Instinct, p.1
Instinct, page 1
INSTINCT
DEADLY JUSTICE BOOK 2
JAMIE GARRETT
COPYRIGHT AND DISCLAIMER
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2023 by Jamie Garrett
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. All requests should be forwarded to jamie@jamiegarrett.com.
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CONTENTS
1. Drew
2. Ash
3. Drew
4. Ash
5. Drew
6. Ash
7. Drew
8. Drew
9. Ash
10. Drew
11. Ash
12. Drew
13. Drew
14. Ash
15. Drew
16. Ash
17. Drew
18. Ash
19. Drew
20. Drew
21. Drew
Also by Jamie Garrett
Acknowledgments
About the Author
1
DREW
I grimaced as I poured myself yet another cup of the coffee. Despite its bitterness, I’d need the energy to get through the rest of my shift. I took a tentative sip, doing my best not to gag on the flavor. I couldn’t believe they got away with calling this sludge coffee but I refused to put any more sugar in to offset the taste.
I wasn’t an idiot. A big reason I was offered this special assignment was because I was one of the few women at this precinct with any sort of rank. I didn’t care. It was about time my boss noticed what I was really capable of and this assignment—any assignment with extra duties—was something where he could do exactly that.
So, what did I end up doing? I wasn’t offering any input into the case.
I had thought I’d be investigating the scandal of the year. Bob Wheeler, Chicago’s biggest philanthropist turned human trafficker. If that wasn’t enough, it turned out he’d sucked some of Chicago’s finest into his web, relying on some of the city’s most senior politicians and police to cover up his crimes.
In hindsight, it all made sense. How else could he have kept everything hidden for so damn long? In reality, it meant we were left with a police force in tatters, an interim chief who didn’t know his head from his ass, and everyone else scrambling to fill the gaps and find their place. And in the middle of all that, there were ten scared women to try and protect and interview to find out what exactly happened to them when Bob Wheeler tried to smuggle them out of the country to god knows where.
The most exciting thing I got to do was the paperwork that no one else wanted. No one else wanted to sit there and make sure every report was perfectly correct. I was guessing that mostly no one else wanted to be responsible when the case finally went to court. Witness statements were a tough one but I had to read them. Then, adding on chain of custody forms, incident reports, and search warrants. Wheeler had his finger in so many pies they seemed never ending.
At first, I daydreamed about finding the crucial piece of evidence that had somehow been overlooked, but it quickly became clear that wasn’t going to happen. Instead, I was looking through timesheets and records that neither my colleagues nor my boss had deemed relevant but still needed to be checked. It was tedious at best, but with each document it became painfully clear that everyone had majorly dropped the ball when it came to the Bob Wheeler case and now it was people like me, the lackeys of the department, who were paying for it.
I did get some time away from the paperwork. The perfect job for a senior female officer, or so I thought. Some of the women were scared of men, freaking out when tall agents in dark suits came near them. Even those who were coping with the adjustment seemed uncomfortable. I was tapped to help, to liaise between them as someone the victims could trust. Instead, here I sat for the whatever night in a row—I’d lost count at this point—a glorified babysitter. I shuttled the women from their protective custody to the precinct and then back again. Just driving the car, I wasn’t even trusted to actually protect these women. That would have been a duty worth something. But the feds were the actual bodyguards. All I got to do was drive the car. While the actual interviews were taking place, I got to sit outside the room in the hall at the hospital and wait.
I was stuck there. The only highlight was the occasional glimpse I got of the psychologist the department was working with. Ash something-or-other. Dark hair, built like he had more time than he should to spend at the gym—at least those small glances when he came in and out of the office gave me something to enjoy every couple of hours. I tapped my foot and my eyes wandered across the room. It was just a pity the rest of the time was as boring as hell.
I turned, walking across the room and gazing out the window, taking in the Chicago skyline in front of me. Tonight, things had been switched up a little and the feds had brought one of the women to the precinct, setting up in the conference room, the shrink arriving soon after. My charge had been talking quietly in the room with the psychologist hottie for at least an hour, but showed no sign of being ready to leave. My shift was over hours ago and I technically didn’t have to stay given she wasn’t “off campus” but I still felt obligated. Besides, it gave me some quiet time to think. The squad room was so damn loud during the day you barely got a second to yourself.
The psychologist was great at his job, I’d give him that. I’d watched these women change over the last few weeks. When they were rescued, they were confused, wary, mostly just scared out of their minds. God only knew how long some of them had been held before finally being moved to transport, or what they’d been through in that time.
