Killing Ways

‘How is my baby?’ Whom I haven’t seen in four days.

‘She’s beautiful,’ said Janine.

‘How’s Devin?’ said Ren.

‘As happy as ever. Is she not one of the cheeriest people on the planet?’

‘I swear she doesn’t have a bad thought in her head,’ said Ren.

‘Everyone has bad thoughts,’ said Everett. ‘Don’t be idolizing.’

I do idolize, he’s right. Everyone is better than me.

Robbie walked into the bullpen with a stack of files up to his chin. ‘Don’t ask,’ he said. ‘Just don’t.’

‘I’m sorry I missed you last night,’ said Ren.

‘You came out in the end?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ said Ren. ‘We’re going to have to coordinate better …’

She sat down at her desk. Something was tugging at her. Something that had just been said.

What? Idolizing? Bad thoughts?

She opened up Google and stared at it blankly.

Win-win! That’s what it is! Stephanie Wingerter.

Ren jumped up from her desk and went to the file cabinet. She pulled out the file on the rape and murder of Stephanie Wingerter, a twenty-three-year-old meth-addicted prostitute who went by the name of Win-Win. She had disappeared in late June and was found a week later in a shallow grave in Devil’s Head, Douglas County. Ren laid out the photos on her desk. The first was a mug shot – Stephanie’s blank eyes in a skinny, washed-out face dotted with scabs. Her mouth was half-open, showing gaps where two teeth should have been. Her thin, punky blonde hair was a mess, her eyebrows over-plucked.

The next photos were of where she was found, left to decompose in the beautiful July sunshine. Stephanie Wingerter’s face and body had been ravaged by drugs before any killer had gotten near it, but when he did … her right eye socket was impacted, as was her nose, both left swollen and caked in blood. Her upper and lower lips were split, and there was no pale skin visible – it was all shades of blue, purple, red and black. Dried blood darkened her hair. Her throat had been cut. Much of the lower half of her body was burned down to her ankles.

Ren read the autopsy report. Cause of death was exsanguination. Accelerant had been poured on her, post-mortem, then lit.

You poor, tragic soul. Why do some people have to live such miserable lives and die such horrible deaths?

There were photos of a younger Stephanie from before she became an addict, and she was not unlike Hope Coulson: slim, pretty and bright-eyed.

Everyone in Colorado knew who Hope Coulson was. Stephanie Wingerter, visible in life only to those in her shadowy underworld, had scarcely registered in the media. She was the type to be considered a victim-in-waiting by people who could never see her as a young woman struggling to survive or desperately feeding a habit that was never on her list of life’s goals, but was, instead, a marker on a gene.

Ren went through the last photos – what had remained of Stephanie Wingerter’s tiny clothes, filthy, torn and bloodied.

8 (#ulink_2203610f-e7b7-5f5c-ab56-fcd2d3497c2b)

After work, Ren went to visit Misty, and met with Janine for coffee afterwards in Crema on Larimer Street.

‘The sooner I get a house the better,’ said Ren. ‘I miss my girl.’

‘Did she go insane when she saw you?’ said Janine.

‘She did,’ said Ren. ‘It was adorable.’ She stared down at her coffee. ‘I hope she won’t need therapy after me deserting her.’

‘You haven’t deserted her,’ said Janine. ‘You’ve made a major sacrifice, so she can stay in an area she’s familiar with, with someone else who loves her. I visit her, you visit her. Misty is beloved!’

Ren smiled. ‘She is.’ Sometimes, though, I can’t even raise my game to see her. I’m so hungover, I just want to get back to the apartment after work. Or a bar. Or I can’t face getting up early enough to see her before work.

‘Are you being neg?’ said Janine.

Ren laughed. ‘Maybe …’

‘That’s just the alcohol in your system.’

‘Why do we do it?’

‘Because it’s fun.’

Ren let out a breath.

‘Are you OK?’ said Janine. She put a hand on her forearm.

Just tell her.

No.

Do.

‘Thanks for looking out for me last night,’ said Ren. ‘God. I was so wasted.’

Janine laughed. ‘Nooo.’

‘Was I an embarrassment?’

‘No! Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘Ugh. I think you’re just being nice.’

‘No. Honestly.’

‘Look, I just wanted to let you know something,’ said Ren. ‘Not that it’s got anything to do with last night. But … I suppose, I just haven’t told you and now it seems weird after all this time. I’m … bipolar.’ Ugh, still hate it.

‘Thanks for letting me know.’

‘You mean you guessed already!’ said Ren.

Janine laughed. ‘Not exactly. I figured … there was something there.’

‘Something wrong, you mean. When? Why didn’t you say?’