Hunters

  The neighbor pressed a piece of paper into her hand. “I’m Graciela. Call me if you need anything.”

  “That’s so kind,” Jen clasped her hand.

  “It’s a little selfish,” Graciela told her. “I just retired and I’m a little bit bored.” She smiled sweetly.

  Jennifer laughed and thanked her again. She also thanked the detective and promised to call them if she needed anything. But in truth she never expected, or planned, to see him again.

  ***

  Sherry sat down next to her husband on the sofa and put her hand on his knee.

  He looked down, and then back up at her. “Uh oh.” He said. “What now?”

  She leaned her head on his shoulder. “How long are you going to stay angry with Monica?”

  “As long as it takes,” he said. “Do you see why I don’t want you fixing her up with Sara? She could have gotten herself killed.”

  “I understand, Ben. I’ll table the idea for a while.”

  He grunted. “That was too easy,” he said suspiciously.

  “What kind of trouble is she in?”

  “Nothing official. Nothing she did was technically illegal, just very, very ill advised. Even unofficially, though, it’s going to negatively affect her career for a while. She’s got to toe the line. She’s going to have to be ten times better than anyone else just to be seen as an equal.”

  “Are her fellow officers making her life difficult?”

  “Pfft,” he waved his hand in the air, “some of ‘em think what she did was heroic.”

  Sherry leaned away and looked at him. “And you don’t?”

  Ben was quiet for a long time. He finally sighed. “The way she handled herself after she got embroiled in the situation was… okay. But getting herself into that mess to begin with was unacceptable.”

  “Is she alright?”

  “She’s having a hard time after seeing that Carrasco woman blow her brains out right in front of her.” He shrugged, “to be honest, Sherry, I don’t know what’s going to happen to her.”

  “A little support from you might go a long way, Ben.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “There’s something else I want you to think about while you’re at it.”

  He shook his head vigorously. “I knew it! I knew it wasn’t going to be that easy.”

  “Remember when I asked you how you’d feel if I introduced Sharon to Doug?”

  “Aw, shit, Sherry,” he put his head in his hands.

  She laughed at her husband. “She’s coming for dinner on Friday evening.”

  ***

  At the suggestion of her captain, Monica Martinez had opted to use some of her leave time. At the stringent suggestion of the department, she had opted to seek counseling for her involvement in the suicide of Olivia Carrasco.

  Judy’s best friend was a therapist who had agreed to arrange her schedule to see Monica for five sessions during her two-week vacation. Monica wasn’t sure what a therapist could do to help erase the images of Livi’s suicide from her mind, but she was grateful that everyone was going to such lengths to accommodate her.

  Without her job, she had little to occupy her brain, and had spent a great deal of time dwelling on the night that Livi had died. She had played the scene over and over, seeking an answer as to what she should have done differently. It disrupted her ability to think. It disrupted her ability to focus. And it disrupted her ability to sleep. In the end, Monica had concluded that with the deputies only seconds behind her, Livi would have most likely chosen to take her own life whether Monica was present at the scene or not.

  Reaching that conclusion, however, did not stop the scene from playing again. Nor did it help Monica sleep any better at night. She wondered if driving down to Atascosa County and talking to Nora Carrasco would make her feel better. Monica thought it might be of some comfort to Nora to know that when she died, Livi was neither afraid, nor uncertain of her decision.

  Monica had also thought that paying a visit to the rescued Jennifer Golden might lift her spirits. Seeing something tangible that Olivia had accomplished, and seeing a once terrified hostage, alive and well, sounded like more than any counseling session could ever promise. For the sake of whatever career she had left, she decided that staying in her apartment, and out of trouble, until it was time to go spill her guts to Dr. Ivy, was not just the best choice, but the only choice she could make.

  Detective Sherman called to check up on her every few days. Though she couldn’t be completely honest with him about the jumble of emotions that ran through her every five minutes, it was a wonderful feeling to be connected to someone in the department. It was even better to get occasional updates as information came in.

  It turned out that the owner of the property, Wade Jansen was Malcolm Cole’s great uncle. He was the brother of Cole’s maternal grandmother. It was a wonder that Judy had been able to connect the two of them at all, and no surprise that she hadn’t been able to get any further than she had.

  Remains, presumably Jansen, had been found in a shallow grave under one of the derelict vehicles that sat rusting behind the house. There were no overt signs of foul play in Jansen’s demise. No notification of Jansen’s death had ever been made, thus Jansen’s social security, and retirement pay were still being direct deposited into his checking account every month. Someone, presumably Cole, had been regularly spending the money via a debit card in Jansen’s name. Had he survived, the list of charges against Cole would have put him away for a long time.

  The list of charges against Livi would have put her away for life. Ballistics from the slugs retrieved from Cole’s body were a match in the deaths of at least two other serial abusers. Monica had been right all along. There was a vigilante. And it was Olivia Carrasco.

  Monica knew she had good instincts. She thought that she might make a good detective someday… if she ever got out of patrol division.

