Them

Prologue It had been twelve years since Janelle Stone was freed and made rich due to getting off on technicalities, among a few other things, much to most people's dismay. The delusional woman had been promised a “deal.” The violent, hateful woman had punched her probation officer's best friend to death, albeit without knowing he died in the end. Furthermore, she had violently ended a welfare mom's pregnancy and was suspected of killing and nearly killing a couple of family members on her ex-husband's side. One woman was assaulted in her home and suffered a miscarriage because of it, and was still in a coma. Another—the pregnant woman's mother—appeared to have fallen into a pool and drowned, but even though the woman couldn't swim, Janelle was a suspect in her death. Janelle was the kind who hated law enforcement until she needed it. She reached out to her PO in desperation when she was able to sneak to a phone while held hostage in a cult compound after attempting to abscond. A breakup with her husband provided the perfect getaway excuse for Janelle, who ran with a friend who had a minor drug charge in the past but was nonetheless forbidden from Janelle's circle per orders of her probation. They ran from New Mexico to Texas in her friend’s car, with Janelle claiming she hadn't realized her friend was driving her so far from home and that she was led to believe she would return home that same day. Anyone who knew better and could put two and two together would know that there wasn't enough time in a day to make the drive over and then stay a while to visit some of her friends’ friends before returning. Yet Janelle claimed she didn't look at a map and trusted what her friend told her. She said the friend, before she was killed in the compound, wasn't very bright and may have underestimated the time. Yet this friend supposedly had made this trip before. Despite her predicament and the poor health Janelle was in, most people found it hard to feel sorry for her. In order to make it easier for them to deal with her while in the hospital recovering from her injuries acquired in captivity, along with ongoing health issues like diabetes, she was told the remainder of her probation would be scrapped in exchange for her testimony against the cult members. The story they gave her for their constant presence was that a few of them were still at large, and she needed to be protected because they wanted to hunt her down and silence her from testifying. The real truth was that Janelle would not be allowed to testify because she was an ex-con. Also, she would be charged with absconding, refusing to pay all her probation fees after citing she was made late to appointments due to her PO and therefore charged a fee, and involuntary manslaughter of her PO's friend. Knowing this wouldn't put her away for life, they hoped and prayed that the woman she had beaten into a coma would awaken and point the finger at Janelle. Then everything fell apart. A hotshot lawyer was able to pick apart their case bit by bit. The 12 to 15 years they hoped they could at least get for Stone suddenly dropped to zero. Not only that, but it made her wealthy by 5 million dollars. Her probation officer and the officers who guarded her—with Janelle believing they were protecting her—were furious. But somehow the lawyer was able to convince the DA that it couldn't be proven for certain that Janelle had been absconding when she and her friend were ambushed. Nor could they prove that she had known about her friend's minor drug offense or that she had anything to do with her husband's family members. To make matters worse, it was deemed that the guy she had punched and accidentally killed was not only just that, an accident, but he approached her first in a threatening manner, and Stone was simply defending herself. As for her former PO, Boris Brownly, he had gotten too close, was unethical, and never should have been allowed to be one of her hospital guards. He was too personally involved, which made him appear to be seeking revenge—not that there wasn't more than a grain of truth to that. So off Janelle went with her millions when she was 41 years old. Chapter 1 Twelve years later, Officer Lauren Gilbert’s wife, Heidi, of ten years, and her seventeen-year-old son headed out to work and school. “Enjoy your day off,” Heidi told her. “I will,” Lauren replied, exchanging a kiss before they left. She planned to spend the day fixing a leaky sink in one of the bathrooms but mostly relaxing with good books, Netflix, and junk food. Unlike most women in their forties, Lauren was naturally thin and could eat whatever she wanted. Her quick metabolism was helped by the fact that she enjoyed jogging around the neighborhood for twenty minutes or so most mornings. First, she decided to check her emails. Pouring a cup of coffee, she carried it to her laptop, still clad in blue plaid flannel pajamas. She took a few sips and made herself comfortable, then logged into her account. Among the usual junk scam messages from probable Nigerians and a note from her sister sharing vacation photos, there was one email that immediately caught her attention. More than that, it made her pulse quicken. The sender’s name was Janelle Karma. