Joe Victim: A Thriller Read Online Free PDF Page A

ones.”
    I don’t answer him.
    “That actually proves you’re not dumb at all, Joe,” he says, carrying on, and he’s really warming up now, really hitting his stride. He even unlocks his fingers. “Actually proves the opposite. That you’re smart. That’s what this test was designed to do. That’s why it’s full of stupid questions.” His smirk turns into a full-blown smile. “You’re smart, Joe, not brilliant, but smart enough to stand trial.”
    He opens his briefcase and puts the questionnaire inside. I wonder what else is in there. It’s a nicer briefcase than the one I used to own.
    “Joe is smart,” I say, and I put my big goofy smile on, where all my teeth show and my face lights up. Only these days it doesn’t light up as much. The scar running down the side of it tightens and my eye droops a little.
    “You can cut that bullshit now, Joe. The test proves you’re not as smart as you like to think you are.”
    My smile drops away. “What?”
    The shrink’s smile widens and I think that’s because he thinks I’m not getting his point, and I’m not, and that’s because he’s not making it. “It was a time test. It helps weed out the guys not smart enough to pretend they really are that dumb.”
    I shake my head. “I don’t understand.”
    “That’s the only genuine thing you have told me,” he says. He stands up and walks to the door.
    I turn in my seat, but don’t stand up. I can’t, because of the cuff.
    He reaches out to knock on the door, but holds back. Instead he turns toward me. I must look pretty confused, because he goes ahead and explains it. “It was a time test, Joe. Sixty questions. It took you fifteen minutes. That’s four questions a minute. Each one of them you got wrong.”
    “I still don’t follow,” I tell him. Surely it’s a good thing that I can be that dumb that quickly.
    “You got them wrong too quickly, Joe. If you were as dumb as you wanted us to think, you’d still be doing the test now. You’d be drooling over it or licking the pages. You’d be thinking really hard searching for the answers. You didn’t search at all. You just answered each one in quick fire succession and that’s where you went wrong. You’re no idiot, Joe, but you were too dumb to figure out what was going on. I’ll see you in court.”
    “Fuck you.”
    He smiles again. His thousand-dollar smile that he’ll practice before being called up to speak in front of a jury, the thousand-dollar smile that won’t be worth a cent after I get out of here and learn where he lives and take that nice-looking briefcase off him. “That’s the Joe everybody is going to see,” he says, and then he knocks on the door and is escorted outside.

Chapter Three
    It’s almost been a year since I was arrested. It’s felt longer. Every day for about a month I was the headline news. There were photos of me on every front page across the country. I even made some front pages around the world. Some were my ID photo from work; some were pictures of me younger, provided by schools I had gone to; and many were of me being arrested and many more were of me coming out of the hospital. Those of me being arrested were all snapped on cell phones. Those at the hospital were taken by reporters who arrived while I was still in surgery. Of course I was on TV a lot too. Footage from the same two events.
    There were requests for interviews that I wasn’t given the chance to accept or turn down. One week after the surgery I stood up in court and pled not guilty and was denied bail and was told a trial date would be set. Photos and footage were taken of me there too. My face was red and puffy, the eyelid purple, there were stitches and patches of ointment and I could hardly recognize myself.
    Then I started making the news only once a week. Other killers came and other killers went, taking up the headlines as more blood was spilled in the city. Then I was yesterday’s news, a mention of me perhaps once a