Joe Victim: A Thriller

“What is it?” he asks, without taking it.

“It’s your chance to live,” Melissa says. “You take that shot, and you get to fall asleep for the next hour. You don’t take the shot and I shoot you in the face right now,” she says, wiggling the gun a little. “Take your pick.”

“Is it safe?” he asks.

“Safer than this,” she says, wiggling the gun again.

“No,” he says.

“If I wanted you dead, I’d shoot you,” Melissa says. “The fact is I need you very much alive, but right now I need you very much out of the way. Now I know you’re confused and scared, so I’m going to give you five more seconds to think about how you’d rather be unconscious than dead.”

“And what are you going to do with her?” he asks.

“She’ll get the same option when I’m done with her,” Melissa says.

“I don’t know.”

“What’s your name?” she asks.

“James,” he says, “but you can call me Jimmy.”

“This is a silencer, Jimmy,” Melissa says, tapping the end of the gun. “I can shoot you both in the head and nobody would hear a thing. I can drive the ambulance myself.”

Her words have an effect. You Can Call Me Jimmy takes the syringe. He rolls up his sleeve and uses his teeth to pull the cap off it, then holds the needle upright and taps the tube to get rid of any air bubbles. He looks like he wants to stab it into Melissa. Instead he puts the tip into his arm and keeps pushing until the needle disappears, then he pushes his finger down on the plunger.

“I don’t feel so good,” he says.

“Climb over into the back,” Melissa says.

“I . . . I don’t think I can.”

“Yes you can. Come on.”

He starts to climb over. He gets halfway then looks up at her. “I don’t feel so good,” he says again, and then proves just how un-good he’s feeling by collapsing.

“What did you do to him?” the woman asks.

“He’s only sleeping,” Melissa says, then drags him all the way into the back.

“What are you going to do to us?”

“Give me your driver’s license,” Melissa says.

“Why?”

“Because I asked nicely,” she says.

The driver lowers the sun visor. Her license is tucked into a pouch up there. She hands it over. Melissa looks at the photograph. It’s five years old. She looks at the name and at the address. Trish Walker. Lives in Redwood.

“This address still current?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, Trish,” she says. “Rather than me explain everything to you, just listen in as we drive and you’ll figure it out.”

“Drive where?”

“You have a schedule, remember? Just stick to it.”

Melissa gets out her cell phone. Trish starts driving. Melissa dials a number that doesn’t exist and then talks to a person who isn’t there. Trish sits at a red light, which ten seconds later becomes a green.

“It’s me,” Melissa says. “Here’s the address,” she says, and she reads out the address from the driver’s license into the phone. “You got that? Now repeat it back to me,” she says, and she listens to nothing as the address isn’t repeated back. “No, I said sixteen, not fourteen. Repeat it back,” she says, knowing the small detail makes it believable. “That’s it,” she says.

She hangs up.

Trish has gone pale. Very pale.

“Okay, Trish, by now you’ve figured out that you’re in a very deep hole, and your children are in there with you. Think of it like this. Think of that hole slowly caving in, there’s dirt all around you, and you have one chance to claw your way out of it along with your children. Are we on the same page here?”

“What are you going to do to them?”

“If you help me? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. You don’t do what I say . . . well, then it gets interesting.”

Trish nods. Melissa glances behind her at Jimmy. Not too many places to hide an unconscious body, but she can make do. First she just has to strip him out of his uniform. She’s going to need it.

“I want you to tell me we’re on the same page,” Melissa says.

“We’re on the same page,” Trish says.

“Good,” Melissa says, “because we’ve got a few things we need to discuss on our way. And you can start by giving me your cell phone—best you don’t have it, because something like that in the wrong hands is only apt to see that hole of yours get a whole lot deeper.”





Chapter Fifty-Six


The police escorting the empty van are nowhere to be seen. It’s like a ghost being escorted into town. Except it’s not. It’s some kind of decoy van. There must be a crowd of people outside the courthouse. The police must be expecting trouble and are sneaking me through a different entrance. We reach the edge of town. Then we’re closer to the center. We can hear people. Lots of people. We’re on the one-way system heading toward the courts.