Page 8 of No Mercy In Red

Chapter 8

Connor

At first, Maxine Pochon was just a name on a list of employees, one that I skimmed by quite quickly without a second thought. Gender bias clearly got the better of me, since subconsciously my brain could only fathom a man being behind such brutality, and maybe that’s why nobody had suspected her yet. Naughty Connor for thinking that a woman couldn’t be a fucking badass rapist hunter. She was an assistant at the firm, just someone who just handled paperwork by the looks of things, but the more I looked, the more coincidences started stacking up against her. Every single case involving the missing men had passed through her office, each one filed away by her, carefully noted on the system as‘dismissed and filed by Maxine Pochon’. I decided that I needed to do a search of her, search her name through several databases online and see what I could find. I started with a basic background check, which all came back normal, no incident with the police, no major hospital trips except for one where she had broken her wrist a few years ago. She was quite…boring. Maybe I was wrong, and that it was just coincidence that she had filed all of these missing men’s files at some point. I continued looking into her anyway, just to be sure. She owned her own apartment in the middle of town that was conveniently located close to her work, but she had also inherited a house a few years back. Interesting, why would one woman need two homes in the same town, just a few miles apart.

I pulled up a website that let you look at house prices of previously sold properties, listing every damn property in Canada, going back as far as one hundred years. I typed in the address to the property that she had inherited—last bought in the 60’s, a nice-looking house nestled right on the edge of town—and there was the final piece I was looking for. Conveniently attached to the information of the house, was a floor plan showing me exactly what I needed to see, it had a basement. Just for an extra cherry on the top, when looking back at the file showing her inherit the house, the date at which she had it transferred into her name, was just a mere few months before the men started going missing. There was no way this was just coincidence now, there was no way that each of these things connected so perfectly, that it wasn’t her. What I couldn’t figure out was how nobody else had made this connection so far, how nobody had thought to look into the law firm, into her. But maybe, just like Joe, everybody working on this case was blind to the truth about who these men really were, and the ones that did know, couldn’t connect the dots in fear of being found out themselves. I needed to see her, I needed to watch her, because I couldn’t go to Joe with this just yet. I needed to prove my theory and also find a way of hiding the fact that I found her by connecting all the dots thanks to those videos that I wasn’t allowed to watch. But, I also needed time to understand if this was a person that deserved to be handed over, after all, what she was doing was for the greater good, and who was I to get in the way of that?

So, I began the game of cat and mouse. I looked up the time her office closed at work, deciding I was going to get a closer look. The next day at work was one of the longest I had ever had. My mind was entirely consumed by Maxine, constantly replaying everything in my head from the night before, remembering how those men looked in those tapes, wondering if she truly could be capable of doing that. I practically ran out of work and into my car when I finished, firing up the engine, excited to finally see a criminal mastermind in the flesh. I parked up nearby the law firm, switching my car off whilst waiting for her to finish work. She exited the building, casually placing her headphones in her earwhilst playing with her phone. I stilled, her work ID photo certainly give her justice, she was breathtaking. I shook the thought from my head, nope, not what I’m here for. Once she made her way down the street, I climbed out, pulling up the black hood of my jumper, and followed. I watched as her jet-black hair swayed around her hips when she walked, idly brushing one side behind her right ear, not once taking much note of her surroundings. I made sure to keep my distance, playing the innocent civilian out on a casual walk, not the secret serial killer stalker.

I continued to do this for a few days, watching, figuring out her routine. She just seemed so normal, almost boring, with her mundane schedule of work and home, but with one other stop, twice a day like clockwork, Melinda’s café. I decided today that instead of following her from work, I’d go straight to the café since her walks were always the same. I hadn’t allowed myself to ever follow her inside, just in case it looked too suspicious. I took a seat at one of the tables, nursing a latte as I watched the door, and right on time, she walked in. Today her dark waist length hair was slightly curled, once again the right side pushed delicately behind her ear. I trailed my eyes down her body to her hips that had a curve to them that made men turn their heads, and legs that seemed to go on forever. I glanced back up, getting the first up close look of a face that could either save you or destroy you, depending on her mood. She moved like she owned the world, but her eyes—dark brown and almost siren like— they told a different story. I could see it in them, the way she looked exhausted, the way she looked like she was carrying the weight of somethingheavy. She didn’t glance my way, she didn’t even take stock of the other people in the café. She ordered her drink whilst exchanging small talk with the older woman behind the counter before making her way to the back corner, pulling out her phone whilst placing her her headphones back in her ears. If I was right, if she was the one behind these murders – then she was the most dangerous person I had ever come across in my entire life, someone so ruthless, so brutal.

And for some fucked-up reason, Icouldn’twait to properly meet her.

Chapter 9

Max

I hated my job.