Being a cop, you come to learn some things that regular citizens never need to think about. I was glad it never had to cross their minds because I definitely had trouble sleeping for several nights after I learned what Wheeler had done to these women. Apparently, most traffickers have a rule not to harm the “merchandise”. You leave it untouched, virginal. Wheeler didn’t operate that way.
I placed my coffee cup down on the nearest desk, hard enough that some of it sloshed over the edge as the urge to retch suddenly overtook me. The desk’s occupant jerked backward and I hurried to apologize and turn away before they could see the look on my face.
Even then, the thoughts of what happened still got to me. I didn’t know what was worse, the unwritten rule or what Bob Wheeler did. He didn’t believe in keeping the women untouched. He believed in breaking them in, literally. He wanted to remove all resistance, all sense of self, so that when these women went to their new masters, they would willingly take any form of sadistic or sexual abuse that was meted out. No questions, no resistance. He and the assholes that worked for him would have already beaten and raped that out of them.
I stalked back across the room, suddenly full of angry energy. Jail wasn’t good enough for that bastard. I could only hope that somewhere in the cellblock he ended up on would be the brother, the husband, even a cousin or childhood friend of one of the victims. Someone that would take care of him the way he did these women. That was what he truly deserved.
My fingers found the necklace at my throat. My St. Michael necklace. My parents gave it to me the day I graduated from the academy. It was a simple medallion, small and on a long chain, worn tucked inside my uniform and so invisible to anyone else, and yet just knowing it was there brought me peace some days. In that moment, rubbing my fingers over the engraving was enough to calm the rage building inside me. It distracted my brain and brought me back to the present, to what I was supposed to be doing. As much as I’d have loved to be a part of the team that brought Wheeler down, it wasn’t meant to be. But I could still play a part in making sure he was put away for good.
I tucked the necklace away and walked the other way, toward the desks where the department detectives sat. It was where I want to be—where I should have been. I’d been on the force five years and tested more highly than some of the guys whose butts sat on these chairs here. But the corrupt dick of a captain that was in charge of this department before all hell broke loose…well, let’s just say if he was sheltering a human trafficker, as the charges alleged, it wasn’t much of a stretch to imagine him passing over a female candidate for detective in favor of his male buddies.
Frustrated, I half leaned, half shoved my colleague Sean's desk out the way. I couldn’t help but spot a file he’d left open on his desk. I should have just walked away, left it there, but it was as if it had been left open just to tempt me. At first, I couldn’t make it out, it was just weird notes and symbols, but then the pieces of the notes started to come together and make sense. Bomb threats!
Someone h ad been sending in bomb threats to the department and I hadn’t heard a single thing about it.
This was no joke.
I slammed the folder shut, not wanting anyone to catch me peeking at its contents and strode away.
But then another thought hit me—this could be my chance to prove myself. If I could find out who was sending in the bomb threats and put an end to it, then I’d be noticed for all the right reasons. I’d be pulling yet another late-night babysitting gig at the hospital tomorrow. I’d “borrow” the file, copy it, and have it back in the morning before Sean even noticed it was gone.
It was time to get to work.
2
ASH
I strode through the hospital doors, my shoes clapping loudly against the tile. I had been working tirelessly to help a young victim of the smuggling ring, and was desperately in need of a break. Nothing should shock me anymore. I should have lost any sense of surprise after just a single year in this job, and yet how young some of these women—no, girls—were made me sick to my stomach if I stopped to think about it too long. More than one was only thirteen or fourteen years old.
I forced my mind from the topic, my gaze landing on a view that gave me something entirely more pleasant to think about, the figure of a woman sitting across from me. She wore a police uniform, the fabric hugging her body while she fluttered through piles of paperwork. This had to be Drew Callisto.
She had made her rounds around the station, but we had never spoken. She exuded confidence and power, an aura emanating from her even though she was a lone figure in an empty hospital break room. Despite it being a professional environment, my mind couldn't help but wander to thoughts of dinner dates with this beautiful powerhouse of a woman. Usually, I found it easy to read people, figuring out what they were thinking within seconds. It was what made me so good at my job. But Drew Callisto was a mystery to me. What were her thoughts? From the intensity in her eyes, I had a feeling she’d be able to see through me and read my secrets?
Shaking my head and briefly clearing my mind, I returned to reality and the chaos that it brought with it.
