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Then they let him out of prison.
Suddenly I saw him everywhere. The back of every head of hair that might be his. I scoured flight manifests and faces. Each time I entered a store, restaurant, airport, I had to check every person, everywhere. I stopped going anywhere I didn’t have to. The flashbacks became daily occurrences and I struggled to fall asleep at night because I was so terrified of the nightmares that always came.
Reversible. Reversible?
Supposedly ‘reversible’ crimes can be righted with restitution. So I asked myself—what restitution could reverse the impact on me? What would bring back my ability to sleep through the night or have an evening where I wasn’t looking over my shoulder? To have an afternoon or a morning—even ten minutes—where I could sit and be at peace?
I still don’t know. But I knew the first step was making sure Ossokov—and those who enabled him to walk the streets and harm women again—were held accountable for what they’d done.
CHAPTERFIFTY-SIX
After sending out a statewide BOLO, the team dove into finding any possible trace of Jennifer Woods.
“She’s not using her credit cards or ATM,” Lopez reported. “And, I can’t find any recent hits on her license plates. She either left that car in California or got rid of the plates.”
Jo bounced her palm on the tabletop. “If she swapped them, they could go undetected for months. Any luck with the personal contacts?”
“She doesn’t have many friends or much family,” Coyne said. “A few co-workers and her cousin seem to be it. I haven’t heard back from everyone, and the ones I did reach seem genuinely surprised to hear she may be in the area. Of course, that all might be an act, but that’ll take time to break down.”
“Confidential informants? I put the word out among mine, but nobody has mentioned anything strange involving a woman matching her description,” Jo said.
Lopez flicked an invisible dirt particle off her desk. “Hard to believe when we have the most excellent description of ‘brown-haired, brown-eyed, average-height forty-five-year-old woman with no identifying features’, along with an ancient California DMV photo.”
Jo tapped her pen on her desk. “Then we only have two options. One, send an army of law enforcement to pound the pavement around all our crime scenes and related locations with her picture. We need to do that regardless. But as far as I can see, I think we’re gonna have to let her come to us. The good news is we’re forewarned and forearmed, and if we play it right, we’ll have the upper hand.”
“So a repeat of the plan from last night?” Goran asked. “But also at Lacey Bernard’s house this time?”
“Yes for Arnett, no for Bernard,” Jo said. “If we split our focus over two locations, it’s easier for Woods to find a weakness. I say we very obviously escort Bernard to a hotel with a team of guards protecting her, that way Woods has no choice but to go for Arnett.”
“What if Arnett was never on her target list to start with?” Coyne asked.
“If that’s the case, Bernard will be safe and we’ll have bought ourselves more time to track Woods down.” She shook her head. “But I just don’t see how that’s possible. Why would she hold one detective responsible but not the other one?”
“What if she just decides to wait until we stop paying for a hotel room?” Coyne asked.
Jo grimaced. “She’s killed someone every morning for five days now. I don’t see her taking a day off if she can help it. And now that we know who she is, we’ll have tracked her down long before that. Every cop in the county is looking for her.”
Coyne nodded.
“And your wife made it up to Vermont?” Goran asked. “If we’re gonna do this, we need to make sure she has no alternate ways of getting at you.”
Arnett nodded. “My daughters went up to join her. My brother-in-law is a survivalist. Their farm is remote and protected. And, he’s well armed. If Woods is stupid enough to try anything up there, it won’t end well for her.”
“Great.” Jo leaned forward. “Goran, Coyne, let’s have the two of you hidden in the same place as last night, and we’ll send the second team to the hotel with Bernard.”
“Where will you be?” Arnett asked.
Jo grinned. “I’ll be inside your place, with you. I hear Laura puts together a lovely guest bedroom.”
“Bad idea,” Arnett said. “If Woods knows you’re there, she’ll just take you out too.”
“She won’t know. You’ll sneak me into the garage in the back seat of your car, and I’ll stay out of sight.”
Coyne shook his head vigorously. “I don’t like it. The thought of having you both in there makes my ass twitch.”
Jo grimaced. “I can’t thank you enough for that image. But the fact is, it’s my responsibility to have my partner’s back. And I’m not interested in arguing about it.”
Arnett glared at her. She ignored it.
