of the day dealing with the district attorney, and they hashed out a plan for how to proceed with Jessop. Everyone was fairly confident that he had taken Mary-Ann Brewster, but he wouldn’t speak a word to any other officers at the hospital.

By late afternoon, Jessop was finally transferred to the police station. The chief was surprised by the hospital’s willingness to release the man so soon, but Jacinta suspected Dr. Murphy had greased the wheels, and perhaps minimized the extent of Jessop’s injuries, just to get him out of the building.

Now in custody, Jessop had undergone a noticeable shift in personality as Jacinta and Sandoval questioned him once more.

“Please help me. Please!” he begged. Even Sandoval was taken aback by the change in his demeanor. It was like a switch had been flipped. His behavior, his tone of voice; even his speech patterns and facial expressions were different.

“If Mary-Ann Brewster is still alive, you need to tell us,” Sandoval insisted. Neither she nor Jacinta wanted to play this game.

The problem now was that Jessop wasn’t the same man he had been in the hospital. Or he was playing at being a different one.

He changed the moment they brought him into the interrogation room. The temperature of the room dipped, if only for a moment, but Jacinta had felt it. It was enough to confirm for her that she needed to call Shane as soon as they were done with Jessop. Sandoval may have thought he was a copycat killer—some follower of Hawthorn’s, or just a man with a deranged obsession. But Jacinta had a nasty feeling that there was more to it.

“Oh God, you have to believe me, I didn’t do anything,” Jessop pleaded, almost blubbering, as tears streamed down his face. He stared at them both in desperation.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Sandoval said, the derision clear in her tone. “You want to play the idiot now?”

“It was him. It was him!” Jessop shouted, trying to stand. His wrists were cuffed, the chain between them running through a steel eyelet in the table that held him firmly in place.

“Who, Jessop?”

The man slumped in his seat, his head on the table as he rocked back and forth and moaned.

“My stomach hurts so bad. And my head. You gotta believe me, I didn’t do any of this. He made me do it. He made me watch from inside, and I didn’t want to. Oh God, I didn’t want to.”

“If you think you can try to plead insanity now, you’re sadly mistaken,” Sandoval assured him.

“I’m not crazy. I wish I was. I wish I was dead.”

He lifted his head, red and tear-rimmed eyes looking from one direction to the other.

“You gotta kill me. You can do that. I can try to escape or attack you or something, and you can kill me. You won’t get in trouble; it’d be justified. Please don’t let him come back!”

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