The man’s body jerked in surprise. But his hands didn’t move. Allison had her fingers on the ignition key, ready to turn it if he made a single step toward her. In the distance she heard sirens.
Nicole screamed, “Get your hands up right now or I will light you up!”
Instead of obeying her, he started running—right toward Allison’s car.
With a shaking hand, Allison quickly turned the key. But she turned it too far. The engine made a grinding shriek, shuddered, and fell silent. Her eyes flashed up to the rearview mirror. He was only ten feet from her car.
She turned the key again. Now there wasn’t even a noise.
Nicole made a flying tackle and slammed the guy against Allison’s trunk. Even inside the car, Allison could hear his grunt of pain.
With a cough and a whine, the car finally started. Her foot hovered over the accelerator. Should she still drive off? In her rearview mirror, she saw Nicole handcuff her would-be assailant, none too gently, and begin patting him down. In a second, one, two, three cop cars screamed around the corner.
Allison turned off the car. She had to see his face. She had to know who had been doing this to her. She opened the door.
Three curious diners had come out of Tommy’s and were gathered on the sidewalk. Cassidy was snapping photos with her cell phone.
As Nicole leaned Allison’s pursuer over the trunk of her car, his hood fell back, allowing Allison to finally see the man she had been running from.
Only it wasn’t a man.
It was a woman.
“That’s a surprise,” Cassidy said, touching Allison’s arm. “Do you know her?”
She had difficulty finding her voice. “It’s . . . it’s Vanessa Logue. I prosecuted her date rapist. But the jury found him not guilty.”
Allison walked around the car until she could look into the woman’s eyes, snapping with anger.
“Vanessa—you’re the one who’s been following me? Leaving me threats? But why?”
The woman’s face was creased into a snarl. “If you had done your job the way you should have, the guy who raped me would be in jail. Instead, he’s walking around free, and I’m the one living in fear. Because of your incompetence.” Vanessa took a ragged breath. “I just wanted you to see what it was like to have to watch your back all the time. To never feel safe.”
“But who placed all those phone calls?”
It had been a man’s voice on the phone. Allison was sure of it.
“My brother,” Vanessa said as sirens began to fill the air. “He hates you as much as I do.”
Allison hoped the brother could be found soon enough.
TOMMY’S BAR-B-Q
January 17
That was an exciting way to begin the evening,” Cassidy said dryly, when the three women were finally settled in at Tommy’s an hour later.
She seemed different somehow, but in ways Allison was having trouble putting a finger on. It was more than just her high-necked blouse or her uncharacteristically subdued manner. Normally she would have been unable to sit still after all the excitement, would have flirted with the cops before they left. Instead, she somehow just seemed . . . flat.
Tommy’s Bar-B-Q wasn’t long on looks. Once it had been a dry cleaners, but Tommy had remodeled it by adding a tiny open kitchen on the other side of the front counter. Three wooden picnic tables had been squeezed into the former waiting area—and that was the extent of the seating.
But the smell of barbecue had made Allison’s mouth start watering when she was still out on the sidewalk. She had decided that tonight, of all nights, she could afford to deviate from her diet.
“So what’s Channel Four’s take on that woman who was attacked in Forest Park? Do you think it’s related to Katie’s murder?”
The Oregonian’s top headline that morning had read DOES SERIAL KILLER STALK FOREST PARK? in forty-eight-point type, accompanied by a boxed sidebar titled RUSH TO JUDGMENT?
“Senator Fairview has been my bread and butter,” Cassidy said, “but there’s no way he could have attacked this girl. He’s still in rehab, and he’s watched ’round the clock.”
“Maybe he found a way to bribe one of the staff,” Nicole said.
“And what—just sneaked out to go grab a girl?” Cassidy shook her head. “That doesn’t make any sense. Maybe everything did happen the way Fairview said it did. He went up to Forest Park to talk to Katie, but when he arrived, she was already dead. And he panicked and ran.”