Keeping Read Free Page A

highly unlikely, given the profile—who is meticulous. This is planned, all of it, right down to the last detail. Nothing is left to chance, like he has every avenue covered. With a man like that, we need to watch the hell out. He’ll get worse. Now, because he’s killed more than three women, we all know that levitates him to serial status. Not good for us but good for him. He’ll be feeling the power, might slip up. So, what else can we do here? Suggestions?”
    Detective Wickes held up one hand then lowered it to cross both arms over his chest and tuck his fingers beneath his armpits. His brown hair needed a good cut but, like Langham, the man probably couldn’t find the time. “We could up the patrol at the stream. I said that from the start.”
    Langham sniffed. “Yes, we could, but that stream is long, and as you know, the killer hasn’t established a secure pattern. The time between the women going missing is getting shorter—he’s getting braver, needs the thrill sooner, he needs less time to recover or go over the previous kill as a means of getting satisfaction. We could send men out every evening to check, but only certain points of the stream can be covered at any one time. While our men are patrolling the north end, he could be dumping a body at the other.”
    Wickes sighed. He knew the drill. The excuses.
    “So,” Langham went on, “as much as I’d like to put officers at strategic points along that stream every damn night until our killer gets spotted either abducting or dumping his victims, I can’t. It all boils down to costs too, you know that. While, say, four to six officers are at the stream, other officers are stretched to breaking point out on the streets. Give me some slack on that, yeah? I can’t make it happen.”
    Wickes lifted one hand and pinched his chin between finger and thumb. “It’s a pisser, though. We just have to sit and wait for another body to show up. Fucking stinks.”
    “It does,” Langham agreed, “but there is the other alternative. When a woman goes missing, we start acting right away. No more ‘let’s see if she returns after forty-eight hours’ crap. We look into it immediately. Granted, a lot of manpower will go into that, but it’s all we can do, and it’s easier to manage that into our schedules. A quick phone call here and there chasing up the women’s last whereabouts isn’t the same as taking a chunk of time using several officers to man the stream.”
    He held back a sigh and went on with his usual speech. “As we know from experience—and I wish we didn’t—most of the women will turn up again—just some worried husband or mother calling in because she’s half an hour late—but at some point there’ll be those who don’t come home when it gets dark. Those are the red flags.”
    Sergeant Villier raised her hand then lowered it to her lap. A leggy blonde, thirty-something, she looked weird in uniform. It didn’t suit her. She seemed the type who’d seem more at home in a basque and stockings. Anyone who had the guts to suggest such a thing would soon find she didn’t agree. She’d rip the balls off a man who came onto her at work—or anywhere else, Langham suspected.
    “Yes, Villier?” Langham held his breath for her comment.
    She was likely to go into one, pushing her opinion out there with such force that when he had to gently shoot down her ideas it would make everyone feel uncomfortable. She meant well, but shit, she was a pushy one.
    “I think we’ve gone as far as we can go here.”
    She stood and joined Langham up front. He bit back the urge to tell her to sit the fuck back down. She had a habit of doing this kind of thing, encroaching on his position, trying to get the others to see that her standing as the uniformed officers’ boss was just one step of her ladder. She intended to climb higher, that much was obvious.
    Villier faced the others. “Let’s go through what we have.”
    I was just about to do that after the