Okay, maybe hate was a strong word, but it wasn’t exactly fulfilling. Filing paperwork, answering emails, dealing with entitled men in expensive suits who often looked me up and down like I was a piece of meat, it was so painfully mundane. It wasn’t like I had a passion for office work, or the law even, the only reason I took the job at the firm was so I could do what my father had done, but in my own way. He had connections, people who helped him track down men like Craig, but I didn’t have that luxury, I didn’t want it. I wanted to do this alone, so I had to be smarter and find my own connections. So, by getting a job at a law firm that specialised in helping victims of sexual abuse, I found an easy way to find my targets. I knew how these things worked, most cases went dismissed, ignored, forgotten, no matter how much the people running these companies wanted to take these men down, there was always someone else willing to stop that from happening. Still, despite it being an easy way of finding my targets, it didn’t make my job any less soul-sucking. There were days I sat at my desk, staring at my screen, wondering what it would be like to do something more. To drop everything and simply disappear, to travel the freaking world. To sit on a beach somewhere with a cocktail in my hand—preferably a sex on the beach—and have zero worries, no legacies hanging over my head. But I knew myself too well, because even if I got on a plane tomorrow,I wouldn’t be able to turn it off. The need, the itch, the compulsion to have to continue the legacy, no matter how much I wanted to leave it all behind. At least my apartment gave me an escape. I refused to live in my dad’s old house, there were too many memories, too much weight pressing down on my chest every time I stepped foot inside. So I stayed in the middle of town, in my own place, close to work and my favourite Café. It was small and cozy, but it was mine. There were no ghosts and no reminders, just me, my oversized couch, and an impressive collection of overpriced candles. My dad had left me a shit tonne of money, money I never even knew we had before he died. I knew we hadn’t struggled for things when I was growing up, but I didn’t know we were rich. Like, rich rich. But I never cared for extravagance, so instead, I splurged on candles and comfy furniture, because let’s be honest, what more could a girl need in life. Five minutes after arriving home from yet another mundane day, with no new cases for me to be able to claim as my own, my door swung open with a bang. I padded out of my bedroom to see Lara flopping down onto my couch, the door closing behind her, her bleach blonde hair falling around her, sighing like she carried the weight of the whole world on her shoulders.

“Jesus, Max, do you ever not light a million candles? It smells like a Bath & Body Works exploded in here.” She crinkled her nose, wafting her hand dramatically.

I smirked, pouring her a glass of wine and handing it to her before curling up on the other end of the couch. “I like my space to smell like vanilla bean and existential dread, thank you.”

Lara snorted, her sea-blue eyes lighting up, “You’re a walking crisis, you know that?”

“Thanks, I try.” I responded, flashing my middle finger at her.

Lara had been my best friend since we were in diapers. She was everything I wasn’t – bubbly, optimistic, able to hold a conversationwithout the urge to make a sarcastic remark. But somehow, we worked, she balanced me out. The yin to my yang, or whatever. She reminded me there was more to life than work and unspoken legacies, she was the one person who could pull be back to this side of reality, despite not knowing that I lived a whole other life she had no idea about.

“We need a night out,” she announced, pointing at me with her perfectly manicured nails. “And before you start with your ‘I don’t do clubs’ bullshit, I’m not taking no for an answer.”

I groaned, rubbing at my temples. “Lara -”

“No,” She interrupted, “Shut up. You’re turning thirty in two weeks.Thirty. And when was the last time you did anything fun? Don’t answer that, I already know. We’re going out. You’re going to get shit faced, and you’re wearing something slutty. End of discussion!”

I sighed dramatically, throwing my head back on the sofa, “I don’t even own anything slutty.” Not true, but those dresses were reserved for luring in my targets, not partying with my best friend.

Laras eyes gleamed. “Oh, but I do.”

That should have been my first red flag.

She grinned, her pouty bubblegum pink lips glimmering with the excessive amount of gloss she wore, raising her glass. “To bad decisions.”

I clinked my glass against hers, shaking my head. “To probably regretting this.”

The truth was, maybe she was right, and that maybe for one night, I could just let go. I could forget about work, forget about my ex, the anniversary of his death, the anniversary of my dad’s deathand forget about the anxiety that constantly ate away at me when I wasn’t murdering lowlife men, because my traitorous brain constantly whispered that I wasn’t doing enough. So maybe, just for a night I could let myselfbreathe. An hour later we were curled up on the couch with a spread of Chinese takeout in front of us. Our monthly tradition of stuffing or faces whilst making bad life choices was in full effect. I was halfway through a dumpling when Lara let out a dreamy sigh, leaning back against the cushions.

“So, I had thebestsex of my life last night.”

I rolled my eyes, dunking another dumpling into my soy sauce. “Oh, here we go.”

“I’m serious, Max. I think I saw God!” She squealed.

I snorted, “Pretty sure that was just lack of oxygen from being choked too hard.”

She stuck her tongue between her teeth, smirking at me with pure mischief dancing in her eyes, “Exactly.”

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