Joe Victim

Chapter Eighty

Driving is a bitch, but thankfully the car is an automatic, which makes it possible. Hutton isn’t taking his calls. When Schroder calls him, it rings a few times and then switches over to voicemail. He’s not sure whether the detective is busy, or whether he’s deliberately dodging him. He has a pretty good idea which it is.

He knows Hutton’s number from memory, but not any of the others, and because the screen on his cell phone is busted he can’t look anybody else up. He could call the police emergency number and ask to be put through to Stevens, but he knows Stevens would yell at him and hang up without hearing what he has to say. He drives to the church, not expecting to find Joe there, but ready to call the emergency number if he does. If it leads nowhere, then he’ll drive to the hospital.

He’s not expecting to see Joe standing on the steps of the church when he pulls into the parking lot. In fact he has to do a double take, and even then he’s not sure because Joe is wearing a hat, but the woman behind him is definitely the same woman from the prison, the same woman who shot Jack, the same woman who blew up Raphael and tried to blow him up too.

So there’s no point in messing around. He stops the car and leaves the engine running and reaches into the sling for the gun, then has to put the gun down so he can open the door. He gets it open and the gun back into his hand and he doesn’t bother yelling out, he just draws a bead on Joe, but doesn’t pull the trigger because some old guy wanders up to Joe and blocks the view.

A second later Melissa steps out from behind Joe to the right of that same old guy and fires a shot at Schroder. Schroder ducks down behind the door onto the ground as bullets come thumping through the car door. Something tugs at his broken arm, and he looks down to see a dime-sized spot of blood that starts to rapidly grow on the front of the sling.

Melissa stops firing. People are running in all sorts of directions.

He peers around the edge of the door and back up at the church just in time to see Joe and Melissa disappear inside. The old man who was trying to talk to Joe is still standing on the stairs. He looks unsure of what to do. Schroder knows the feeling.

He tucks the gun under his arm and reaches for his cell phone. He dials one-one-one. “This is Carl Schroder,” he says. “I’m currently under fire from two suspects-Joe Middleton and Melissa X. Send backup,” he says, then gives the name of the church and hangs up.

He drops the phone back into his pocket. He still hasn’t called his wife. Why the hell did he keep putting that off? If this were an episode of The Cleaner, then that’d mean he’s about to get shot. That’s how TV works-you start talking about a cop who has a family, and two minutes later that guy’s starfished on the ground with blood running out of him. He points the gun ahead and makes his way out from behind his car. He has a promise that he has to keep.