Page 75 of Secrets in the Dark
He turned. Sean, standing by a couple lingering over their last pints, was waving to him—showing that they should be running in the opposite direction.
Mason turned. Because along that street, a gaping dark hole against the row of buildings showed an entrance to an alley.
A dark alley.
The kind that the man who would be the Ripper King might well determine to be a fine place to meet with a woman.
Sean was already headed in that direction.
Mason hurried to catch up.
Thirteen
Della rushed along, not hesitating as she reached a breach in the building walls, a corridor that led to a back alley.
She knew that patrolmen were working hard to cover the district, to keep their eyes on the dark alleys. But since there were not enough policemen to be posted everywhere all of the time, the patrolman assigned to the area might be making rounds.
And might not be back for minutes...
Minutes in which a killer could slice a woman’s throat.
She inched along the wall in the shadows and the mist and then heard Stacey talking, begging with her attacker.
“This is crazy. You’re not a killer and I don’t know what you’re doing with that knife. Don’t, don’t, don’t... Don’t put your hands around my throat!”
“Hey!
Della could just see the shapes in front of her, but she was close enough to take aim with her Glock, to give the would-be killer pause.
She moved closer. A man was holding Stacey—but the man wasn’t Jesse Miller. She didn’t know who he was, and he’d have to doff the dark green hoodie he was wearing for her to see much of anything about him.
But he had gone still. His knife was against Stacey’s throat.
“Let her go this instant.”
He stared back at her.
“Buddy, I was the best shot in my class at Quantico,” she told him. “Trust me, I can hit you between the eyes before you can shift that blade.”
That probably wasn’t true, but he didn’t know it.
The man moved the knife immediately, throwing it to the ground and lifting his hands in the air.
“This isn’t what it looks like!” he cried.
Mason and Sean came running down the corridor, quickly ascertaining that she had the situation under control.
Sean, as local law enforcement, rushed forward, reaching beneath his jacket for a pair of cuffs. He began to speak to the man, as Englishmen had rights, just like Americans.
Stacey cried out and came rushing to Della, ready for the comforting hold of Della’s arms around her.
But her attacker was talking, words spewing from him. “I wasn’t going to hurt her! I swear it. I was just going to scare her and then explain that some friend of hers had paid me two hundred pounds just to get her to follow me out of the pub and... I wouldn’t have hurt her!”
“Well, guess what?” Sean demanded of him. “Kidnapping a woman into a dark alley and threatening her with a knife is illegal!”
“It was a lark—”
“There is no such thing as alarkwhen a killer is roaming the streets,” Mason informed him. He nodded to Sean. “Let’s get him into headquarters. We can question him, or he can ask for legal counsel, but one way or the other—”
