James Patterson - 10th Anniversary

The attacks had happened to women who lived and worked in three different places in the city. The women were not of a single type. They were of different ages, occupations, and ethnicities. They looked nothing alike. And the worst fact of all: Cindy could scare women readers half to death with this story, but she had no idea how they could protect themselves from the rapist.

Cindy reread her notes from her interview this morning with the latest victim, Inez Fleming. Like Laura Rizzo and Anne Bennett, Inez Fleming had woken up near her home after a blackout of many hours. During that time, she’d been raped, sloppily redressed in her own clothes, and dumped.

Fleming had been examined at nine that morning by a doctor in the emergency room at St. Francis. The head nurse had called Joyce Miller to say that she had a rape victim like the ones who had come into Metro earlier in the week.

Joyce had called Cindy. And Cindy had gone to see Fleming.

The first thing Cindy noticed about Inez Fleming was that she was no weakling. Weighing in at about two hundred pounds, Inez worked as a substitute teacher in a public school in the Mission. She seemed streetwise, and unlike the first two victims, Inez was married.

Inez told Cindy that she remembered hearing something when she was in some kind of dream state. She’d said, “It was about some kind of ‘big day.’ What’s that?”

Cindy wanted to know, too.

It was similar to the fragmented memories the other women had reported. Like Laura and Anne, Inez couldn’t even state that it was a memory. It could have been a fantasy or even something she overheard while she was lying in the alley.

Inez Fleming’s husband had arrived right then and told Inez not to talk to the press, and now, six hours later, Cindy was foundering in quicksand and running out of time.

CINDY FLEXED HER FINGERS and tried out a headline: “Rapist Dopes and Dumps Victims.” She was typing her lede — Three women reported being raped and drugged when they awoke from a blackout — when her phone rang. She glanced at the caller ID.

It was Richie.

Should she take the call or let it go to voice mail? The time was 3:23. There was no time to talk to him. Not now. This was her only story and she had to work it.

On the third ring, she grabbed the phone.

“Can I call you back, Rich? I’m on deadline.”

“Just take a second,” he said, a playful tone in his voice. “There’s someone important I want you to meet.”

Cindy laughed, spun her chair around so that she wouldn’t see the clock. “Really? Who is this important person?”

“I’m not saying. Not right now.”

“What if it’s off the record?” Cindy asked.

“I like your style, Cin, but you still have to wait.”

“Bummer. Where are you now?”

“I’m on the street outside the Mark Hopkins, waiting for Lindsay. She’s with the Richardsons. Should be down in a second.”

Cindy pictured Richie leaning against the unmarked car, wearing blue like he always did, his soft light brown hair falling across his forehead.

“Any news on the baby?” she asked.

“Nope. We have miles and miles of not one fricking thing,” he said. “Lindsay is taking this one personally.”

“Don’t we all?” Cindy said.

“Damn right,” Rich said. “When you get home, put on something dressy. I’ll pick you up — Cin, I gotta go. I’ll see you later.”

“Wait. What time?”

“Seven, okay?”

“Perfect.”

Cindy wrote her story fast and with confidence, the way she did when there was no time to spare. She looked at the clock in the corner of her computer screen and saw that she could even manage a quick polish. The clock showed 3:59 when she pushed send . She shook out her hands and leaned back in her chair. Her story would be on the streets in the morning.

The cops would read it, and maybe the rapist would, too.

What would happen next?

CINDY KICKED OFF HER SHOES in the small foyer, and removing her clothes as she walked into the bedroom, she dropped them on the bed as she walked to the shower. “Dressy,” Rich had said. She couldn’t even guess what he was planning. Where were they going and who was this important person she was going to meet?

The shower was hot and invigorating. Cindy kept her eyes closed and stood there, letting the water beat down on her head. She didn’t move at all, but her mind was in motion.

She was thinking about Richie — about how when she’d first met Lindsay’s new partner, he’d not only rocked her world, he’d knocked a few neighboring planets off course, as well. Yes, he was gorgeous, but thank God she’d been able to keep her lovesick wits together long enough to realize that Rich Conklin’s cover-guy looks were only the gift wrapping. He was a good person. He was intelligent. He was easy to talk to. He was protective. He was the one for her, most definitely. And he was mad about her, too.

Admittedly, there had been a time when she worried that Rich had a major crush on Lindsay. You could see the electricity when they were together. But when she’d asked, they’d both said, “No, no, no. We’re just partners.”

Now that she and Richie were living together, she worried about one thing only — that he would come home safely every night.

Cindy got out of the shower, dried her hair, and stepped into a small, black Nicole Miller dress with a deep neckline that Rich hadn’t seen her wear before. As she returned the hanger to the closet they shared, she thought about where she’d lived before she and Richie had found a place together.

Her old apartment building was on the border of two neighborhoods — one on the rise, the other on the edge of hell. She’d gone for the gentrification sales pitch because she really loved the open, sunny rooms in the Blakely Arms. And then accidental deaths in the building had turned out to be murders.

She and Rich had become friends while she was both living in the building and writing the story about the killings. Rich and Lindsay were investigating the crimes. Later, when she and Rich had started dating, he’d told her that he wished she worked any desk but crime.

Sometimes she wished it, too.

But more often she was grateful for her job at the Chronicle . Writing about, and sometimes even confronting, people so dangerous they scared her curls straight had given her confidence and made her a better journalist.

Cindy fastened her necklace of small glinting crystals and put a rhinestone clip in her hair. Then she turned on the news. An interview was in progress. A reporter from KWTV was talking to a woman whose face had been pixilated to protect her identity, but Cindy recognized her.

It was the rape victim she’d met that morning.

Inez Fleming.

“All I remember is leaving work last night,” Fleming was saying. “A sanitation worker woke me up in the early morning in an alley near my house. I still had all my stuff. Purse, et cetera. Maybe whoever drugged me and raped me looked in my wallet and knew where I lived. Or maybe he’s someone I know. I can only say to women, don’t trust anybody.”

Cindy fumbled with the remote, rewound the DVR, and watched the interview again.

She’d been scooped.

The story was out, but the mystery remained. Who did it? What happened? Why were the victims targeted? Was it personal or random? And how many women would this guy rape before he was caught?

This she knew: she would stick with this story until the end.

The phone rang beside the bed and she scooped the receiver off the cradle.

“Richie?”

“Come downstairs, honey. Expect the unexpected. Yep, that’s what I said. Be ready for anything .”