  17

  At her first appointment, the ophthalmologist had cleared Jennifer to drive. On her drive home, it made her feel less guilty for having driven herself to his office. When she arrived home that afternoon, she returned a call to Detective Jones who had called to let her know that she could retrieve her .38 Special from the department at her convenience. She called and told him that with Malcolm no longer a threat, she no longer had need of a weapon. She asked if the police department would please dispose of the gun for her.

  She hadn’t yet been cleared to return to work, nor had she the desire to do so. She spent most hours of the day and night, wandering through her house, alternately checking locks, and peering out of windows. She barely ate, and when she slept, she had nightmares. While she was awake, she was plagued with visions and memories of Malcolm Cole. Though he was dead, he was alive and well inside her head.

  When her pain level had become manageable without narcotics, she had considered switching to wine, or over-the-counter sleep aides to help her get through the night. Both the alcohol and the pills made her feel groggy. And feeling groggy reminded her of the night that she had succumbed to the drug in her pitcher of tea, the night Malcolm had come for her. The sleep aides had gone into the trash, and the wine had been corked for future consideration.

  In the end, the only thing Jen derived any comfort from was the memory of Olivia blasting a hole in Mac’s body. When she could not sleep, she ran through the scenario of Olivia’s arrival, and Mac’s subsequent death, over and over again. She tried not to embellish the scene, as she wanted to remember it exactly the way it happened. It was the moment that Jennifer had been truly liberated. It was the first moment of the rest of her life. She knew that she would get past her anxieties and live a full, productive life. It was the best way that she could think of to honor Livi’s sacrifice.

  Using that vision to comfort herself, she started progressing. She checked the locks less often, she slept a couple of hours a night, she started taking stock of her life
and thinking about her future. She decided that it was time to sort through and clear Malcolm’s crap out of her garage.

  She pulled the heavy door up just enough that air could get in, but not enough that anyone larger than a cat could enter the garage. She shoved the handful of boxes that had belonged to him to one side and began going through them. She had the lids of her garbage can and recycling bin open and was chucking items into each can as she went. Occasionally she found something that might be useful to someone, and set it aside to donate. At the bottom of the second to the last box, she found a medium-sized, hard-sided travel case.

  Inside the case, she found the essence of Malcolm Cole, or, rather the essence of who Malcolm Cole had wanted to be. The case contained a tactical knife, a pair of handcuffs, two hand guns, a variety of holsters, several boxes of ammunition, and a very neatly folded jail guard uniform and cap.

  Jennifer sat staring into the open case for a long time while memories of Livi battled with memories of Malcolm. When she’d had enough, she closed the case, picked it up by the handle and took it inside. After forcing herself to eat a protein bar she went back to her living room, lifted the case onto her coffee table and reopened it.

  She withdrew the light blue guard shirt and let it unfold in front of her. There was a round patch on each sleeve, and a shield shaped patch on the left front chest, identifying him as a guard. A nameplate was pinned above the shield shaped patch. It said M. Cole. She stood up and put the shirt on. It was a size too large for her.

  Jennifer removed the nameplate and took it to the kitchen trash. She rummaged through her catch all drawer and found a pair of scissors. Back in the living room she carefully removed all of the identifying patches from the shirt. She put it back on, buttoned it and pulled it back at the sides to see how far it would need to be taken in to be wearable. She hadn’t used her sewing machine in over a year. There would be some trial and error involved.

  She pulled the dark blue pants from the case and held them up to see if anything needed to be removed from the pants. Satisfied that they were unmarked she turned her attention to the cap, which boasted the same shield shaped patch she had just removed from the shirt. She picked up the scissors and went to work on the patch.

  That night, Jen slept almost four hours.

  In the morning she went to a store that sold used and refurbished computers. She paid cash for a small laptop that was no more than two years old. She drove to a strip center and carried her laptop into Starbucks. She ordered a large coffee, tucked herself into a corner, connected to the free wifi and started researching a variety of topics. When she had accomplished what she needed, she turned the computer off, dropped it into the trunk of her car and drove home. She repeated the ritual daily, each time in a different coffee shop. A week later, Jennifer felt that she had learned what she needed to know in order to take the next step in her new life.

  ***

  In the middle of a warm summer afternoon, Jen left the house in her altered uniform and a dark blue, unlined windbreaker. She was wearing light tan gloves and sunglasses with yellow lenses. At a distance, the gloves would look like bare hands, and the lenses helped conceal the remainder of the bruising around her right eye and cheek. She was carrying a cardboard shipping box, and a hand drawn map. Her mobile phone was turned off and stored in the center console of her car.

  Without even having to consult her map, she made her way to, and through a less than savory side of town, to the dead-end street she was looking for. The street ended at the bank of a small creek bed, and was blocked by a metal guardrail.

