Killer Instinct

by Barbara Winkes

  It wasn’t that there were many people to mourn these men—except for Decker’s wife and Violet Short, maybe—but it was a matter of principle. At least, that’s how Vanessa had explained it back then, when she’d been on the witness stand.

  Now Vanessa had become an accomplice, helping her escape from a predicament that would have been likely to take her back behind locked doors. She doubted Rue remembered much of what had happened since Joanna entered the house.

  Kira was waiting by the door, pulling her into a close embrace, and Joanna nearly lost it.

  “Vanessa will arrange something. You don’t ask any questions. You don’t know anything.”

  “It’s okay, sweetie. I got you. I’m glad we get to help.”

  “You’re doing more than anyone has the right to ask for,” Joanna said, choking up.

  “You didn’t ask for anything. Rue is going to be okay, thanks to you. You will be too.”

  “Maybe,” she admitted. “But I can never see her again.”

  * * * *

  Rue came to with a scream, in a darkened hospital room. She was shaking and crying before she could even make sense of the situation, but managed to breathe once she recognized Joanna’s friend Vanessa.

  Why wasn’t Joanna here?

  Had anyone notified her? Did she even know? Fear flooded her mind once more—and shame, irrational but inescapable.

  “I know you probably have a lot of questions,” Vanessa said softly. “The most important thing is that you are safe right now.”

  The memory came back to her in fragments.

  Sharp edges.

  Blood.

  “They found your cell phone and luggage. From there, it wasn’t far.”

  That didn’t make sense. Then again, nothing had since the moment she’d realized the man in the cab wasn’t a taxi driver.

  “What day is it?” she croaked out. “I have a job interview... My parents…”

  “They are on their way here.”

  Rue closed her eyes. She didn’t want them here now, with their own questions and fears she didn’t know how to answer.

  “I’m sure you’ll be able to reschedule that interview,” Vanessa continued.

  “Yeah. Maybe.” There was no more escape. “What about Joanna? Is she…is she okay?”

  “Joanna can’t be here right now, but…I swear, I’m telling the truth. She’s okay. Everything will be okay.”

  It wasn’t enough of a satisfying explanation, but the drugs in her system pulled her back into sleep. She’d get her answers next time—and hopefully, Joanna would be here.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Vanessa’s call, less than forty-eight hours later, only lasted about a minute. She gave Joanna instructions where to go, not to tell Kira in case the police questioned her, and said that Rue was doing well, considering.

  “You hear me? Do not take any detours. You go there right away. Everything will be ready.”

  She ended the call before Joanna could answer, possibly to avoid an answer she wouldn’t like. She shouldn’t have mentioned the interview then. They might not have a future any longer, but there was something she could do for Rue. If it did any good was to be determined. Joanna couldn’t jump ship without trying.

  She and Kira hadn’t talked much in those past hours. There was no need to reminisce out loud when the perimeters of their relationship had always been so obvious.

  Back then, in prison, Kira was careful, staying under the radar, never missing work or a class. One day, she had attracted the wrong person’s attention. Lucky for her, Joanna had been there when said person came after her with a knife one day.

  At first, Joanna thought the subsequent solitary confinement didn’t bother her so much. She didn’t scream and rage, had in fact expected this outcome. At least, it was calm, much calmer than the block…and too much time to think, to study the images on the walls of her subconscious in depth.

  Too many abused and dead women. She might have kept Decker from going on, but others would emerge, an endless cycle of entitlement and violence. Her actions had amounted to nothing, or at least it felt that way. When she was allowed back into her cell, Joanna started to withdraw. Maybe she had even made plans, it was hard to remember now, but she clearly remembered the feeling of being of no use to anyone.

  Joanna remembered dreaming about that knife.

  It was Kira who stepped in before she could lose herself in a place from which she could never return, and now, once again, Kira risked the life she’d built to help her.

  “It’s okay. Everything will be fine,” she said as they sat together on her couch.

  Joanna had a faint memory from when her mother had still been around, holding her, stroking her hair like that. It had been a lie back then. It could still be in the present.

  No one could tell right now.

  Regardless, there was something she needed to do.

  * * * *

  Lawrence Mitchell looked up from his desk, slightly startled at the sight of his visitor.

  “That’s a surprise. I imagine you’re in some kind of trouble. Again. My answer is still the same.”

  Joanna pushed the cutting disappointment aside. She had no time for it.

  “I didn’t come to ask you for money.”

  That was another point, come to think of it. Vanessa had a plan, obviously, including finances. Joanna wasn’t yet sure what it was.

  “That’s…interesting. I’m working, as you can see, so…”

  They hadn’t talked in over a decade, and he couldn’t get her out of his office soon enough. That was just as well, because she’d be happy to leave.

  “I know you have the power to sabotage Rue’s career. One word of advice, Dad…don’t.”

  He gave her an amused smile.

  “Or else you’re going to shoot me? It seems like that’s your answer to everything.”

  “How about doing the right thing for once? She’s been through something horrible you can’t even imagine. She doesn’t need you messing with her life any more.”

