Exit Strategy Read online

  “This doesn’t come with a guarantee.”

  “A change of odds is enough.”

  Was it? Rue had suppressed parts of the traumatic experience, but she remembered the man, Edward Short, a serial killer wanted for more than a decade, pushing her down on the frozen ground. Thinking of a self defense class she’d taken, none of the lessons coming back to her. This time had to be different.

  “He didn’t rape me, though I’m not sure that was never on the table. This…was more his thing.”

  Zach’s eyes widened slightly when she lifted her shirt and showed him the faint, but visible scars on her stomach.

  “Ex boyfriend?”

  “Notorious serial killer.”

  “When can you start?”

  Forcing herself back to the present, Rue continued, “Bad day. I needed to get this out of my system.”

  “I heard the police arrested one of the guests. That must brought up some stuff. I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, me too. Thanks for making time. See you.”

  He touched her shoulder briefly, a familiar, friendly touch. Rue straightened and turned to leave, hoping Joanna would be waiting for her outside the gym.

  She wasn’t.

  * * * *

  Much to her credit, Dr. Shepherd had warned her about the bad days. Rue had brushed her off, because wasn’t she an expert already? How much worse could it get than waking up screaming, in a cold sweat? First the hospital, then her own apartment. She couldn’t stand to have people around her, even her parents and Vanessa, and she couldn’t stand to be alone. For a while, she had managed to dull down her overactive senses, some of it prescribed medication, some of it self medicating…until Vanessa made her the offer she couldn’t refuse, and wasn’t it a good thing she hadn’t?

  A bad day on the island wasn’t the same, because they were surrounded by beauty Rue had only seen on TV and the Internet before. Because Joanna loved her, enough to give up a life with her when she thought it was what she needed to do, enough to welcome her here when it became an option. Nature was healing her. Being with Joanna was healing her, but what if it all came to an end today?

  Joanna had broken up with her before, that one time, because Rue had kept secrets.

  Where would she go if she couldn’t stay?

  She had to find Joanna. She had to find the right words.

  * * * *

  Joanna wasn’t home. Rue went back to the inn, wandering around its grounds looking for Joanna without any success. Was she still angry? Did she have reason to be? Vanessa had asked Rue how attached she was to her life in the city, before making the offer. It wasn’t Rue’s fault that Joanna wasn’t in touch with her parents, or that they didn’t care.

  Denise’s office was closed, so Rue went back to the lobby, and for some reason that eluded her, she stepped into the elevator, taking it up to the second floor.

  The two men with the large suitcases made her feel crowded, even though they barely seemed to notice her. Perhaps she’d find Joanna with Tamara, checking up on her, because…Her day had to be as bad as Rue’s, if not worse.

  Rue went to knock on #217, encountering another closed door.

  When she walked back to the elevator, she realized that the door to 213 wasn’t closed. Leave it alone. It was her first impulse ever since she’d made it out of that horrible place, ever since she knew that she’d live. Curiosity had killed more than the cat. Alexandra had probably left already, and a maid was cleaning the room. None of her business.

  Rue knocked on the door.

  “Hello? Alexandra? Are you in here?”

  No answer. She gently pushed the door open and went inside the room, freezing at the sight. Her own scream jolted her out of her paralysis, then Rue reached for her cell phone with trembling hands and called for an ambulance.

  Chapter Six

  A chunk of time was missing from her memory, once again. Rue recognized the signs, the fog in her mind, the persisting nausea. She had thrown up already and was currently trying to make her stomach cooperate as she lay on the sofa Denise kept in her office.

  Joanna sat next to her, her hand softly brushing over Rue’s forehead.

  “This feels good, but don’t stay to close. I don’t want to throw up on you.”

  “You’re going to be okay.”

  Between the touch and the warm tone, Rue could almost pretend that their earlier argument had never happened. Regardless, she needed to know.

  “You’re still mad at me?” she asked.

