Killer Instinct

by Barbara Winkes

  “Yes, I know all that.” There was a slight edge to his tone. “Now go home and wait until you hear from us. I’m not kidding.”

  “Let me do it,” Joanna said. “Please. She was biding her time the other day, but I know I can get to her.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “He took Rue because of me. Grace knew from the beginning.” Saying those words out loud made her sick to her stomach, but she couldn’t deny the truth any longer. “She was jealous, sent me a lot of text messages, then they stopped all of a sudden around the time you found Felicity. They had to lay low, but they kept planning.”

  “It would be easier to just skip town, wouldn’t it?”

  “He has unfinished business. With me.”

  “Oh, for the love of—”

  “Let’s not waste any more time, okay?”

  Joanna had hoped Theo would have a better idea, but he nodded. “All right. Allison will go with you. See what you can do.”

  As long as she kept walking, doing something, she’d stay sane. She had gone over the old cases, and the new ones, in her mind so many times, the details were vivid. She couldn’t stop for a moment and dwell. Christina had gotten away. They would find Rue before the slasher hurt her, and for sure, Joanna included herself in that. She wouldn’t sit around idly, no matter what Theo said.

  Allison gave her a quick nod, all business. Theo’s partner since Joanna’s arrest, she was the most uncomplicated cop and person Joanna had ever known. By the book, following all the rules, a bright career ahead. Joanna had envied her more than once, but today wasn’t the time for such pettiness.

  “You’re back!” Grace clapped her hands in excitement. “I’m thinking you miss me. I miss you too. I often think about the nights we spent together.”

  “Yeah, me too.” Worst sex of my life. Worst choice of my life. “Grace, why don’t we put all the cards on the table now? We know that your boyfriend posed as your lawyer. He’s taken off on his own, and he’s going to make the kill without you. Why don’t we spoil his fun?”

  Grace gave her a long speculative look.

  “You think there’s still a ‘we’? After you fucked that bitch? You betrayed me.”

  Each word was like a gut punch. It was hard to tell which was worse, had it been Grace’s plan or the slasher’s to go after Rue. Each theory opened another door to a world of horrors.

  “Yes I did. I’m sorry about that. I came here to apologize.”

  “Is this even legal? I mean, not only are you no longer a cop, but you’re an ex-cop who executed a suspect. That’s kind of…iffy, isn’t it?”

  “Don’t worry about it. You’re safe here,” Allison interjected, her tone dripping with sarcasm. Grace ignored her.

  “Well, they let me in here twice,” Joanna reminded her. “Because I’m not a cop. You can believe me when I say prison is no fun. Except…if you tell us what we need to find him, you could still have some life on the outside left. If she dies, it’s all on you.”

  “And you’re going to do what, come to prison and kill me like you did with that Decker guy?”

  I might, was the first instinctive and highly irrational thought Joanna wouldn’t share in front of the detective.

  “Doesn’t it bother you the least bit how this is going to end? He gets to go on without you, and you’re going away forever—after all you did for him? That’s loyalty. I really don’t get it why you were mad at me in the first place. You love him. You’re going to take the fall for him. Wow.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “I’ll admit to that. How you can still stand by him after he killed all these women, I don’t understand. Maybe you can make me.”

  “There’s just one problem, Joanna,” Grace said coldly. “I told the cops I’m just as mad as they are that the lawyer disappeared into thin air. I don’t know what his deal was, but now I have to make do with a public defender, a kid barely out of law school. I don’t appreciate that, but I don’t know what his deal was.”

  “You know you won’t make it far if you stick to that version.”

  “That’s not your problem, is it?”

  Allison gave her a pointed look, and Joanna got to her feet.

  “There’s something you still don’t realize, Grace. Right now, the cops are your friends. I am your friend. Hell, even the crappy public defender is your friend, and you should listen to what everyone is saying. If you’re smart about this, you’ll start selling your story, and that could even be literally. I’m sure reporters will fall over their feet trying to get an exclusive. That offer is almost up. I’ll go outside and have a coffee with the detective now, and when we come back, you will have made your choice, one way or another.”

  “Oh, you got your badge back now?” Grace asked sweetly. “Who did you sleep with for that?”

  Joanna left the room without an answer, and Allison followed her.

  On the other side of the door, she took a deep breath, trying to get her bearings. Her instincts had been true in something—from the first time, she’d felt like Grace’s presence drained her. Sure, many women worked on the side of patriarchy, some obliviously, some gleefully—but Grace made her sick. Most serial killers hated women for one ridiculous reason or another, because they hadn’t talked to them or smiled at them, because they refused to have sex with them. To have a woman step in and help one of them, become one of them, was particularly disgusting.

  And because of that woman, Rue was now in danger.

  She became aware of Allison’s gaze on her, almost jealous. There was some sort of sad joke in that. Allison had no reason whatsoever to envy her.

  “She actually listens to you,” Allison said. “You might have a shot.”

  “I hope so.”

  She knew Allison had been hired after the fact, so she didn’t harbor the same mixed and complicated emotions toward Joanna as most of her other ex-colleagues did. In the present moment, she appreciated that.

