In Self Defense by Susan Sloan (phonics books .TXT) 📕

out, Dusty, Erin, and a good part of the West and North Precincts were going to be ready for the stalker when he made his move.

“We can’t be visible anywhere near the house,” Dusty told a task force of sixteen officers.  “Make no mistake, our guy is sharp.  He’ll smell a stakeout a mile away.  But his downfall may be thinking he can outsmart us.”

“If we can’t be visible, where are we going to be?” one of the officers wanted to know.

“We’ve gotten permission from the neighbors on either side of the Durant home,” Erin told him.

“Permission for what?”

“To use their property,” she explained.  “For the next three nights, the Bennetts and the Corcorans are going to be entertaining.  We’ll drive right in, in unmarked cars and plain clothes, just as though we were invited, and park in their driveways.  And then we’re going to wait and we’re going to listen, from inside and out.”

“Listen to what?”

“We’re going to wire the house,” Dusty said, “and the minute we either see or hear him, we’ll block both ends of the street to cut off his escape, and then we’ve got him.”

“But what if he gets into the house before we can stop him and kills her right on the spot?”

“That hasn’t been his MO,” Erin said.  “He took his first two victims out of their homes, to an isolated area by Green Lake.  He likes to spend time with them, tormenting them and torturing them, before he rapes and mutilates them, and then kills them.  It’s part of his need to be in complete control.  And our profiler thinks it’s not the kind of control he can exert in someone else’s house.”  The detective sighed.  “But again, anything we see or hear that’s not what it should be, we can be in the house in less than two minutes.”

“He could do one hell of a lot of damage in less than two minutes,” someone remarked.

“We’re also going to equip Mrs. Durant with a panic device,” Dusty added.  “On the off-chance that she might know he’s there before we do, all she has to do is press the button.”

“Sounds a bit risky, if you don’t mind my saying so,” someone else observed.

“If you’ve got a better suggestion, let’s hear it,” Dusty urged.

“What if we put a couple of us inside the house?” the officer suggested.  “We’d have transmitters, so we could communicate.  We could be on him before he takes a step.”

“We thought of that,” Erin said.  “But we have reason to believe that he’ll know about it, and then we don’t think he’ll bite.  He may be certifiable, but he’s not stupid.  He wants to beat us, but he’s not going to play against a stacked deck.  Based on his history, and on some of the things he’s said in his recent calls, we believe the timing is right, but only if he thinks he has a level playing field.”

“Like it or not, we’re a part of his game now,” Dusty told them.   “He knows we’re onto him, and he can’t shake us loose, so he’s going to try to outsmart us.  According to our profiler, that would be his crowning glory -- getting her out right under our noses.   But his eagerness to show us up just might make him careless.”

“I know it’s our job to get the bad guys,” a third officer commented, “but isn’t it also to protect people like Clare Durant?”

“Yes, of course it is,” Erin replied.

“Well, it seems to me you’re putting her at great risk.”

“That’s not our intention,” Dusty told him.

“Sure it is,” another officer said.  “You’re using her as bait, aren’t you?”

The two detectives exchanged glances.

“We’re going to get this guy,” Erin said flatly.  “And we believe we can do that without any harm coming to Clare Durant.”

Five

As abruptly as they had begun, the telephone calls stopped.  There were no calls on Sunday, nor were there any on Monday.

“What’s going on?” Dusty wondered aloud.  “Is he on to us?  Did we screw up somehow?”

“Let’s check back on Laughlin,” Erin suggested.  “Did the calls stop at any time before he snatched her?”

They went back over the files.  Sure enough, the stalker’s phone calls had stopped three days before Linda Laughlin had been abducted from her home.

“If we’re figuring right, this means we should be good for tomorrow,” Dusty told the team.

***

Richard’s suitcase was packed and he was ready to go at six-thirty on Tuesday morning.  His Mercedes was waiting out front.  He would park it in a special garage at Seatac Airport before taking the cross-country flight to Burlington, Vermont, where a whole new concept in X-ray technology, the most exciting and innovative product that Nicolaidis Industries had developed in decades, was in the process of being tested.

“I don’t have to go,” Richard said, sitting down on the bed beside his wife.

“Yes, you do,” Clare told him.  “Now don’t worry about me.”

Richard sighed, looking torn.  “If anything happens to you while I’m gone, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself, you know that,” he said.

Clare smiled.  “I promise to still be here when you get back,” she said.  “Now get out of here, before you miss your plane.”

He kissed her gently on the cheek and left.  Clare heard him go down the stairs and out of the house.  When she heard the front door close behind him, she took the loaded Beretta from the drawer in the nightstand next to her side of the bed and slipped it under her pillow.

***

It was her first day out of the house since the hospital, and it felt so good to sit beside Doreen in the Plymouth Voyager and watch the driveway slip away beneath them, and then the house grow smaller and finally disappear behind the hedges as they turned onto Lakeview Way.  It didn’t look like a prison, but, over the past week, her home had begun to feel a lot like one.

Clare was more than content to have Doreen drive.  Unlike what Julie