girlsolo | [For Druitt, Auggie, Annie] Jan 14: there's gonna be a reckoning, there's gonna be a chase

The Big Cheese tells her to get lost. Not in so many words. Oh, he'll help look for Joan. Get people out looking for her, but it's only been a day, Miss Freelander. She's probably just lost on the island somewhere. People go missing all the time, Miss Freelander. There's just not enough evidence, Miss Freelander.

So Druitt's got scratches on his arm, Joan's handkerchief and earring in his pocket. She's missing. He's a known serial killer with a taste for blondes but that's not enough to keep him locked up and interrogate him. Fuck.

Kate stalks out of the IPD Office after Druitt. She knows she should let this go and go look for Joan. Find Declan and Buffy and other-Kate and some of the other girls, Steve, and get Nikola to keep an eye on Druitt. That's what she should do. But Kate Freelander's still never met a bad idea she didn't like.

And when she sees Druitt strolling the hallways, putting a little clip in his step (to look for Joan, who is his friend, he says), Kate has to follow him. She just has to.

She corners him again headed to the second floor. The caves. "What'd you do? Stash her in the caves wrapped up in some laundry?"

*
Title lyrics from Thea Gilmore's Heads Will Roll

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"Kate thinks that she knows me," John said, leaving it as simple as that for the immediate moment. He didn't have the patience to explain himself to yet another person, at least not at length. Especially when it was unlikely that they would believe him.

"Joan and I had tea together last night. Heading into the cafe she slipped and grabbed my arm, scratching me."

He might've been able to shrug off hearing he had something of hers, if that was the only problem with the story. It was possible, it could make sense. The real pit of concern came with what she said after that. About him (and he believes her immediately if she's throwing accusations around like that, she isn't the type that'd do it without a reason), and about scratches.

The story is a little too convenient.

"What happened after she scratched you?" he asked, already having to keep his emotions in check. It wasn't hard to imagine a lot of bad outcomes to this.

"We had tea," John said. He hadn't raised his voice yet, but his words were clipped and his tone made it clear that his patience was rapidly running out. He was tired of going through these questions.

"The head of the Police Force has my entire statement. If you would like to waste more time with questions, you may address them to him. If you will excuse me, I have a missing friend to try and find."

Something is very, very off about this. He can feel Kate tense beside him, and it gives him a pretty clear picture just how much she doesn't trust him. And if she doesn't trust him, he has to assume there's a reason on top of everything else.

And it makes him sure of the fact he needs to hear exactly what he claimed happened from him, especially when it's entirely possible it's the last thing Joan did. There was no way he was going to accept hearing it secondhand, when all the proof he could need might be in that. He's gotten to be very, very good at being able to tell when someone was lying. That he was getting irritated at the apparent 'gall' of him demanding to hear what happened only serves to make Auggie irritated, too. He isn't going to be cowed from getting the answers he's looking for.

"You don't think she's my friend, too? And I've known her a hell of a lot longer than you have," he replies, his tone sharp and his voice raised, stepping closer to him so he's definitely in the guy's face. He isn't going to let him leave, not when it's entirely possible he knows exactly where she is and is aiming to get back to her before they have a chance to find her. "So no, you're not excused yet. I want to hear about everything about the last time you saw her from you. You should be thankful I'm giving you the opportunity to explain it to me voluntarily, because those scratches on your arm are making you look awfully guilty."

"I don't know who you are, boy, but I'm not beholden to you or anyone else on the island," John said, staring down at him. If the young man had hoped to intimidate John he was going to be sadly disappointed. He also wasn't going to take this anymore, he had been harassed enough over this.

"If you wish to try and detain me, you're welcome to spend the next several hours or so in a cell for assault while everyone else is doing something useful and looking for Joan. The choice is yours."

It doesn't take her long to track Auggie down. As far as she knows, there are only two places she can consider when it comes to searching for him, and she knows he's been out looking for Joan, but the plan had been to head back to the Compound when he'd finished, so it's where she looks first. The sound of raised voices, one of them Auggie's, is all the indication she needs to quicken her pace, rounding the corner a little faster until she can come to a stop, nudging in behind and a little to the left. Her hand comes to rest against the inside of Auggie's elbow, fingers curling around his arm.

"Auggie." Her voice is quiet, but audible. She can feel the tension in his arm under her hand, more of it brimming to the surface with each passing second. "Let's not do this." Her gaze finds Kate's on the other side, and she nods slowly, with a small press of her lips. "Not here."

There's some part of Auggie that knows pushing this further isn't going to help. That part is drowned out by how much the guy was making him want to punch him. He was already worried enough to feel like everything in him was coiled, just waiting to strike out.

His hand is balled into a fist by the time he realizes Annie is there beside him, feels her hand on his arm. It's enough to make his raising anger falter a little, and he nearly swears under his breath, because of all the times she could show up, it had to be now. He didn't want her to see him like this. Still, it didn't get rid of the reason why he was demanding answers in the first place. "He might know something. We can't just let him leave. What if -"

He trails off, teeth gritting. The sensible part of him comes back in full force, because he knows she has a point. This is only going to get him thrown in jail, and he's definitely not going to find Joan there. That doesn't mean backing off is a particularly easy thing to do, knowing full well he could be letting someone go that both knew where Joan was and was the cause of her disappearance.

John saw the young man's fist balled and knew that even if he wasn't going to throw a punch, he was incredibly angry. It didn't deter John in the least though, especially knowing that he was in the right and he had nothing to do with Joan's disappearance. Fortunately for everyone's sake, the woman arrived and seemed to have a calming effect on the young man. They were obviously the two colleagues that Joan had mentioned to him.

"Everything I know I have told to the police or to Kate," John stated again. Already his patience was on edge and he didn't want to see what would happen if the man took a swing at him.

"Neither of them can find reason to detain me and I'm weary of wasting time answering questions when I could be searching. You are welcome to waste your own time, but no longer welcome to do so with mine."

With that said, John turned on his heel and headed into the caves, hoping to find Joan before something happened to her.

Kate's going after Druitt. That's not even a question. But she knows the caves better than he does. She can catch up in a few minutes. Annie's pretty and blonde and the last fucking thing Kate wants is to give him a reason to remember Annie as anything other than the nice girl that got Auggie away from him. She's a civilian, works at a museum. Even if she's got self-defense training and Auggie to look after her, it's not a fair fight if Druitt comes after her and Kate's just not putting anyone else in his path.

If, and she mentally stresses the if, he's not lying and he didn't hurt Joan, there's nothing to say he won't snap another time. No new targets. That's her M.O. right now. That and making herself the one he goes after.

She gives a small nod to Annie as Druitt turns to go then mutters, "Self-righteous SOB," in a tone that sounds more like exasperation than any real worry. Letting out a sigh, she tucks her hands in her pockets and adds, "As much as I'd like to pin this on him, and trust me, I totally would. Nothing would make me happier than to see his creepy bald ass behind bars. But I don't think he knows more than he's telling and neither does the IPD. We should probably make some kind of plan to divide up the island and search for Joan instead of wasting time on him. He won't talk unless you want me to hold a gun to his head and even then he probably would just call me a sociopathic bitch and tell me to enjoy my time in jail."

[For Druitt, Auggie, Annie] Jan 14: there's gonna be a reckoning, there's gonna be a chase

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