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up as she opened the message. Are you ready for me?it said. Many criminal experts had warned that, even though Janelle Stone had managed to walk free in the end—with quite a payout—she might someday seek revenge on those who had deceived her while she had been recuperating in the hospital. Stone wasn’t the type to forgive and forget and took most everything personally. Lauren had worried at first, not so much for herself but for Heidi and Heidi’s son, Timothy, who had become like her own child. She almost laughed, remembering how Janelle had once assumed she was staring because she liked her. In truth, Lauren had already been seeing Heidi for months by then and couldn’t have been more disgusted by Janelle’s appearance and personality if she tried. The staring had actually been a way to remind Stone of just who was in charge and to show her she wasn’t in control and couldn’t escape law enforcement and the consequences of her actions. The presence of law enforcement had quadrupled in and around Stone’s hospital room after she’d shoved her probation officer off the ward. But Stone was delusional. She convinced herself that the authorities were there to shield her from cult members still at large, even though all of them had either been killed or arrested. What she really wanted was solitude and privacy—something law enforcement refused to give her. The police clashed with medical staff, who argued that added stress wasn’t good for her, but no one cared about her comfort. She was dangerous, delusional, and law enforcement wanted her to pay for her crimes. Sadly, the woman she had beaten into a coma recently died without ever waking to identify her. Still, there was the drowning death of her mother, suspicions about other attacks, and video evidence of her assaulting her PO’s friend, who had died later. Even if Stone hadn’t meant for him to die, a man had still died, leaving behind his wife and kids, and this left most people furious. It didn’t matter that he had approached her first. He hadn’t actually struck Stone, just waved his hands teasingly in her face when Stone failed to “divorce” her PO, whom she insisted was obsessed with her. After learning more about Stone and the cases surrounding her, Lauren believed that yes, the PO had been a touch obsessed and a little unethical, but that didn’t excuse her killing a husband and father. Even if she hadn’t meant to do it and didn’t even know she’d done it. So her getting off on some stupid technicality infuriated her just as much as others. Lauren stared at the email, dumbfounded, then contacted the police department in which she had been promoted to detective a handful of years ago. The county’s tech team would need to trace its origin. That shouldn’t be difficult, she reasoned. Janelle Stone was angry, dumb and reckless, not clever. It was a miracle no one had seen or heard from her in over a decade. Everyone had expected she’d land in some kind of trouble within a year of release and be locked up again. Instead, she had vanished off the face of the earth. With each passing year, Lauren had grown more confident that Stone wouldn’t try anything. Confident enough that she believed she could handle her, if it came to that. Still, she feared for her wife and child. How the hell had Janelle gotten her email address? She’d even used her middle name, Elise, to make it harder for any criminals from her past to find her. Because of Stone’s stupidity, she almost wondered if it was a crazed fan of Stone’s pretending to be her. That was always a possibility, after all, though not likely. A linguistics expert could probably tell. She was surprised by the email and definitely caught off guard, but not worried at this point. She trusted the tech experts to track Stone and believed that Stone would be arrested once the emails became threatening. She figured that was the next step. Criminals usually escalated, after all. She wondered to herself if she should mention it to Heidi, and supposed she should. They’d always been open with one another and she expected more from Janelle; therefore, she wouldn’t want Heidi to be caught off guard. She needed to be warned to be more alert and aware of her surroundings. The same went for their son. Lauren reached for her phone and called the department. When she hung up, she quickly got dressed and prepared to turn her laptop over to the team. After they had retrieved the laptop, she closed the door to the house behind her and exhaled a long breath. “OK, Miss Stone,” she muttered. “This time you’re not getting off with five mil, whatever your game is.”