  “I’m not mad,” Joanna assured her. “We need to talk about these things…but not now.”

  “You’re not going to kick me out?”

  “What? No. Are you sure you didn’t pass out and hit your head?”

  Rue started laughing until she realized Joanna’s question was serious.

  “No. No, I didn’t. Farrell, is he…?”

  “Dead, yes. I suppose someone didn’t want him to talk.” Joanna shook her head. “What was he doing there anyway? He wasn’t supposed to get out yet.”

  Rue had no answer for her, so she blurted out the first thing that was on her mind.

  “My head hurts.”

  “I can imagine. You were pretty sick. I’m so sorry. I imagine the police will want to talk to us—again—and we can take it easy for the rest of the day.”

  Whatever that meant.

  “I’m sorry. It’s all my fault. I should have never gone in there.”

  Upon a closer look, she realized Joanna looked pale and worried.

  “None of this is your fault. Now that that’s out of the way, did you see anyone? In the elevator?”

  Some of the events from the cabin had never broken through the fog. Despite her headache, Rue realized that Joanna’s calm questions were triggering fractions of memories. She’d been lost in thought, for some reason almost ducking into the wall…

  Rue bolted upright on the couch, feeling like she was on a shaking boat, about to be seasick. She managed to hold back the impulse.

  “Not in the elevator. They were in the hallway. Oh my God. It must have been them!”

  Before Rue could ask about Alexandra and Tamara, Denise entered the room with two cops, a man and a woman.

  “These detectives need to talk to you,” she said tersely.

  Rue wanted to disappear. Everything she had accused Joanna of, she had brought upon them as well. She assumed that her video chats with her parents still were the least of their problems.

  * * * *

  “Thank you for your time. We’ll be in touch.”

  Even Rue recognized the standard phrase that meant they weren’t entirely off the hook.

  She hadn’t mentioned the argument, of course, but described how she’d passed by the two men, and, a moment later, found Farrell’s body.

  “I thought Joanna might want to check up on Tamara.” She cast Joanna, who hadn’t left the room, an apologetic look. The cops didn’t seem to mind her presence. It was the only reason Rue was still hanging on. “When nobody was there, I wanted to go back, and I noticed that the door of 213 was open. With everything that happened before…It was stupid to go in, I know.”

  “You couldn’t know if there was still danger,” the female detective acknowledged. “Can you describe the men?”

  “White. Burly. Late forties, I don’t know. They didn’t say anything.”

  “And you said they both had big suitcases?”

  “Yes. Have you talked to Tamara? Or Mrs. Farell? Was she ever even married to him?” Rue noticed that her words had come out in rapid succession, and she forced herself to take a breath.

  The cops exchanged a meaningful look. Rue didn’t know what to make of Joanna’s expression.

  “They are both missing,” the male detective said. “At this moment, we assume that the men who killed Mr. Farrell, have taken them.”

  “Rue saw them. She described them to you. What are your plans for her protection?”

  “I don’t need any of that. They could have
killed me in the hallway if they wanted to.” Rue could barely believe the words that were coming out of her mouth. The day had gone from bad to so much worse within hours, she found it hard to contain the whiplash—or hold anything back.

  “No, you’re right,” the male detective said to Joanna. “We’ll assign an officer.”

  “When?”

  “They’re waiting outside. When we’re done here, they’ll go with you.”

  Joanna nodded, obviously satisfied with the answer. Rue wasn’t sure she was.

  “And then what, they just hang out everywhere we go? The island isn’t that big. I’m sure that whoever killed Farrell, is on a plane or a boat already, trying to get out. Isn’t that where you should concentrate your efforts?”

  She half expected them to laugh at her, but no one did.

  “We have called in help from the mainland. Your safety is our priority.”

  “What about Alexandra and Tamara?”

  “We’ll find them,” the woman said with a grim determination that felt comfortingly familiar to Rue.

  If Joanna was okay with this, she had to be, too.

