Joe Victim: A Thriller

“Can I?”


He stops nodding, the glow of the dashboard turning his face orange. The heater is slowly starting to warm up. “When Angela was killed,” he says, “I wanted to die. I wanted to buy a gun and put the barrel in my mouth and kiss the world good-bye. Losing her was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through,” he says, and for a moment Melissa thinks of her sister. “Soon after she died, me and my wife—well, often a marriage can’t survive that kind of thing. And ours was one that couldn’t. There wasn’t much that kept me going. But I came to realize I wasn’t the only one. Others were suffering too. I thought maybe somehow I could help them. But not a day goes by when I don’t dream about killing the man who killed my daughter. And there are other Carvers out there too. Other men taking away our little girls. This group, it’s at least something,” he says, “but the truth is if I could form a group of vigilantes to watch over the city and clean up the trash, I’d do that too. I keep seeing it, like something out of a western, you know? A group of do-gooders riding into town, you know, gunslingers. John Wayne types. Clint Eastwood types. But I can’t do that. Can’t make that happen. But what I can do is help you. I’m on borrowed time. Just waiting for something to make a difference. Something to live for. And that something is to kill Joe. I don’t care about my life. My life ended last year. This support group is like life support for me—it keeps me ticking, it keeps me breathing—but I’m not alive, not really, I’m just holding on. Killing Joe will bring me peace, and once I have peace, then I can let go of everything around me. I can . . . I can die happy. So please, Stella, tell me you have more than just a plan. Because if you don’t, all I have are my dreams. I will do what it takes. Absolutely what it takes.”

“Can you use a rifle?”

“I’m sure I can figure it out. Is that the plan?”

“When it comes down to it, are you going to be able to pull the trigger?”

Raphael grins, the grin turns into a smile, and then he holds out his hand to tick off his points. “I have two problems,” he says. “The first problem is I want Joe to be able to see me. I want him to know who I am. So shooting him with a rifle from a distance doesn’t sound like my kind of thing. I’ll do it, if that’s all there is, but I’d rather be up close. I want to see the life drain out of his eyes. I want my daughter to be the last thing he thinks of.”

“And the second problem?” she asks, and she knows he’s going to tell her it’s about suffering and torture. Of course it is. Suffering, torture, and a good dose of payback.

“The second problem is I want him to suffer. A bullet in the chest means he won’t suffer for long. So if that’s your plan and there’s no way to modify it, then that’s your plan and I’m on board, but if we can—”

She reaches out and touches him on the forearm. “Let me stop you right there,” she says, “because my plan will solve both of your problems,” she says, and this couldn’t have gone any better. It’s fate. Gotta be. It’s fate and her ability to see something in people that others can’t see. It’s come from experience. It was a steep learning curve that started the night her university professor tore her clothes off her.

“Trial starts Monday,” he says. “Is that enough time?”

“We have three full days,” she says. “That’s just the right amount of time we need to make sure this happens.”





Chapter Twenty-Three