Joe Victim

She makes her way to the ambulance bay. It’s situated near a staff room, where nurses and doctors are sitting around drinking coffee and reading magazines, while the other nurses and doctors are playing nurses and doctors in broom closets and bathrooms. She waits by the ambulances and fiddles around on her cell phone because that’s what people do in this day and age when they want to look like they’re doing something other than stalking or looking alone. She knows what to look for—the ambulance crew that isn’t in a hurry.

It takes five minutes. Then they step out of the staff room. A man and a woman, both wearing paramedic outfits that don’t fit much better than her own. They’re chatting and laughing. They’re not on their way to a road crash or a shooting or a heart attack. They split up and each moves around to one side of the ambulance. The woman is driving. She fires up the engine. Melissa taps on the passenger-side window and the guy winds it down, a good-looking guy in his late twenties who has every chance of living through this if he just does the right thing.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” Melissa says, and flashes him her door-opening smile. “You’re the team going to the courthouse?”

“Yep,” the woman, the driver, says, and she has to be in her midforties and has blond hair streaked with a few grays—it’s pulled back tightly into a ponytail, one of those quickly formed ponytails women make when they’re tired or lazy or don’t give a shit about their appearance anymore. “We’re on duty there all day.”

“Good. I was wondering, can you guys give me a lift there?” Melissa asks.

“Would love to,” the guy says, looking her up and down.

“Not if you’re going there to protest,” the woman asks. “Not dressed in your scrubs.”

Melissa shakes her head. “No. It’s completely unrelated to the Carver trial,” she says, looking at the man who can’t take his eyes off of her. She widens her smile a little more. The woman looks skeptical. The man nods.

“Climb in back,” he says.

She moves around to the back of the ambulance and climbs in. They move forward. About forty yards away is the intersection where the hospital road merges with other traffic. Melissa moves up the ambulance so she’s right behind the paramedics.

“Before we leave,” Melissa says, “can we pull over for a second before we hit the intersection?”

“Sorry, we’re on a tight schedule,” the driver says, not glancing back.

“Does this help change your mind?” Melissa asks, and points a gun at her, then at the guy, then back at the woman. “Right now I want a reason to let you both live,” she says. “But if you can’t give me that reason, then I’ll find another paramedic who can.”

Chapter Fifty-Three

There is blood all over the floor, and there’s some on the wall too. The wall blood is in the form of two handprints, each with lines of blood leading from the palm to the floor, each from a left hand even though I can’t remember either Cole or Ke

Glen and Adam come in. Glen grabs Ke

Ke

I finish up on the toilet and flush it and get my clothes tided back up. I stare at the blood on the floor knowing how easily it could have been mine. There is blood on my shirt that isn’t mine. I take it off. I lie down on my bed. I can still see the look on Ke

I pick up the wedding invitation my mother sent me. There will be no support from her during the trial, and I don’t know why that even surprises me. By the end of the day she will be married. I fold the card in half and tuck it into my pocket. My mom won’t be with me today, but having the wedding invite with me goes some way to making me feel less abandoned. Maybe it will bring me some luck. I start to wonder whether I’ll still have to go to trial today, or whether the events of the last few minutes will keep me here.

I have my answer less than a minute later when four guards come back into my cell. One of them throws me a fresh shirt—at least it’s fresh compared to the one I’m wearing. None of them discuss what just happened as I change into it. It’s almost as if the last five minutes just didn’t happen—the only evidence of it is the blood on the floor and walls, which, I imagine, will be gone when I get back. Santa Ke

They lead me down to the exit, the other prisoners quiet and staring at me out of the slots in their doors. I can’t walk straight from the shock of what just happened—and I can’t walk straight because of the cramping pains in my stomach. This is, without a doubt, what birth must be like—only worse.

I’m escorted to the front of the prison. It’s just like Saturday. The warden is there and Kent is there and Jack is there and a bunch of other assholes are there and I feel like shit. The warden is wearing the same suit and tie and has the same disdain on his face. I’m given laces and a belt and everybody watches me as I thread them into my outfit. The warden looks a

It’s su

“What’s going on?” I ask. “Is the trial already over?”

Kent frowns at me. “I can see why people fell for your act, Joe.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing. Just shut up, okay?”

The stream of cars is leaving and at the same time a van is arriving. It’s similar to the other one, but that one was white and this one is red. It’s dirty and looks a little beaten-up in places and has Whett Paint Services stenciled all over it, along with the name Lenard Whett and his mobile-phone number and a star that says Money-back guarantee. The money-back guarantee on the side of a tradesman van is a dead giveaway that it’s a fake. It comes to a stop next to us.

“Come on, Joe, you know the routine.”