CINDY STARED at her computer monitor, far too aware of the timer in the left-hand corner ticking off the seconds toward her four-o'clock deadline.

Oh, man, she was so stuck.

After nailing yesterday's deadline, she still didn't know how to write this story. The heartrending and truly terrifying interviews with the rape victims were quite vivid in her mind, but she couldn't name the witnesses, couldn't quote the nurses, and there was no "source close to the police," because the cops weren't actually working the case.

Cindy had boiled the facts down to their bare bones.

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 subst.i.tute 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.

Chapter 37.

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 Three women reported being raped and drugged when they awoke from a blackout - when her phone rang. She glanced at the caller ID. - 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."

"b.u.mmer. 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.

"d.a.m.n 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 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?

Chapter 38.

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 G.o.d 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 h.e.l.l. 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 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 ident.i.ty, 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 anything."

Chapter 39.

YUKI'S DATE WAS SITTING next to her in a booth at Renegade, an elegant waterfront restaurant in SoMa with a full view of the Bay Bridge. A floor-to-ceiling waterfall sheeted down a copper wall behind him. His thigh was touching hers, his sun-bleached hair, combed back and cut straight, was falling loose around his collar, and he was telling her about the last case he'd worked in Miami.

Yuki was mesmerized by the sound of his voice.

"Guy runs out of a bank with dynamite strapped to his chest, duffel bag over his shoulder. He gets into his car, guns the engine and - plows into the car right in front of him."

"On, no. Come onnn," Yuki said.

"Yeah, he did," Jackson Brady said. "Rams his Chevy into the trunk of this Honda. Then he backs up and peels out, and the guy in the Honda calls the cops. Honda got a good look at Mr. Dynamite and he's got a partial plate on the Chevy."

"Whoa. Way to go."

"Meanwhile, the teller has pulled the alarm, and now a caravan of cops takes off after the Chevy and finds it abandoned in a ca.n.a.l off the side of the road. The so-called dynamite is in the front seat, made out of painted dowels and wire. But anyway, the guy stole four grand, and they have his plate number, his address, and so on. His name is Timberland Carson and there's an outstanding warrant on him, armed robbery of a convenience store."

Brady stopped and took a swig of his beer.

"Don't stop now," Yuki said. She sipped her drink. Just sipped it. It was delicious, but she did not want to get drunk on her second date in one week with Jackson Brady.

"So now I catch the case because the convenience store robbery was mine," Jackson continued. "We go to Carson's apartment, pound on the door," Jackson said, punching the air to demonstrate. "'Miami PD. Open up, Mr. Carson.'

"Carson opens the door. 'Oh, you found my car already? I was just going to report it stolen.'"

Brady laughed and Yuki laughed along with him. Brady had great timing and he could mimic voices. What a howl.

Brady said, "Meanwhile, I can see the car keys with the little Chevy fob on it hanging from the hook next to the door. I say, 'Anyone else here, Mr. Carson?'

"'No,' he says, and so now we're in the house. He's got to let us in because he's the victim. Someone boosted his car, right? So my partner puts Carson up against the wall, says, 'You're under arrest for that convenience store.' While he cuffs Carson, I'm looking around for the bank bag full of cash. There's nothing in plain sight, but I can see that the lock on the bedroom door is busted," Brady told her.

"I push it open with my shoulder, and Carson's roommate - who isn't supposed to be there - flies off the bed into the crack between the mattress and the wall."

"Hel-lo."

"Yeah. h.e.l.lo, roommate - and on the bed is a suitcase full of weapons - guns and knives, like a booth at a flea market."

"You've got your gun out?" Yuki asked.

"Yeah, and I'm aiming at the bed, yelling, 'Come outta there, hands in the air.' You know. 'Don't do anything stupid.' And the guy pops up with a semiautomatic, says, 'I can kill you. Maybe both of you. Or you can let me leave.'

"I'm yelling, 'Put down your weapon, put down your weapon.' But the idiot fires, bullets go through the doorway, and in the second before I return fire, he's put a shot into Carson's ear."

"Holy c.r.a.p. So you shot the roommate?" Yuki asked.

Brady said, "Yeah. d.a.m.n right. I had to do it."

"So, two guys dead."

"Ah, look at me telling you war stories."

"I like hearing your war stories," Yuki said.

"Uh-oh," Brady said. "Because they say what you like about a person when you meet them is what drives you crazy about them later on."

Yuki laughed. "I'm not worried," she said. Then she added, "You wanted me to know you killed someone. Why?"

Brady nodded, his hands clasped together on the table. "By the time IAB was done with me, I wanted to leave Miami. I wanted you to know that. I'm here to stay."

The waiter came over and said, "Your table is ready."

Yuki followed the waiter upstairs to the mezzanine, with its view of the lights on the bridge, the promenade below, and Cupid's Span Cupid's Span, a huge piece of public art, an arrow piercing the ground.

She was aware of Brady walking behind her and liked the feeling of having him at her back.