Tactical Advantage. Julie Miller

translucent, and making it difficult to pinpoint an exact height for the man, or even determine the color of clothing he wore beyond something dark. But one could make out broad shoulders as he hunched them against the wintry air and looked up and down the street.

      The one who watched sank back into the shadows of the car as the man’s gaze swept past. His face was obscured by a stocking mask and the puffy clouds of his warm breath in the cold night air. Apparently satisfied that the snow, the holiday and the late hour had chased most of Kansas City’s residents inside for the night, he moved to the back of the van and pulled open the double doors.

      A rush of adrenaline quickened the hidden watcher’s pulse as the mystery man reached inside to pull out a long, cigar-shaped package draped in a blanket or tarp. Catching a breath and holding it, the one who watched without making a peep could see he was clearly up to no good.

      He dragged the bulky cargo out of the van and bent his knees to toss it over his shoulder like a duffel bag. After another visual sweep along the sidewalk and street, he carried the rolled-up delivery into the alleyway where he dumped it into a pile of trash bags.

      The watcher leaned forward again when he pulled away the covering with all the finesse of a magician revealing his latest illusion. Something tumbled out of the cover and rolled behind the bags, out of sight. Was that...a body?

      The watcher gasped.

      The pulse was racing now, thundering inside the watcher’s ears. Gloved fingers clenched again and again, tighter and tighter, around the steering wheel.

      The man wadded up the cover in his arms before unzipping the front of his coat. The spare light from the street barely reached into the alley, so one couldn’t be quite sure of the subtle movements, but it seemed he was pulling something out of his coat.

      Whatever it might be was small and slender, scarcely discernible in the dim light. He placed the object behind the trash bags, on top of the body. Then he straightened, pulling another object from his coat. He bent forward, backing out of the alley. He held a small windshield brush in his hand and was dusting off the sidewalk, wiping away his footprints and any sign that he had been there at all.

      He cleaned up after himself, retreating until he reached the van. The watcher waited for the man to toss the brush and the cover into the back, then quietly shut the doors before hurrying around to climb in behind the wheel and drive away.

      A few numbers off the van’s license plate were visible through the falling snow. But there was scarcely enough time to write anything down as it turned at the stoplight on the next corner and sped away into the night.

      Once the street was quiet again, once the watcher was certain it was safe to move, a cell phone appeared, in case someone needed help. It was clutched tightly in hand as the watcher slowly opened the door. This might not be the smartest thing the watcher had done, but it was by far the bravest.

      The winter wind was damp and bitter, biting through wool caps and exposed skin. Big, fluffy flakes of snow clung to the watcher’s eyelashes and had to be blinked away. The watcher looked up and down the street, just as the man had done. This particular block was deserted tonight. The interior of every storefront, café and coffee shop was dark. Although, with a tilt of the head, one could see the lights in apartment windows high above, where several end-of-the-year parties or lonely vigils must be happening.

      A keening moan rose from the alleyway, snapping the watcher’s attention back to the mysterious disposal of trash the curious driver had just witnessed. It was a body. Steeling both shoulders and resolve, the watcher hurried across the street.

      “Hello?”

      A woman staggered out of the alley, clinging to the brick wall for support. Her mouth was bruised and swollen, her lips scrubbed pink. Her hair was a snarled mess, her eyes were glazed. She clasped something sticklike in her fist. “Help me. Please help.”

      Her words slurred together as if she was high on some drug. When she reached out, the injured woman tripped over her spiky heels and began to fall. But the person who’d followed the van snapped out of shocked immobility and hurried forward to catch her.

      “Easy there. Are you all right?” The woman stumbled, knocking the watcher back a step, as well. Hugging arms around the woman to steady her, the would-be rescuer turned her toward the light from the closest streetlamp. There was another cut in the woman’s scalp and a puffy red mark beneath one eye. She’d clearly put up a struggle with someone. “I saw that van speeding away. What happened?”

      The woman’s coat had been buttoned crookedly over her dress. A party dress. Had she been hurt on her way to one of those parties in one of the newly remodeled loft apartments upstairs?

      “I’ve been raped. That man...” Now she could see the slender object clutched in the woman’s hand. It was the stem of a blood-red rose. “Oh, my God.”

      She tossed the flower into the snow and turned away to throw up into the bags of trash from which she’d just crawled.

      “Was it the Rose Red Rapist?” the driver from the car asked.

      The terror the serial rapist had struck into the minds and spirits of women across the city was evident in the injured woman’s wild eyes as she wiped her lips on the sleeve of her coat. “I was on my way to a friend’s party...above the florist shop there. They must be so worried. He hit me from behind and...I thought I was being mugged. I’ve been to one of those women’s self-defense courses at KCPD and I...” Tears welled in her eyes, and she pushed her fingers into her hair to brush the scattered tendrils off her face. That’s when the driver from the car saw the scrapes on the victim’s knuckles from where she’d tried to fight off her attacker. But the wounds had been doctored. In fact, the woman’s hands and fingernails had been scrubbed clean. “What did he do to me?” The battered woman saw her sterilized hands and sobbed. “Will you help me?”

      “Of course.” The driver who’d followed the van wound a supportive arm around the shaken victim to help her walk.

      “Are you a cop?”

      The watcher guided her back into the alley, farther in than the bags of trash. “Did you see his face?”

      The woman’s blank eyes suddenly focused. “Yes. I grabbed his mask. That’s when he hit me again and I didn’t remember anything until I came back here.” She grabbed hold of her rescuer and begged. “I need to call 9-1-1. Or there’s a bar near here—The Shamrock—but you probably know that.”

      “Yes. There’s a shortcut through here.”

      “If we turn left...or is it right... Where’s my purse? My phone?” She rubbed at the pain that must be throbbing through her temple. The light from the street was fading. The falling snowflakes were barely visible now in the shadows. “It’s so hard to think... Wait.” She tried to stop and pull away. The watcher from the car let her. The watcher had found what was needed and stooped to pick it up. “What did you say? You’re not a cop?”

      “I said I’m here to help.” The woman’s terrified gaze dropped to the brick in the watcher’s hand, understanding coming far too late. “Just not you.”

      The watcher swung before the woman could scream, and kept swinging until she would never scream again.

      Chapter One

      “Happy New Year!”

      The shouts and whistles and horn blasts from the apartment across the hall drowned out the television program KCPD criminologist Annie Hermann was watching.

      As the party from her neighbor’s gathering cranked up several more decibels, she twirled her finger in a sarcastic whoop-dee-do and watched the lighted ball drop above Times Square. The music leading up to the countdown to the New Year had been entertaining enough, and the pomp and pageantry half a country away had always been a celebration she’d like to see in person one day. But not on her own. And right now, on her own seemed like the only option available.

      Nothing said “Here’s