  She made a U-turn at the end of the short street and pulled up in front of a small, dirty, white house. Even in a neighborhood where the houses were poorly cared for, this one stood out as being the worst of the bunch. The house next door had been demolished, the debris left where it had fallen. The yard between the two properties was filled with so much refuse that it looked like a landfill dumpsite. The yard on the other side was overgrown with brush and weeds.

  Jennifer scanned the area. Satisfied that no one was around, she tucked the shipping box under her right arm and stepped out of her car. She pulled the blue cap down over her forehead and headed for the front door.

  The man who answered her knock, looked her up and down upon opening the door. “What can I do for you,” he leered.

  “I have a delivery for John Derrick.”

  “That’s me,” he patted his chest. “Who’s it from?’ He asked with a little suspicion in his voice.

  “It’s from Malcolm Cole.”

  Derrick narrowed his eyes at her. “Cole’s dead.”

  “This was found among his possessions. It was clearly meant for you.”

  Intrigued, Derrick swung the door open.

  Jen reached into the left pocket of her windbreaker and quickly withdrew a small .38 semi-automatic. She pointed it at his chest. “Hands behind your head, Derrick.”

  “What the fuck?”

  “Hands behind your head,” she barked.

  He complied. “What is this?”

  “Back up,” she said, waving the pistol at him.

  He took two steps back. “Are you a cop?”

  “No. I’m a delivery girl.” She smirked and stepped inside the disarrayed house. Cole wanted you to have this, but he also told me all about you, how you tend to treat women. So, I’m not taking any chances.” She closed the front door behind her. “Keep moving backwards.”

  There was a mismatched grouping of furniture in the center of the small living room. A sofa and two chairs surrounded a coffee table that was covered in ashtrays, beer cans, and porn magazines. Derrick backed up until his legs bumped one of the chairs. “If you really are here on Cole’s behalf, I would never hurt you,” he said with what sounded like sincerity. He started to lower his hands.

  She stepped closer to him. “Hands behind your head. This is your last warning.” Using the delivery box, she shoved some of the debris on the table aside and set down the package. She bent slightly and opened the flaps of the box.

  He was watching her with rapt attention.

  She reached into the box and pulled out a larger gun than the one she held in her left hand. She held the revolver up with the barrel pointed at the ceiling. “This is for you.”

  His eyes grew wide. “A gun? For me?” In his excitement, he started to lower his hands again.

  “Hands,” Jen said.

  He put his hands back behind his head. “Unregistered?”

  She nodded.

  “Awesome. Why does it have a plastic soda bottle taped to the barrel?”

  “That’s a homemade silencer,” she said.

  His glowing eyes met hers. “Even more awesome. Does it work?”

  Jen pointed the gun at his chest and pulled the trigger.

  Derrick dropped to his knees.

  Jennifer was pleasantly surprised by how little noise the gun had emitted. “Yep,” she said, “it works.”

  Derrick slumped to the floor. A pool of blood blossomed beneath him while his lifeless eyes stared up at her.

  Jen placed both the semi-automatic and the revolver with the blown apart soda bottle stuck to it back into the delivery box. She reached into the pocket of her pants and pulled out a tiny digital camera. She leaned down and snapped a photo of the late John Derrick. She tucked the camera back into her pocket and the package back under her arm. She turned the thumb lock on the doorknob, and closed the front door.

  That night she slept like a baby.

  18

  In the morning, Jen made herself scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast. It was the most she had eaten in months. It felt good. She felt nourished and rested. She felt at peace.

  She grabbed an overnight bag and stuffed a change of clothes into it. She went to the bathroom and grabbed a toothbrush, and all of the medications she’d been taking, both over the counter and prescriptions. She locked her
door and got in the car. With the help of a little research and her GPS enabled smart phone she made her way through the city and into Atascosa County.

  Nora answered the door and stared at Jennifer through the screen door. She folded her arms over her chest.

  “Is there anyone else here?” Jen asked.

  “No. I moved everyone along when I heard the news about my sister in law.

  “Olivia saved my life,” Jen said.

  “I’m aware of that,” Nora’s voice was flat, but even through the screen Jennifer could see the grief in her eyes. “Is that all you needed to say?”

  “I’m sorry that she took her life. I don’t understand the decision but I respect that it was her choice. I just don’t think her work was finished.”

  “As far as Livi was concerned,” Nora conceded, “it was never going to be finished. It was always going to end this way.”

  “I came up with a way to honor her sacrifice.” When Nora failed to respond, Jen continued. “Did you hear about that dead girl in the park? The one who was tortured and all cut up?”

  Nora nodded slowly.

  “Before Livi shot him, Malcolm told me who killed that girl.” She reached into the outer pocket of her overnight bag and pulled out her little digital camera. She pushed the button to turn it on. “His name was John Derrick.” She held the screen of the camera up so Nora could see the photo.

  “Was?” She opened the screen and took the camera. After seeing the picture clearly, her head jerked up, her eyes searching Jen’s eyes. “You?”

  “I’m not trying to take Olivia’s place. I just want to help complete her work.”

  Nora stepped aside and held open the door to her home.

  ###

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