  “Could you get me that coffee? And take your time?”

  “Theo is going to kill me, but yes. Anything you say will be recorded.”

  “Okay. Thank you.”

  “Where’s your coffee?” Grace asked when Joanna stepped back into the room.

  “Detective Kato is getting one for me. It’s just the two of us now. You know, I can’t seem to stay away. I’m too curious as to why someone who’s obviously smart and resourceful would give her life for a man.”

  Grace sighed as if Joanna was testing her patience.

  “You got it wrong. You think it’s all for him, but it isn’t. I mean, sure, I owe him, he taught me a lot of things after all, but I didn’t just stand by. I did everything Edward did, and yes, it pisses me off I’m not there to finish off little Rue. By the way, I’ll deny I said any of this once the real cop comes back, because even the public defender will know how to have your testimony thrown out.”

  “Sure, go ahead.” Joanna had retreated into a bubble, a place without emotions, from where she could continue to poke and get results. Otherwise, her hands would be around Grace’s throat. Her fingers twitched in her lap under the table.

  “You think I was somehow coerced into this, but it’s not true. I wanted it. I wanted to experience everything.”

  “Why?”

  “Think about it, Joanna. Think hard. You know.”

  “I haven’t got a clue.”

  “Killing. It’s the only thing that makes us equal to men. Don’t tell me you didn’t feel the thrill when you blew away Decker. That doesn’t make you some righteous avenger of women, it just makes you the killer, not the victim.”

  “Murdering women alongside of him”—Edward—“made you feel less like a victim?”

  “It’s all in the choices we make. I chose to be free.”

  “Well, you’re not free now, are you?” Allison had returned with the two coffees. “He wins after all…unless you tell us where he is.”

  Grace shrugged. “I have no idea where he is, but maybe
you could ask his mother. She’s the only reason why he had to come here to this cold ass town instead of staying in the sun. Violet Short. She has a cottage somewhere out in the burbs. Once a year, we have to go and visit Mommy.”

  Wherever Allison went from here, Joanna would go with her. That much she knew for certain.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The sharp smell roused her from a deep heavy sleep. Instinctively, she tried to get away from it, the smell and consciousness. Rue knew whatever would happen next, it wouldn’t be good. She wanted to withdraw, go back to the safe place of oblivion.

  “You’re with me now, good. I’m afraid we don’t have so much time. I would be on my way, but I figured…I owe Grace this one.”

  She blinked, trying to make sense of her surroundings. It seemed like they were in some sort of attic. The icy rain was still coming down hard on the roof, and—the next thought crossed out all the others abruptly as she realized her hands were tied above her head to a wooden beam in the middle of the room. She was in her underwear.

  “Please.” She was shaking so hard it was difficult to bring out the words. “You could just let me go, and you’d have a head start. I don’t know where we are. You’d be long gone before anyone finds me!”

  Rue saw the camera on a tripod, a few feet away, her stomach lurching.

  “Sorry, I can’t,” he said matter-of-factly. “I made a promise, you know? They are going to lock her away for the rest of her life. It’s all I can do for her now.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t want you to—” She broke off her sentence when he started to laugh.

  “Oh believe me, she wants me to. You were Grace’s choice, not mine. Don’t worry. We’ll make this quick.”

  Rue flinched violently when he reached out and drew a number of random lines across her chest and thighs.

  “You know, we usually have a pretty elaborate script. Maybe Joanna told you about it. Find a girl in a bar who’s interested in walking on the wild side, spend the night together and then…oops,” he said in a mocking tone. “Then they realize they shouldn’t have done that. I thought you were too old, but she just couldn’t get over you and Joanna. I figured what the hell. We’ve been here four months, and the police are too stupid to catch us, me, anyway, it’s going to be all right.” He put the cap on the marker and tossed it aside, then pinched her cheek. “You hear me? It’s going to be all right. Now smile.”

  He stepped behind the camera and took a few pictures. “That’s it for now.” He went to a space behind her.

  Rue frantically craned her neck to find out what he was doing, seeing for the first time the table with the assortment of knives.

  “No. Please don’t.”

  Tears blurred the picture as he turned away from the table and disappeared down narrow steps to a lower floor.

  Rue yanked at the ropes that bound her to the beam, but they didn’t give.

  Only minutes later, the smell of onions frying in a pan wafted up to her, and she started to sob.

  Joanna had to be worried about the lack of communication by now. She had found and killed a murderer once.

  On the other hand, if he was making a meal for himself, she had a few minutes to try and loosen these restraints, and maybe she could get to one of those knives—before he could…

  Rue tried to push from her mind that the man Joanna had killed had already murdered those four women, and others before. Mila had gotten away from Decker. Christina escaped the serial murderer duo.

  She had to be lucky too.

  Tears were streaming down her face as she worked on the rope.

  * * * *

  Allison hadn’t even tried to keep Joanna from joining her, but she insisted on her wearing a vest. There was a chance Edward’s mother was hiding her son, and in that case, she might be armed too.