  “I don’t know what she told you, or what you’re imagining, but no one is sabotaging her career. She knows I have friends in the business, and what our views are. We might be old-fashioned, but those are still family businesses.”

  “Yeah, sure, because living an authentic life is the worst a person can do in your eyes, and they must be punished…regardless if they were nearly murdered.”

  Pointless. She should have never come. He was probably going to call the cops. Vanessa would be mad.

  “Murdered? What the hell are you talking about? Just look at yourself,” he scoffed, shaking his head. “This is what you call an authentic life? Grow up, Joanna, and take responsibility. Then, maybe someday, we can talk. You can tell the same to Rue. I really liked her, but she was too stubborn, poking her nose in places she had no business. I know what you want to say, the world is changing and all…Well, I still think it’s wrong. I am not changing.”

  “Okay, you made your point. I hope you remember mine. Good night, Lawrence.”

  “Wait! You won’t tell me what’s going on?”

  “Why would I? You’re not interested,” she said. “That’s fine. I came here because of Rue.”

  Perhaps that wasn’t the whole truth. He didn’t react to that, so Joanna left, finally heading to the place Vanessa had told her to go.

  She found money, clothes, a burner phone and note with a name and number on a piece of paper. Call him. He’ll take care of the rest.

  * * * *

  His work often came with messy situations—Theo preferred to end cases clean and neat, all loose ends tied up, an immaculate report that left no open questions, with as much detail as possible.

  Prosecutors loved him for it.

  Vanessa had told him it made her work easier too.

  You could say that since the Decker “incident,” he had even become a little more OCD about the process. Both he and Vanessa believed that there were certain rules for co
ps no one should ever break, because it would jeopardize the system as a whole.

  Sitting at his desk, trying to make sense of what had happened, he was at a loss.

  He needed to talk to Vanessa, get more information out of her than the vague description she had given him of the events. She had barely left Rue’s bedside, and driven her home after she was released from the hospital. She was with her now.

  He needed to get a hold of Joanna, but she had vanished since those last calls to Vanessa, hadn’t shown up for work in days. Theo knew she had long been estranged from her father. It was worth a try though. He had exhausted all other angles.

  On the surface, it was a satisfying outcome. Rue was alive. She didn’t remember much after being drugged in a parking lot where Short had dumped her suitcase and cell phone.

  Grace had confessed.

  Edward Short was dead, two shots fired, prints of both Vanessa and Rue on the otherwise clean weapon. There were some things that didn’t add up.

  According to Vanessa, Joanna had a suspicion about the Ellmers house, but she wasn’t certain, didn’t want to bother the detectives with information that might lead nowhere.

  In Theo’s experience, Joanna wasn’t shy about going after a hunch, or asking her former colleagues to do so if she thought it was important. He was almost certain she had been at the house, but if that was the case, why hadn’t Vanessa told him?

  She had gone there to do Joanna a favor, found Short standing over Rue. At some point, Rue seemed to have gotten hold of the weapon, but he’d taken it from her. She stabbed him with one of the knives laid out in a creepy line-up in the attic, blades that no doubt would match the injuries of the other victims.

  However, when Vanessa came in through the unlocked door, the gun was on the floor. She admitted she’d picked it up and taken the shots rather than go for her own service weapon. Rue was bleeding. Vanessa had tended to her first and then called 911. Since the pile-up on the highway required lots of personnel, and Rue’s injuries weren’t life-threatening, she had driven her to the hospital. Short was already dead.

  If Rue had managed to turn the tables on Short, good for her. He was worried about her, though, and Vanessa, too. It wasn’t like her to go off by herself like this, and there would be consequences. Why hadn’t she used her own weapon? Vanessa always kept a clear head under fire. What had she been thinking? Who was she protecting? And what if she’d actually done it?

  Killing somebody weighed on a person, even if there was no other choice, and that person was a monster.

  Where the hell was Joanna and why wasn’t she by Rue’s bedside?

  * * * *

  Rue felt lost like never before in her life. Her parents were still in town, and she couldn’t bring herself to ask them to leave. She didn’t know how to handle Vanessa who kept close for some reason—part of her feared that she had bad news regarding Joanna and was waiting for Rue to be more stable before she shared it. The problem was Rue wasn’t sure if stability was something she could achieve, anytime soon, or ever.

  People—mostly Vanessa—kept telling her she was safe, and rationally she knew it was true. Grace Lester who had wanted her dead out of jealousy, would be in prison for life. Edward Short, the man with the knives, was gone.

  Feeling safe was a different story when there were too many shadows, too many facts uncertain. Vanessa said they’d talk soon.

  If Joanna had simply lost interest, it would be the easier reality to accept.

  The time with her seemed like a dream too, a treacherous illusion of hope. Rue didn’t have much hope at the moment. She was busy trying to survive one day at a time, without panicking.

  One of the firms she had applied for had expressed their regret of what happened and rescheduled her interview, even offered her part-time employment if she preferred.

  Rue would have preferred to turn back time to a moment when she could have delayed the flight, stayed with Joanna instead.

