The point was, she’d done these kinds of sting operations before. She’d even been wired before. So tonight shouldn’t be any different.
A slurred, whispering voice from the past answered her question clearly.
Don’t be a goddamn tease!
Katie took in another deep breath and let it out.
This is no different, she told herself. No different.
Do your job.
Katie heard the sound of approaching footsteps. She glanced up. A man jogged lightly in her direction from the north. Katie looked away.
“Someone’s coming,” she whispered into the microphone taped to her chest.
She kept her eyes averted, hoping to lure him in. A confident woman won’t look away, but a victim would. So she stared into the water, watching him approach on the edge of her vision.
He trotted closer. Fifteen yards now.
It can’t be this easy, she thought.
Her hands were ice cold and slick with sweat.
Ten yards.
“Nice night,” the man said in a pleasant voice, his breath only slightly quickened from his exertion.
Katie looked up.
His eyes were on her.
She took in his face, his eyes, his frame. She figured he might be a habitual jogger and had great wind. That’s why no exertion in his voice. Or he was the Rainy Day Rapist and only started jogging a block away.
He continued to meet her gaze as he came closer.
Five yards now.
Katie didn’t answer him.
He smiled.
Katie popped the clasp on her ugly purse. She slid her hand inside and wrapped her fingers around the handle of her Glock. The cold, hard plastic gave her little comfort.
Three yards.
Two.
One.
And he whisked past her.
Katie watched him go. She realized that she’d been holding her breath and let it out in a whoosh.
“Goddamnit,” she muttered.
The jogger glanced over his shoulder at her, then shrugged and went on.
“Who tries to pick up women while he’s out jogging at night?” she said, staring after the retreating jogger in amazement. “What is he, Giovanni’s brother or something?”
Katie released her grip on the Glock. She hesitated, then left the clasp unhinged as she turned to walk away from the footbridge. With an effort, she forced herself to walk without any confidence. To accomplish this, she hunched her shoulders forward and shuffled her feet. She picked a spot on the path just a couple of yards ahead of her and stared at it while she walked. Every once in a while, she glanced up nervously, then returned her gaze to the ground.
Where next?
A quick look told her she was at a fork in the path. North led through a wooded area beside the YMCA building. That path eventually flowed out of the park to a parking lot next to the River City Flour Mill, an historic building full of shops that Katie was pretty sure would never sell anything as grotesque as the purse she was hauling around Riverfront Park.
Turning east would lead her toward the clock tower and under the Washington Street Overpass. Beyond that was an area known as the Lilac Bowl, a grassy hillside bordered by bushes and some trees on the north.
Katie paused, shuffling to a stop. She wondered where an aggressive rapist might lie in wait. Where might he strike?
She glanced to the dark path through the wooded area to the north. Images of Phil and the sound of his slurred voice came unbidden into her mind. She tried to brush them aside, but his voice kept whispering in her ear-
You liked it. Don’t forget that.
— accusing her. She felt pressure against her lips, reminiscent of his hand clamped across her mouth.
Katie felt her breath quicken. Sweat dampened the nape of her neck. She breathed in through her nose, but instead of the clean smell of river air and damp grass, the only scent that filled her nostrils was the ghostly aroma of Phil’s rum-coated breath.
She stood at the crossroad, unmoving.
2129 hours
Tower peered through the binoculars at MacLeod.
“If she goes north, my vision will be obscured by those trees,” he told Officer Paul Hiero.
“That’s all right,” Hiero told him, eyeing her through the rifle scope. “I should be able to pick her up with the night vision pretty well.”
Tower picked up his radio and keyed the mike. “Ida-409 to Adam-122.”
O’Sullivan answered immediately. “-22, go ahead.”
“She’s at the fork just north of the footbridge.”
“Which footbridge? There’s about seven of ‘em.”
Tower frowned, but Sully was right. “Near the carousel,” he transmitted. “If she goes north, we’ll have a limited view of her from here.”
“Copy. You want us to move?”
Tower considered for a moment. Then he pressed the transmit button again. “Not yet. If we lose sight of her, I’ll let you know. If that happens, you two get down to the wide bridge that leads to the Flour Mill. If she’s not on the bridge, come south and find her.”
Sully replied with a brief click of his mike.
Tower looked over at Hiero. Dressed in all of his SWAT regalia, complete with his baseball cap turned backward, he reminded Tower of every cliched version of a SWAT officer that Hollywood had ever created. He considered humming the TV theme song, but instead raised his binoculars back to his eyes.
Katie still stood at the fork in the pathway.
“Come on, MacLeod,” he whispered. “What are you going to do?”
2130 hours
“You think Tower’s an asshole?” Battaglia asked. “Because I think Tower’s an asshole.”
Sully shrugged. “I don’t know. What kind of an asshole?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means, East Coast or West Coast asshole?”
Battaglia narrowed his eyes. “Like there’s a difference, other than accent.”
“Oh, there’s a difference,” Sully said, “but I wouldn’t expect you to know.”
“Why? No, wait-don’t tell me. It’s because I’m Italian, right?”
Sully shook his head. “No, because you’re a philistine.”
“I’m full of what?”
“Exactly,” Sully replied.
2131 hours
Katie looked down the pathway into the dark.
Everything in her police experience told her that rapists weren’t boogeymen. They didn’t jump out of bushes and attack strangers. In all of the rape reports she’d taken-and being a female cop, she’d been stuck with an inordinate number of them-she discovered that the suspect was almost always someone the victim knew. Maybe not someone they knew very well, but knew all the same. They came dressed as frat boys, like Phil had. It was never a stranger who leapt out of the darkness. Rapists don’t do that.
This one does.
Katie turned east.
* * *
“She’s going east,” Tower transmitted.
“Copy,” Sully answered over the radio.
Tower peered at Katie through his binoculars. “She’s doing a good job of looking scared,” he said quietly. “Look at her poor posture. The way she’s walking and looking down the whole time. You see that?”
“I see it,” Hiero said.
“She’s a natural decoy.”
“Maybe she’s not pretending,” Hiero said.
Tower broke away from his binocs to look at the sniper. “You think she’s scared?”
Hiero raised his eyebrows and turned down his mouth in a facial shrug. “I would be.”
“Even with back up?”
“It is Sully and Battaglia,” Hiero half-joked.
“Fine,” Tower conceded with a small smile. “How about a sniper, then?”
This time Hiero shrugged with his shoulders. “I’m not that great a shot.”
2132 hours
Katie made her way east, shuffling along with her shoulders bent and her head low. She paused at the railing near the duck feeding station. Her presence brought over a few mallards that she figured were insomniacs. In the darkness, the green feather headdress appeared black. They quacked at her, at first in appreciative tones, then in demanding ones. When she didn’t break out any bread or other goodies, the quacks seemed to take on a derogatory tone. Finally, the ducks paddled away in disgust.