As I trained my focus on the woman in front of me, the electricity of her gaze zapped me in an unexpected moment of fear. Her unflinching eyes had seen enough and it felt as if I were under some sort of x-ray, as if she could see straight into my soul. But her tender acknowledgement gave me a chance to break away, to divert my gaze and examine the papers that had taken over the table in front of her. Copies of unofficial documents, grubby and torn.
My eyes scanned the secrets of her work before my brain had time to intervene.
“I am a man who is fueled by righteous indignation and an utter sense of injustice,” read one scrap of paper. “She died not due to any fault of her own, but due to the careless and reckless actions of others,” I read further. My expression changed when I came upon the last piece of paper. “I have the means, the materials, and the knowledge to set off a bomb, and I will do so if my demands are not met.”
My brow furrowed with worry as the words sank in. “Threats? You've been receiving bomb threats?”
Drew eyed me coolly, her features giving away nothing. My nerves lit up with excitement and terror at the same time as our eyes collided. Rather than being able to tell what she was thinking, this time I was in the spotlight. It was as if she could see right through me. After a few seconds she looked away, yet not before giving me a knowing nod in affirmation. “Yes, we’ve received a few threats as of late,” she stated flatly, her tone unwavering.
“I’m a forensic psychologist and I’ve been helping the police with the trafficking case. Maybe I can be of help?”
Drew examined me closely, like she was deciding something about me.
“Okay, it could be beneficial to have another set of eyes in on this. But first, can you find a decent cup of coffee anywhere in this place? Black, no sugar.”
I felt a shiver go down my spine as she turned back to her intense study of the papers covering the table. I couldn't help but feel a sense of awe at Drew's intelligence and confidence, and I suddenly found myself wondering what it would be like to be the sole subject of her attention in a whole other, more intimate way. I pushed the thought to the back of my mind, sure that she would somehow sense it if it was still there when I returned.
It seemed to take the coffee vendor a million years to make two cups but it was probably more like only ten minutes by the time I was back in the break room with Drew. She took a sip and then started speaking immediately.
“I've been struggling to determine if these threats are serious or if they’re just someone trying to stir up trouble. I'm going to suggest we step up security around both the women’s safe house and the hospital as a precaution, just in case the threats are related, but I'm still not sure what to do next. Maybe you can help me out,” she said.
I thought for a moment, then nodded. “I think you always need to take this seriously. Until you know for sure, you can't rule out the possibility that any threat is real.”
Drew looked at me, a small smile on her face. “Thank you. I think you’re right. I’ll make sure the captain is aware of your advice.”
The hours passed quickly as I surveyed the huge amount of material Drew had gathered on the threats. Along with the notes, she had police reports of similar prior incidents, even psychology reports on common behaviors of arsonists and grassroots domestic terrorists, guys like Timothy McVeigh, who ended up blowing up a federal building and killing 168 people, tragically including nineteen children. My heart sank as I couldn’t help but relive the whole incident in my head all over again. I was only in high school at the time but I’d never forget it. Could we be dealing with another terrorist just like him? God, I hoped not. Just the idea chilled me to my core.
It was when we were on our fifth cup of coffee and I’d wrung all I thought I could from the material, for now anyway, that we decided to call it a night. My brain was mush, and yet I didn’t want to leave. The idea that I was walking away from Drew was unbearable already. “Listen,” I said, my voice low given the hour was well into the early morning, “I’d like to see you again, perhaps in an, um, less serial killer-y setting.” I paused for a moment and the corner of her mouth tipped up. At last she wasn’t rejecting me entirely. “I’d love to grab coffee with you again, somewhere else—just the two of us—and learn more about you, find out what makes you tick.”
Drew sat back in her chair. Crap. That was not a good sign. “I’m sorry, Ash. You’re a great guy, and I appreciate the help here, more than you know.” She gestured over the papers. “I hope you’ll continue to help. But I need to keep working this right now. No distractions.” A rueful smile filled her face. “Even personal ones.”
I returned her smile even though my heart felt sunk, which was ridiculous, really, over a relationship that hadn’t even begun. “It’s okay,” I said. And it was. “I get it. I want this guy off the street as much as you do.” I stood, scrubbing my hand over my face again. “I’m done for tonight, though. I don’t know how you have so much energy. Call me and we can arrange to meet up and discuss this again.”
She nodded. “Sure. I’ll talk to you soon.” Her head was back down again in the papers by the time I reached the door.
I’d barely flopped into my bed at four a.m. when my phone rang. I looked at my cell and the number for Drew’s precinct was staring back at me. For a moment, I thought she’d changed her mind about spending some personal time together after all, but then I realized that wouldn’t have happened. She was far too professional for that.