  The police might have caught Short.

  The two of them would be…where?

  Chapter Twenty

  “You didn’t shoot Short, and neither did Rue,” Theo said after taking a seat on the barstool next to Vanessa, at The Copper Door. “I can’t prove it, but I know it.”

  He wasn’t sure whether Vanessa wanted to start a new tradition between the two of them, or if she was missing Joanna. In any case, she was on her second Martini.

  “You know it because you’re a good cop,” she said. “The kind I never had to worry about before.”

  He ordered bourbon and waited until Jeff, the bartender, was out of earshot.

  “Are you worried now?”

  Vanessa didn’t answer, instead stared straight ahead into the clear fluid in her glass.

  “Do you ever wonder if what we think is right, really is?”

  “Wow. That’s deep. Do you know where Joanna is?”

  She sighed. “Before you ask any more questions, you should know I don’t want you to get into any kind of trouble. I’m not exactly sure where she is right now, and that’s the truth.”

  He took a sip of his drink.

  “It’s not like Joanna to send you to check out a lead. When she found out that Short had taken Rue…that hit her hard. And she doesn’t give up, ever.”

  “Joanna thought it was better not to bother you, and wasn’t she right? Perhaps it’s time for her to find some peace. Which hopefully means I can too.”

  It was Theo’s turn to be silent, to weigh the odds and dangers of what to say next.

  “When the test results are all in, we’ll learn that Joanna was in the Ellmers house, even though her prints weren’t on the gun.”

  Vanessa smiled.

  “It’s possible we’ll learn that.”

  “That’s what I was afraid to hear. Is she safe now?”

  Vanessa gave him an almost imperceptible nod before she leaned into him.

  * * * *

  “I haven’t seen my daughter in years. I don’t know where she is, and I don’t care to.”

  Detective Allison Kato had to use all her self-restraint not to cringe at those harsh words from Lawrence Mitchell. She felt partly responsible. They had all given Joanna too much leeway. It had been too easy, too intriguing, because she had a way of taking charge.

  If she was in any trouble now, that was on her and Theo too.

  Allison couldn’t help hoping that she’d be on a beach somewhere.

  * * * *

  Rue had decided to take the job offer and start on a part-time basis. Money would be a little tighter, but it was still enough for her, and she wasn’t sure how she’d handle a full workday at this point. She tried to gently convince her parents that they should return to their home after being cramped into her guest room for long enough. She still didn’t dare say that their presence made her feel cramped.

  After her first half day, her mother took her out for lunch, to celebrate a small success.

  “You know, I’m really grateful you and Dad always accepted me. My former boss, Joanna’s dad—growing up with someone like that must be a nightmare.”

  She didn’t even know where that was coming from, now, but her mother was unfazed by the non-sequitur.

  “It never occurred to us to do anything else. He seems…cold. Have you heard anything from her?”

  Rue shook her head, all of a sudden close to tears.

  “No. I don’t understand. Vanessa said she was looking for me, but now no one knows where she is. Nothing makes sense.”

  “She had some troubles of her own to deal with, I imagine. You really liked her, didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know if I was smart or foolish to go for it. Whatever that was, it’s over now. I’m still worried something might have happened to her, though Vanessa denies it, and I haven’t found anything in the papers or on the Internet.”

  “What if she doesn’t want to be found, by anyone—not even you?”

  “Then I’ll have to accept that,” Rue said even though sh
e was far from it.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Freedom didn’t mean the same to everyone. Joanna had a roof over her head, a job that allowed her to make a living, and she hadn’t smoked a cigarette in months. She kept to herself, read a lot from the local library.

  She had formed a friendship with the owner of the inn that employed her to do the books and the occasional odd job around the house for them.

  Here, she was confined to another form of solitude. It wasn’t grey walls that fenced her in, but the ocean, and occasionally, her own thoughts.

  She was lucky, she knew.

  After years of running, denial and raging against her fate, she was coming to terms. The only regrets left were for the people she’d caused pain, but as far as she knew, neither Theo and Allison, nor Vanessa or Kira had faced dire consequences over her disappearance.

  Joanna wasn’t sure how the man who had brought her here, and Vanessa, knew one another. He had to be a contact from long before her days at the IAB. Apparently she trusted him—and he’d come through. The principle was the same as in witness protection, only that Joanna was a witness the police would have liked to talk to.

  In the beginning, anyway.

  With every day, it became less likely they’d come after her, and for what?

  Every once in a while, doubts crept in. What if they had simply told the whole truth? She had assisted her former colleagues in stopping what was an eleven-year killing spree. They couldn’t reprimand or fire her from the department. Should she have taken the risk?

  Joanna wished she could have taken the time to say goodbye to Rue. No, the truth was, she wished she’d never have to leave her—but it was out of her hands now.

  * * * *

  There was an understanding between the two of them that Vanessa had a vague idea of Joanna’s whereabouts, but neither of them would bring up the subject in so many words. Seize the moment. Live. Be happy in a bizarre world. At least Vanessa and Theo were trying.