  Given how easily Grace had given up the location in the end, it could be a trap. Before the cops went inside the house, Allison came over to where Joanna had parked behind her on the curb.

  “You stay in your car. Under no circumstances you get involved, do you hear me?”

  “Clearly. I know the drill.”

  “Good. I understand what this means to you, but that’s all the slack I can cut you.”

  “I understand. I’ll stay here.”

  Allison, Theo and her colleagues had parked at a distance.

  Joanna hated to be the one left behind, but as long as the horror ended here and now, she could live with it.

  Violet Short was the mother to Edward Short, the man who had pretended to be Grace’s lawyer, using a different name. With the security camera recording him during his visits with Grace, it had been easy to connect the dots.

  Short had graduated from the local university and moved to California for a tech job, then began to do freelance work within the L.A. county, but returned on occasion to visit Violet.

  There was no doubt that the timeline of the murders would add up with travels Short had made. If he wasn’t there with his mother, she might have an idea where he was, and she had better come up with an answer soon.

  Leaning forward, Joanna tried to find a space in herself where she could escape from both the flashbacks and the present fear. She felt selfish with the attempt, as long as Rue was still in danger. Rue had nowhere to go.

  Like Allison said, she had helped them, and they had cut her some slack in return. It didn’t mean that door was open for her. One mistake, and they might lock her up too—again. But it didn’t mean anything, nothing meant anything if she could never see Rue again.

  Joanna unlocked the door and stepped out of the car.

  * * * *

  Maybe the rope was budging just a little, maybe it was all her wishful thinking. The smell of food from downstairs, both tantalizing and sickening to Rue, presented a jarring contrast to the nightmare she was trapped in. The skin of her wrists had to be raw about now, but she barely felt the pain, shuddering with each breath even though it wasn’t all cold in the room.

  Time.

  Her friend, her enemy.

  He might open a beer or two with his meal, fall asleep…or the alcohol would unleash another, worse beast. In the end, did it matter? Would she survive to tell her story, and if she didn’t…Rue realized she was wondering about a possible afterlife, and if any of her experiences in life, good or bad, would be reflected.

  She tore at the rope, only to have the pain kick in full force, bringing new tears to her eyes. It didn’t matter. It was too early to think about the after, or even what the next few minutes.

  Time.

  It was all she had, and for the moment, all she had to fear.

  * * * *

  “You can’t go in here,” the officer warned. Theo exited the building at this moment. Lucky for Joanna or not, it was still debatable.

  “Did you find him?” she demanded.

  He shook his head, apparently too frustrated with the outcome to chastise her.

  “The house is clear. She identified him from the security camera photo, confirmed that he comes to visit every few months, but she has no idea where he is now. She seems horrified.”

  “A normal person would be. What now?”

  “Joanna. We have a job to do here, remember? You’re supposed to be home, or at work, whatever.”

  “He’s going to kill her. There’s no need for an elaborate ritual now, it’s just to make a point.”

  Her eyes filled with tears. Joanna hated this, her own weakness, losing once again.

  Losing Rue.

  Decker had wanted to make a point with her too, by shooting the women in the cabin. Right here and now, Joanna couldn’t help wondering if he had won after all. Killing him had done nothing to the finality of the deaths he’d caused.

  She forcibly pushed her emotions aside, focusing on the next steps even though they weren’t hers to follow.

  “You should leave someone with her in case…”

  “Yes. Allison will stay with her, though we think it’s unlikely he’ll co
me back. He visited last week, that was when he was still playing the lawyer. He only ever stays for one afternoon at a time.”

  “Can I?”

  “Now you’re asking?”

  “You need to go.”

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” he said and turned for his car.

  * * * *

  “What do you want?” Violet Short asked bitterly when she opened the door to Joanna. “I already had my house turned upside down by the cops. I didn’t know the vultures would follow suit.”

  “I’m not a reporter, or a cop.”

  “What are you, then?”

  “I’d say she’s a nuisance following me around,” Allison commented from the doorway. “Mrs. Short, I’m really sorry, but could we go back to where we were before? Any little detail you remember could be important.”

  It was still unclear whether or not Joanna was invited to the table. She took the chance following the two women into the living room stuffed with old-fashioned furniture.

  She could smell the dust, a cough tickling her throat. The wallpaper was something out of the seventies. Time had slowed down in here.

  “What I remember is the son I once had, who made something out of himself, founded a business. A good man who never forgot his mother, or where he came from. Now you’re telling me he’s a murderer?”

  Joanna could see a hint of impatience in Allison’s expression, mirroring her own. Violet Short’s life had been turned upside down, but another woman was about to lose hers.

  Nothing was ever fair.

  “True,” she said. “That’s exactly what we’re telling you. I understand this is hard for you, but it is too for the families of the victims who have been waiting for eleven years. I’ve been waiting for eleven years. We need to end this.”

  “I can’t help you! I don’t have any property other than this house. Edward didn’t even give me his new address in California, and for sure I didn’t know he was living with a woman here.”

  “Do you remember any problems he might have had with girls when he was younger? In high school maybe?”