Marcus raised an eyebrow at Lincoln, who shook his head slightly. She’d responded better to Marcus, let him take the interview. Lincoln folded his arms across his chest and braced his legs so he wouldn’t have to lean on the weathered porch column for support. Marcus followed the woman into the scraggly yard.

“I done told that Sex Crimes girl everything that happened. Didn’t think she believed me,” she said.

“Why’s that?”

“She just had that look about her, you know? Like she was better than everybody else. Where’s she, anyway?”

“Detective Garrison was in a car accident, ma’am. We’re picking up the slack while she recovers.”

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Lucy shielded her eyes from the sun and looked away quickly. “She hurt bad?”

“She’ll be fine, ma’am. I’ll tell her you asked after her. Now, we were hoping to get a little more information from you about your case. Detective Garrison mentioned you may be able to identify your attacker.”

Lucy toed a clump of dead grass. “Well, yeah, I might’ve told her that.”

“Does that mean you can identify him, or you can’t?”

Marcus felt rather than saw Lincoln shift on the porch. This was going to be a waste of time.

Lucy paused for a moment, as if deciding whether to tell the truth or not. Marcus was reminded of a kid caught in the candy store, debating whether to admit she had the candy in her pocket or deny its existence till her dying breath. Conscience apparently won.

“It’s not that I can identify him, exactly. It’s just that something about him seemed really…familiar.” She drew the word out slowly, like it had never been tried before, like she wasn’t quite sure of its pronunciation. Marcus rubbed his chin, trying to look thoughtful.

“Okay, I can understand that. You don’t want to finger the wrong man. Perfectly acceptable. How about this. Tell me where he seems familiar from.”

“Well…everywhere. It’s like he’s always around, ya know? All the places I go to. The gas station for coffee, the gym, the grocery.”

“Do you think he’s stalking you?”

“Naw. He doesn’t realize I recognize him. It’s just that I seem to run into him everywhere I go. It’s the arms. It was the only thing I could see, you know. His face was covered, his hair was covered, but he had these All the Pretty Girls

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arms, and they were all strong and ropy and he held me down so hard. It’s the arms that I keep seeing.” There was a catch in her throat, but her eyes were dry.

“Ma’am, do you know his name?”

She shook her head, miserable, trying not to cry. “No.”

“Anything about him? The way he smelled? A certain phrase he may have used?”

Lucy shook her head. “No, no, nothing like that.”

“But you still think you know who it is.”

“No, I didn’t say that. I don’t know who he is. But I recognize the car he’s in,” she added, a sly grin on her face.

Marcus gave a hopeful glance to Lincoln, who had also gone on alert. This could be a huge break. Imagine, they could solve the Rainman case in one day while the Sex Crimes Unit had been trying for years. Marcus stepped a bit closer, put a hand on her arm. She didn’t jerk away, just stared at his hand like she’d never been touched before. Marcus had an inkling that she had, just not in such a gentle way. She looked up at him, looked him straight in the eye.

“It’s an unmarked car. The man who raped me is a cop.”

Twenty-Five

Christina Dale woke leisurely, cloudy and warm. She clung to the last vestiges of the dream, images from her childhood, a park, or no, was it her backyard? It was green and warm, and she could smell a hint of onion in the freshly mown grass. The sky was as blue as a robin’s egg, clear and heavy, with puffy white clouds floating by. She felt content, it was the best kind of dream, the one where you wake up and just know it’s going to be a wonderful day. A languid smile moved across her face, and as she began to swim into focus, the images drifted, blown away on the winds of her mind. She started to roll over and realized her body wasn’t following her brain’s command. That was weird. She must still be drunk from last night. That happened sometimes, she was still drunk when she woke up. Especially when they did those dumb drugs the college kids liked so much. The roofies always made her boneless the next day.

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back into her legs. Her eyes flew open and she knew something was dreadfully wrong. There was rope tied around her arms and legs. She came fully awake, panicking, adrenaline rushing through her body and bringing everything into focus. The rope cut bitterly across her ribs, her arms were stretched above her head, painfully pulling her shoulders from their sockets. She tried to wriggle but only succeeded in drawing the ropes tighter, nearly cutting off her breath.

“Oh my God,” she moaned. It all came back to her. The lazy grin, the shock of black hair that fell across his forehead, those intense cobalt cat eyes. Her mother warned her time and time again that she was too open, too trusting, that if she kept on sleeping with every Tom, Dick and Harry she met around that she could end up hurt or dead. But who wouldn’t respond to the gorgeous creature of a man that she had stumbled out of the bar with?

She stared around the room, trying to piece together how she’d ended up in what was obviously a mess. Had things gone too far last night? Had she asked to be tied up? She’d done it before, a small-town girl trying out new things without any repercussion. Maybe the man—Lord, what was his name—had simply passed out after they’d fooled around. She looked to either side and only saw the empty loneliness of a motel room, stark white walls, a cheesy landscape in oranges and yellows hanging above a cut-rate TV. She was alone. Suddenly she heard the toilet flush and relaxed. A shadow moved along the wall and he popped into view. It was him all right, tousled and naked, looking even sexier than she had remembered.

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“Mornin’, darlin’. You wanna get me out of this and we can pick up where we left off?”

He smiled and moved no closer, just stood watching her like a feral cat in heat.

“Seriously, get me untied. This is starting to hurt.”

She realized even before she saw the knife that he had no intention of letting her go. Ever. She opened her mouth to scream but he was on her, slapping a piece of duct tape over her mouth so all she could hear was her own hysterical cries, muffled and caught in her throat. As her mystery man dragged the tip of the knife slowly across her face, his cheerful grin disappeared, and he spoke only one word, the last Christina would ever hear.

“Bye.”

Twenty-Six

Taylor was back in her office, waiting for Lincoln and Marcus to return from interviewing the previous alleged victim of the Rainman. She had missed a call from Baldwin, which left her moody. She wanted to talk with him, but he was up to his ears in dead girls. As she fiddled with a few reports that needed to be completed, Fitz rolled in, with Marcus and Lincoln on his heels. He got to the office door first.

“Everything okay?” he asked gruffly.

Taylor gave him a startled look. “Everything’s fine. Why?”

“You’re just looking a little ill, that’s all. You’re not catching something, are you?”

Taylor waved his concern away. “Had a long night. I’m fine, really.”

“Ready to go over what the kids got on the Rainman?”

She nodded. “Yeah, let’s do it. But let’s go into the conference room, I don’t feel like crowding in here.”

She led them to the room down the hall, then locked the 194

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door behind herself so they wouldn’t be interrupted at an inopportune moment.