  Rue wished they could do more for them. Without words, she knew that she and Joanna were on the same page.

  * * * *

  The officer, a man in his late twenties, followed them in the car when they went grocery shopping. This was as much an attempt at going back to some sort of normal, as it was a necessity, Rue had realized when she’d looked into the fridge.

  They’d cook and eat at home tonight, perhaps offer the young man some of that grilled chicken with pineapple and mango.

  “There was a moment when I thought I could never eat again,” she confessed.

  “It’s been a pretty rough day.” This had to be the understatement of the year. “We still need meals. The police will handle it from here. They seemed competent, don’t you think?”

  “Did they ever tell you how Farrell got out?”

  Joanna’s gaze hardened. “He got a lawyer pretty quickly, and they couldn’t prove he knew that Alexandra was a trafficked woman. Until they find them…We’ll it’s too late for him now.”

  Delusion, death. It seemed like they could never get away from it for long. Rue’s stomach lurched and settled again.

  “I try not to think about it. But…”

  “Yeah,” Joanna said simply when seconds ticked by and Rue didn’t finish the sentence. They had to wait when a flock of sheep was crossing the street, and Joanna took her hand. “I hope the police find them soon, but this is not about us. We’re safe.”

  To her utter amazement, Rue believed it, and it had little to do with the twenty-something year old officer in the car behind them.

  * * * *

  Officer Thompson accepted the meal with genuine thanks, but declined the glass of wine Rue offered out of politeness. He checked in with his colleagues at regular intervals. No news so far.

  Rue went back to the table she and Joanna occupied in the corner of the terrace, and poured some wine for both of them.

  “Like you said, it’s been a rough day. Let’s say everything we need to say, and move on? I’m sorry I kept a secret from you, and I broke a promise. I hope you believe me. It will never happen again.”

  “I know.”

  Her emotions were still close to the surface. If it wasn’t for the officer sitting a few feet away, Rue’s reaction to Joanna’s quiet reassurance might have been a different one.

  “We’ve been kidding ourselves, haven’t we? To think there might be a safe place, anywhere in the world? The moment you care about someone, safety is out the window. It’s an illusion.” It might be the wine talking. It might be the cold hard truth. The fact that Joanna needed more than a few seconds to answer led her to believe it was the latter. What were they, then, jaded, or naïve?

  “We are still safe. It will all go away.”

  “Did Decker go away? Or Short? I don’t know. I’m sure though that Tamara felt safe, until the moment she saw Alexandra with that man.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know the answer. There’s no one hundred percent guarantee.”

  “Oh damn. Now you sound like Zach.”

  Joanna laughed softly. “That’s not a bad thing? He’s okay.”

  “Maybe I don’t like to be reminded of my limitations,” Rue said, though she had to smile too. “How messed up would it be if I wanted to go back to the museum tomorrow? Is it horrible to want to have a reasonably good day while other people are in danger?”

  “It serves no one if you let it overwhelm you.” Joanna cast a look at the policeman who had gotten up to check the perimeter. “Prison was like that sometimes,” she continued. “I felt like I was wasting my time being inside when I could have been arresting criminals. Part of it was…Guilt, I guess. The other part, ego, to think there wouldn’t be anyone doing the job just as well. We have told the truth, we have given them everything we could. I’m sorry if your question got lost in there somewhere, but no, it’s not horrible to want to go to the museum. It’s a privilege, but not horrible.”

  “Maybe he’ll enjoy the art too.”

  “Maybe.”

  * * * *

  Strange how the same painting, the same sculpture, could hold an entirely different meaning on a different day. The last time they’d walked around these rooms, Rue had felt happy and light. Now she saw some of her own pain echoed in the artists’ voices, in details she hadn’t noticed before.

  Joanna was right. What happened didn’t negate the progress they’d made before. For sure the local police had a lot on their plate right now. Her new life with Joanna still was priority.

  They stopped at the café once again, and this time sat down with their coffee, Officer Thompson at a table close by.

