Standing in the shadows, I groped around in my purse for a Metrocard. That’s when I heard the scuff of a shoe and sensed movement behind me. Before I could react, a skeletal arm wrapped around my throat, and something hard pressed against the small of my back.

“I have a gun. Don’t make a sound, or I’ll shoot you right here.”

I recognized the rasping voice: Stuart Allerton Winslow. He stank of sweat and desperation. I glanced over my shoulder and spied unkempt hair sticking out from around the rim of a baseball cap. Though he’d ditched the trench coat, I knew he was the man in the cab, the one that followed me from the Blend to the museum. My mind was racing. Quinn had warned me the man was going to be released.

“Back up. Into the park,” Winslow said.

His hot breath hit my face, and I flinched at the whiff of onions and refried beans. Jose’s Burritos, I thought; the place was just up the block from the Blend. He must have gone straight to Hudson Street the second he regained his freedom, waiting outside my coffeehouse until I showed.

I risked a sidelong glance in the direction of the security booth, about fifty feet away. I could barely see the glow of its lights behind a screen of tree branches.

“Don’t even think about it,” he warned, his grip around my throat tightening.

With the gun still pressed against my spine, Winslow pulled me into the dark playground. He dragged me backward, past a slide and a set of swings, to an elaborate jungle gym standing in the middle of the yard.

“Little bitch,” he rasped.

Swinging me around, he shoved me face-first against the metal bars. He used his body to pin me there, then his arm tightened around my neck again, like a smothering snake.

I struggled against the scumbag, but the man held firm. He’d seemed puny and weak in his dungeonlike apartment. But he wasn’t weak now. He was furious, his grip cruel. I tried to ignore the pain, stay calm, search my mind for a strategy of escape.

You’re not helpless, Clare. You outwitted him once. You can do it again.

“I could have killed you on the sidewalk,” he rasped against my ear. “But that would be too quick.”

“You don’t have to kill me at all,” I whispered. It was hard to do more than that with his arm so tightly around my throat.

“You’re suggesting I should let you live? To testify against me in court? No, no, little bitch. That will never do. We can’t have the law looking any further at my business.”

I tried again to break free, but he tightened his grip. Once again, I felt the hard poke of a gun barrel against my back.

“Why are you doing this? You don’t even have any drugs. You lied to me.”

“Is that what you think? My word, you are stupid. And your cop friends are even stupider. They searched my apartment, came up with nothing.”

“Because you were lying.”

“Because my real office is in Jersey. The dump’s not in my name, but I assure you the cabinets are full of my product. So you see, little bitch, your stupid cops are to blame. They couldn’t keep me in custody, so you can thank them for the pain I’m about to inflict.”

I struggled harder.

“Ssshhh, shhh, now. Accept your fate, and it will be easy…”

Winslow laughed again, and the pressure of the gun against my spine vanished. With one arm still wrapped around my throat, he raised the other. I struggled to turn my head-it wasn’t much, just a fraction-but out of the corner of my eye, I saw a glint of silver in the shadowy light. A long knife was clutched in his hand.

He doesn’t have a gun! He used the handle of the knife to trick me!

The blade was descending toward my right shoulder. And my move was almost instinctual. Winslow himself had given me the idea: Accept your fate.

Instead of resisting, I gave up. My knees sagged, and I let every pound of my small form go limp. I began to slip underneath his curled arm. On my way down, I opened my mouth and sank my teeth into the man’s stringy flesh. The blade came down, striking sparks off the metal bars he’d been pressing me against.

Winslow cursed me with every word ever invented to degrade a woman.

I bit down harder, a pissed-off pit bull.

Winslow cried out. Using the weight of his body, he slammed me against the jungle gym bars. I kicked at his knee with my big platform wedge and jammed my elbow into his belly. Finally, the man released me, stumbling backwards with a howl. He fell to the ground, and I ran toward Fifth Avenue.

I heard a clang, saw the flash of the hurled knife as it bounced off the slide. I stumbled and nearly fell, but I kicked off my shoes and kept going, right into the headlights of an NYPD sector car.

Tires squealed, and a uniform jumped out.

“A man dragged me inside that playground! He had a knife! Tried to stab me!”

The cop drew his gun and raced into the shadows. His partner leaped out of the vehicle and followed, barking into his radio for backup as he ran. I sagged against the police car, knees weak, bare feet scuffed, hands trembling.

The night seemed suddenly darker. I doubled over at the waist, feeling like I couldn’t get enough oxygen. Another sector car rolled up behind the first, and a policewoman hurried to my side. She helped me into the backseat of her vehicle then leaned against the roof.

“Ma’am, we’re going to get you to an ER. Is there anyone you want me to notify?”

I nodded. My neck was sore, my voice shaky, but it didn’t matter. I only had to speak four words: “Mike Quinn, Sixth Precinct.”

THIRTY-THREE

“CLARE? Are you all right? I heard you screaming.”

Mike stood in the bedroom doorway, a steaming mug of hot coffee in each hand. Shirtless, he wore navy-blue pajama bottoms, and his dark-blond hair was still mussed from sleep.

I blinked, rubbed my eyes, tried to banish the phantom images. Then the real memories rushed back, and they were no less nightmarish-Stuart Winslow’s attack outside the Metropolitan Museum, the fight for my life in the dark playground, my escape and rescue by patrolmen from the Twenty-second Precinct. I remembered my trip to the busy ER, then the chilly old horse stables, a renovated building that now housed the Central Park precinct, where I’d answered a series of questions.

Mike had been there for me, every step of the way. The moment he’d heard I’d been attacked, he had rushed to the hospital; and when all the examining and questioning was over, he’d brought me back to his apartment in Alphabet City, where I’d accepted a good hard shot of his Irish whiskey and passed out.

Now he crossed the bedroom in three strides, set the coffee mugs on the nightstand and took me in his arms.

“What scared you, Clare? What did you dream?”

“I was chasing Joy through a playground,” I murmured against his bare, hard shoulder. “She transformed right in front of me, into this beautiful falcon. I tried to catch her, but a photographer jumped in front of me, snapped a flash. I couldn’t see, just heard a gunshot. A woman screamed, and then-oh, God, Mike-I was facedown on a white marble floor, and there was blood, so much blood…”

“Hold on to me, Clare. Hold on as long you need to.”

For a few minutes, I did. Then my nose twitched. “Mike?”

“Mmmm?”

“Do I smell fresh coffee?”

He reached over to the nightstand, pushed a warm mug into my hands. I lay back on the bed pillows, took a test sip, and sighed. The man had come a long way from when I’d first met him. Back then, he’d been swilling stale robusta bean crap by the gallon. The hot, fresh java he’d made for me this morning was my own Breakfast Blend roast, brewed nearly to perfection (which, for me, was better than perfect).

“You know, Mike, you’re getting pretty good at this. You should seriously consider barista work.”