I start to move away from the glass when a shadow passes on the other side. I stand stone still, staring out of that window, waiting for another movement.
Hazel’s words come back to me. This one’s fresh. I don’t know if I saw something in the shadows or not, but he’s still here. The Poet is still here.
Chapter 39
I turn away from the window, and without a word, I walk past Hazel, exiting the bedroom to find Officer Jackson missing. Ironically, after chasing down Hazel for ignoring instructions, he’s ignored mine. I stalk down the hallway to the living room, where I count five CSI techs working in the house. Scooping the poem from inside my bag, I hand it to one of the techs. “Log this into evidence. Carefully.” Once I have his agreement, I point at the room. “He’s killed before,” I call out to them all. “He thinks he’s better than you. Make sure he’s not.”
Murmurs follow me as I exit to the porch, where another officer—not Jackson—is guarding the door. I don’t ask about Jackson. I don’t have time for his nonsense right now. I yank off my gloves and booties and bag them before handing them off to him. “Stick them in evidence.” It’s something I learned from my father, who once found trace evidence on a glove that solved a case.
He’s barely taken them from me, and then I’m walking down the stairs, the shock of going from the cold house and into the hot night flushing my skin. Police lights rotate along the perimeter of the property, the sirens silent, but voices rumble in the distance. I cut right toward the side of the house, adrenaline surging through me, but I’m practiced at controlling how I respond to its sensation. Almost automatically at this stage of my career, I draw my weapon and flashlight, their weight in my hands easy and familiar, even comforting. Slowly, calculated like our Poet, I walk around the house, where CSI is hard at work.
“Detective Jazz,” I call out to them. “I’m the detective in charge. Is anyone working the back of the house?”
“Not yet,” one of the techs calls out. “We’re working together, from one side to the other. Do you need a change in plan?”
“No. I just needed to know the plan.” And who was behind the house, I think, since it doesn’t appear to have been one of us. I mean it could be Jackson, but I don’t think he’d go rogue and step out of his lane, plus CSI would have mentioned him passing by. I keep walking, bypassing a request for light that will risk driving The Poet away. At the edge of the house, I flatten on the wall, pausing there, and inching my way around to the rear, just enough to scan the darkness and search for movement. I find nothing, but I know what I saw in the window. I know what I felt when I saw it, too. He’s here and he’s waiting for me but he doesn’t plan to kill me.
Taunt me, though?
That’s another story.
With my flashlight on high, I boldly step around the house, shining the light into the darkness. The wind is absent, the night still but for the creep of death everywhere, an odd contrast to the sticky sweet honeysuckle of a nearby bush. Slowly, I move my flashlight over the yard, and when I land on the bushes that divide the house from an apartment complex, I suck in a slow breath, my heart thundering in my chest and swishing in my ears.
A man in a hoodie and a baseball cap stands there, waiting for me, his face shrouded in shadows.
Chapter 40
It’s just me and him in the middle of the inky black night, with the man he killed a few feet away behind a window. I aim my weapon at him, my finger heavy on the trigger. I could shoot him right now and he’d never kill again. If, and when, he moves, I have two options: shoot or chase. I’d be obliged to chase. He’s too smart not to know this. Perhaps he even knows the temptation that burns in my belly to end him so he will never kill again. He’s gambled on my badge, on my honor. He clearly doesn’t know how easily he’s inspired a renewed love of being my father’s daughter, able to justify anything for a good cause.
I step toward him, to get a closer view of his face, but his hoodie and hat combined shelter his features. He’s tall. He’s thin. I can’t say if he’s athletic. What he is for certain is fearless. I’m armed and he doesn’t back away.
He’s definitely taunting me, or maybe he really does want to kill me. “Police,” I call out, though he knows who, and what, I am. We both know he knows. I’m simply proving I’m as predictable as he expects. At least one of us thinks he knows what I’ll do next. I do not. “Put your hands up.” I’m drawing nearer to him, one paced step at a time.
There’s a flash across his face, a smile I think, and then he cuts into the bushes. Damn it. He’s running and I already have his back. I can’t shoot him. So I give him what he wants. I chase. I take off after him, but I can’t just cut into those bushes without risking him grabbing me. I ease in and check my path, losing valuable seconds as I do. Once I’m through the jungle of leaves, I’m in the parking lot of the apartments, parked cars both my shelter and his.
I squat down, out of sight. There’s a building in front of me and another to my right and left. The apartment buildings are smaller structures than most and close together. I stand there, weapon and flashlight still in my hand. I ease around the vehicles, eyeing my surroundings with no human in sight. I listen. I wait, and then there are footsteps. I round an old beat-up car to find my man running toward one of the buildings. I charge after him at full running speed, and well ahead of me, he cuts in between two of the complexes.
Flattening against one of them, I watch him dart toward the opposite building. I remain in the parking lot, but I’m running again, trying to catch up with him and cut him off, and I’m close, when a kid no more than ten darts into my path. I all but run him over before I manage to stop, and the moment he spies my gun, he screams bloody murder. “Mom! Mom!”
“Get in your house!” I order, setting him away from me and cutting around him, but that small delay probably just lost me The Poet.
I’m finally at the next building, and I plant myself on the wall again, when suddenly Jackson is standing in front of me. I jolt with his unexpected appearance, alarm bells ringing in my head. My weapon points at his chest. “How did you get here?”
He holds up his hands. “Whoa. Whoa. Easy. I saw you take off through the bushes. I thought you might need help.”
“Where were you earlier?”
“Dave’s mother showed up,” he quickly explains. “She was freaking out. I’m good with freak-outs.”
“I told you to stay in your position.” My voice quakes with a mix of adrenaline and anger.
“I’m sorry.” He eyes the gun. “Are you going to shoot me for this?”
I don’t like the way he disappeared and reappeared, and I don’t know where that is leading me mentally right now, but it’s no place good. “Not yet,” I say. “Call for backup. Block off the apartment building. Now.”