  No one had tried to bother or follow them. What she’d blurted out in a moment of bravado or frustration probably held true: The men were gone. That part was a relief. The part where Alexandra and Tamara might be with them, not so much. Except if…

  “Remember when Tamara told you to hold off on talking to the police?”

  “Yes,” Joanna said. “She thought they might deport them.”

  “What if that’s the reason they’re gone? Maybe no one took them, but they ran away together?” Rue was warming up to the theory, getting excited over it in a way that might be premature.

  Joanna sat up straighter. “You think they might have to do something with Farrell’s death?”

  “They wouldn’t be the first women forced to take matters into their own hands, would they?” Think, before you talk. “No, that’s not what I meant. Perhaps there’s no relation. They took off. Farrell’s contacts wanted to take care of loose ends.”

  Joanna’s gaze was apologetic, almost sympathetic, and it wasn’t until then that Rue noticed the holes in her brilliant theory. If it happened to be true, the two women might have the police and a couple of murderers after them.

  “Oh God, that was really naïve of me to think there could be any good to this, wasn’t it?”

  “Not naïve. Perhaps a bit too hopeful.”

  Rue made a non-committal sound. “That’s a kind way to put it. Thank you for indulging me today…and every day.”

  “Told you why. Seriously. You came to be with me. This is more than anyone could ask…I’ve thought about this a long time. I think—”

  The waitress brought the cake and coffee they had ordered.

  “What do you think?” Rue asked, feeling that an important moment just had been interrupted.

  “I’m incredibly grateful for you,” Joanna said. “That’s all.”

  * * * *

  The day passed without incident. Before they were about to go home, late in the afternoon, Thompson got a call.

  “Good news,” he said when he got back to them. “One of the men has been caught on the mainland. They think it’s safe for you now.”

  “What about the other?” Joanna asked the obvious question before Rue could.

  “The search
is still on, but they assume he’s laying low. I’m sure they’ll find him.”

  “Well, thanks, anyway.”

  “That was a bit anticlimactic,” Rue said when they were in the car.

  “Fine with me. They are making progress. That’s a good sign.”

  Rue wondered if Tamara and Alexandra appreciated progress, wherever they were, and decided it wasn’t a fair response. Life hadn’t been fair to them, or her, or Joanna. Considering, she and Joanna had done pretty well with they deck they’d been dealt.

  “It is. I hope they find them soon. I’ll call Dr. Shepherd tomorrow. I think I need to see her.”

  “That’s a good idea.” When Rue shrugged, Joanna elaborated, “You’re taking care of yourself. It’s not easy. Believe me, I know.”

  “You’d like to come?”

  “No. But I’ll wait for you downstairs.”

  Rue decided this was a subject for another day. “Okay.”

  Back home, they went out on the deck. Rue had picked up a paperback, and Joanna went inside to mix cocktails for the two of them.

  Before, mysteries had been her choice more often than not, but in recent times, Rue had found solace in romance. Perhaps it was that she so desperately needed to believe in happy endings.

  She was on her feet an instant later when she heard the breaking glass.

  Chapter Seven

  “Don’t shoot!” Alexandra pleaded. Joanna sighed in relief as she lowered the gun. She had arranged for it early on during her stay on the island, but only recently started to carry again. She had hoped she’d never have to use it. Most of the time they’d been living here, she’d even forgotten about it.

  Rue was in the kitchen a second later, brandishing a vase she set down with a curse when she realized who their visitor was.

  “I’m really sorry,” Alexandra said. “It turns out I do need your help.”

  “All right. Let me clean this up and we can sit down and talk. I assume there’s a reason you’re hiding from the police.”

  “I don’t know if I can trust them. I trust you.”

  Tamara had said the same thing. Joanna wondered if they didn’t put far too much faith in her. Didn’t they realize how limited her options were? She was glad Alexandra seemed unharmed. But what could they do for her?