Hidden Sanity

Chapter 13 - Misled

The sun shone brightly this morning, good enough to oppose the cold weather.

Alice went to work with her hair tied up. She looked extremely gorgeous. She didn't fail to catch Joe's attention. He walked his way to her station right away.

"Hey, Alice, What's up?"

"Hey!" She turned around from her rotating chair.

"You free to talk to me?"

"Oh, that one. Sure, hang on." ,she said sweetly. Too sweetly. She fixed some of the folders in her table, compiled it and put it on the corner. When she was done, she said, "What do you have with you?" She leaned forward, resting her head in her hand, her elbow propped on her messy table.

He sat on a chair beside her. "I kind of had a hint about Kinley's purpose."

There was a silence after. Alice seemed to be out of herself out of the blue.

"Alice, did you hear me?"

"That son of a bitch is just making me so out of my routine. He's the reason why I can't work well these days. Can you fucking believe it?"

"What about the word?" It was Joe's attempt at a joke. He had given up a boost and she'd given up her favorite swear word. They had both agreed that such language wasn't good.

Alice smiled, reached out and adjusted the cups on her table. She shoved them away from her elbows. She's really into coffees. "I'd like to get some information from you about all of it. You see, the media and the FBI never told me much." She took a breath. "I talked to Kinley's friend in the prison, and he said that Kinley was indeed looking for a girl even when he's still in there. Then I got chased when he's out. Didn't you see the correlation?"

"Holy shit." he muttered without thinking. He grimaced. "Pardon my language."

She laughed a husky laugh that seemed laced with an odd mixture of relief and sheer terror. "It's OK. My promise to myself was to cut down the use of the f-word. It's my favorite word, right after ice cream."

He found himself chuckling with her. "So how you doing on that promise?"

"Not as well as I was. Not since I found out about Kinley."

"Me either. The state victims' services somehow screwed up. Gladly, the internet fed me the whole thing to study about it. Why didn't the police know that it's possible to do that rather than going on it personally?"

"You couldn't catch a suspect through the internet though. They couldn't just study all the time. Sometimes they need a plan of attack too. Also, a girl just disappeared a week ago..."

He scowled, his nutball alarm going off in his head. "So?" he wanted to say. Sad fact was, girls were kidnapped every day. What did that have to do with Kinley?

"I know," she said seeming to hear his thoughts. "Girls disappear all the time. Except that this girl was still on search until now and Kinley was suspected in the crime."

"And you think Kinley kidnapped this girl? Where is he nowadays? He's not killing anymore." He didn't mean to sound so cynical—it just came out that way. Maybe because he was so damned cynical.

If she took offense, he didn't hear it in her voice. "Maybe it has something to do with the rehab, he's rehabilitated, right?" She muttered.

"Exactly."

"He has precisely the right attitude. Everyone deserves a second chance to kill." Her tone equally biting.

Against all reason, Joe liked this woman. She was tough, gritty and clever.