“—but there’s only so many of us. By the time we got there, he’d vanished.”

“Do you think he spotted you?” I ask, my pulse slowing, post-adrenaline. I was hoping for an A-plus. This isn’t nothing, but it’s more like a C.

“I don’t . . . I don’t know. By the time we doubled back over there, he was gone. Did he see us coming? God, man, we’re pretty good at what we do. I really wouldn’t think he’d see us. But all I can really say is, I don’t know, and I sure as shit hope not. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“Well, our plan worked, at least to a point,” I say. “He must have followed me to the Greek restaurant. But if he knows we’re on to him, then we’re toast.”

“But if he didn’t spot us,” says Joel, “that means he’s about to make a move. And we’ll be ready for him.”

65.

Shauna

Wednesday, July 17

I lean back in my chair and put my head against the wall, daring to close my eyes, knowing that I have hours of work ahead of me. The plaintiffs, the city, rested their case today and we start our defense tomorrow. The heart-pounding intensity that accompanies the birth of a trial has subsided. Now it’s a war of attrition. Each side is soldiering on, trying to keep their wits about them, afraid that any particular moment on any particular day could be the moment that seizes the jury’s attention, and wanting to make sure that when that happens, it’s favorable to their side. Bradley and I are like each other’s coaches, always propping each other up, giving pep talks, positive energy.

I’m alone. I sent Bradley home an hour ago. And Jason is obviously nowhere to be found. We haven’t so much as laid eyes on each other since . . . since . . . that moment.

I call Joel Lightner, whom I gave an assignment over a week ago now, after that friendly encounter I had with Alexa in Jason’s office, when she denied he was an addict, when she actually tried to claim that he still has pain in his knee, and when she accused me of feigning concern for Jason when, in fact, I was just trying to steal him back from her.

“Joel, what the hell, guy?” I say into his voice mail. “Remember me? You were going to do that thing for me.”

I punch out the phone and do what I’ve done for the past week: Push Jason out of my mind and focus on the family business that is depending on me.

A moment later, my phone buzzes with a text message from Joel:

Sorry sorry busy with Jason tracking bad guy stretched thin tomorrow I promise

I sigh. Jason really got himself in a jam with that weird redheaded guy who might be a serial killer. What, exactly, Joel is doing to help Jason, I don’t know.

And knowing those two cowboys, it’s probably better I don’t ask.

66.

Jason

Wednesday, July 17

“You’re sure about this,” Alexa says to me over the phone.

“I’m sure. I’ll be with Joel, and as soon as I get home, I’ll turn on some pay-per-view movie or something or I’ll make a call from my landline. I’ll be covered.”

This is the first time since we realized “James” was framing me that Alexa and I have spent a night apart. She’s been my alibi, kept me invulnerable from a frame-up. It’s had the added effect, of course, of keeping young women in this city safe from a serial killer.

Tonight, Joel and I have decided, is the night to take a chance on “James Drinker,” to give him an opportunity to attack Linda with us watching closely. So tonight, I’m going to stay home alone.

Or at least pretend to.

“Well, have fun, sailor,” she says to me. I haven’t told her what I’m doing. There’s no point in worrying her.

I head downstairs and make a big point of plopping down in a chair and watching a ball game on television. I never played baseball as a kid. Me and my friends, punks, idiots all of us, made fun of people who played baseball.

The game ends at nine-thirty. I stay in my chair until ten, then get up, stretch, and walk upstairs. I turn on the bathroom light and brush my teeth; then I turn off the light, turn off the light beside my bed, and crawl under the covers.

A half hour later, I slip out and crawl, in the darkness, to the staircase. I take dark stairs to the bottom level and sneak out the back door of my house. There is a small area there for barbecuing and not much more, then a high gate. I unlatch the gate and sneak into the alley, where a car is waiting for me. It’s Joel Lightner.

I duck into the backseat and stay down. Joel navigates the interior alley system, making a couple of turns until we come out two blocks away from my house.

Unless this guy is magical, he didn’t see me leave my house.

“Time to party,” Joel says, gunning the engine as we drive toward Linda’s house.

67.

Jason

Wednesday, July 17

Linda Sparks lives in a single-family bungalow on the northwest side that she inherited from her parents. It’s the third house from the corner, on a quarter-acre lot that backs into an alley. She has a six-foot plywood fence around the back and sides of her property, making access from the rear difficult but not impossible. The front of her house, a small lawn and walk-up, has no restrictions on access. Her driveway leads into a two-car garage.

Across the street is pretty much the same story, bungalows backing into alleys, most with fences up in the back of varying degrees of difficulty. This is where Joel saw “James” last night, on the side of the house across the street from Linda’s place. He must have entered through the alley, jumped the fence, and walked along the side of the house. He would have to jump another fence to get to the front, but last night he wasn’t interested in doing that, apparently. He just wanted to scope out the house.

Next door to the south, the house closest to Linda’s garage door, the neighbors have extensive shrubbery circling around their front porch. A good place to hide for an ambush. The papers, and Joel’s source at Area Three, have said that they believe the North Side Slasher likes to ambush women as they enter their houses. One of the women was jumped getting out of her car, presumably because the entryway to her home was too exposed, but the idea is the same. He likes to get them when their guards are down, where they feel safe, having arrived home. Too bad more people don’t realize that this is when they’re most vulnerable.

“If it were me, I’d sit in those bushes to the south, by her garage,” I say into my headphone. “When she pulls into the garage, I rush inside before the door comes down.”

“Why don’t you just announce your position, shoot a flare up or something,” Lightner whispers through my earbud, his tactful way of telling me to put a lid on it.

There are five of us covering Linda, which basically constitutes the entirety of Joel Lightner’s operation. One guy is in the car with her, sitting low in the backseat; one is in her garage right now; one is in her house right now; Joel is watching the alley behind her house; and then there’s me, across the street from Linda’s house, lying flat behind a row of bushes that aren’t very high but will do the trick as long as I stay horizontal.