Free Task Force Bride by Julie Miller Page B

we’re looking for now.”
    Dr. Kilpatrick tucked her short silvery-blond hair behind her ears, concurring with Annie’s facts. “He’s most likely OCD—suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder. The surgical mask Miss Lockhart mentioned fits our profile. He has specific routines. He needs things to be spotlessly clean and orderly. And even though he functions normally in society, he has issues with successful, goal-oriented women. He’s been emotionally traumatized by a woman with power over him—a mother, a lover, a boss.”
    “Blah, blah, blah.” Nick voiced his opinions and emotions more loudly than anyone, but Pike had to admit he was feeling the same frustration.
    Maggie Wheeler-Murdock, the red-haired officer who was typing notes onto her laptop, and who had a special affinity for talking to the victims of these brutal crimes, looked up from her computer screen. She directed her question to the police psychologist. “Is it possible the shorter time frame between attacks is because the Cleaner has turned the rapes into murders? She’s stealing the spotlight from him?”
    Dr. Kilpatrick nodded. “That could be the very relationship he’s acting out on by going after these women. She’s interfered with his routine. And he no longer sees himself as the most dangerous thing out there on the streets.”
    Pike finally had something to add. “There’s danger enough.” He felt all eyes at the table turn to him. “When Hans and I are out there walking our beat, you can see the fear on women’s faces. It’s in the way they walk and carry themselves. A lot of the businesses in that neighborhood are run or staffed by women. Now some of those businesses are closing because of the fear our unsubs have created. Trust me, I’m less worried about the economic impact than I am about what this guy is doing to the confidence of this city.” He braced his elbows on the table and leaned toward the rest of the group. “We need to do something now. Go on the offensive. There are too many dead bodies—too many ruined lives—left in this guy’s wake.”
    “Pike’s right.” Detective Montgomery surveyed the members of his team, sitting around the table. “We need to set up a sting that will draw this guy out.”
    “We need bait for a sting,” Nick pointed out. “We don’t have the manpower to track every potential victim he might go after.”
    Dr. Kate added another bit of reasoning. “It needs to be a woman our unsub sees as a specific threat to him.”
    Spencer shook his head. “We’ve only got two surviving witnesses who can implicate him. One of them is in a mental hospital. And the victim Dr. Kate mentioned—Bailey Austin—we can’t count on her. Her assault was too recent. She’s too fragile to put into a possible face-off with her attacker unless he’s behind the glass in a lineup room.”
    “It doesn’t have to be a previous victim, does it?” Maggie suggested. “Can’t we put a female officer undercover in that neighborhood who fits his ideal victim? Make her an irresistible target to draw him out?”
    “It can’t be you.” Dr. Kate smiled and nodded toward the baby bump that was already starting to show following Maggie’s summer wedding to a U.S. Marine who’d lived in her apartment building.
    Nick Fensom’s gaze locked on to the dark-haired CSI sitting across from him. “The Cleaner has seen Annie at crime scenes. We have to assume she’s shared that information with our unsub. He won’t go after one of us.”
    Kate Kilpatrick agreed. “None of us can assume the role we need. As the task force liaison to the press, I have my face all over the media. He knows I’m with KCPD, too.”
    Pike flattened his palms on top of the table. The team’s undercover-cop idea wasn’t going to fly. “This guy lives or works in that neighborhood. He knows every woman there. He’d avoid a stranger, unless we’re talking about embedding someone there for several months.”
    Detective