Free Panther's Prey by Lachlan Smith Page B

unlikely to buy the idea of a serial rapist on the prowl. Would anyone be any more likely to buy it now, when Rodriguez was so much more obviously guilty?
    Her name was Britney Yarmouth. A list of possible cell phone numbers from the LexisNexis database was in the file. The first two numbers I tried were no longer in service. The third connected and, just when the call seemed about ready to go to voice mail, a woman said hello, with an urgent challenge in her voice. I told her I was a lawyer and what office I worked for and that I wanted to talk to her about a crime she’d been involved in as a victim a few years before. Then I waited, expecting the silence that signaled she’d ended the call.
    Instead her words came in a rush, tumbling out so fast I could hardly keep up. “I’ve been going around for days wondering what the hell is going on: should I call the police, should I call
you,
or should I just forget about it. Like, for my own safety. But I can’t just
forget.
I’m too scared. Even in the middle of the day, I can’t walk down the street without looking over my shoulder. The cat was making noise last night and I nearly put a bullet through my bedroom door. Jordan told me we were safe but obviously she was wrong.”
    My heart rate spiked. “You knew Jordan?”
    â€œShe first called wanting me to be a witness in that trial. I told her I didn’t think I could. In the end, she said I didn’t have to. I asked her to keep me posted on how it was going, and she said she would. I didn’t expect her to follow through, but during the trialshe called me every single night. Even if it was just a few words, she always called.”
    I hadn’t realized Jordan had actually spoken with Britney before our focus shifted to discrediting Rodriguez’s confession by reference to his history of interactions with the police. I was even more surprised to learn they’d kept in close contact months after Britney ceased to be a potentially useful witness in Rodriguez’s trial.
    â€œWhat did she want you to testify about?”
    â€œWhat happened, of course. The rape. She said it couldn’t have been your client. After I saw a picture of him, I knew she was right. She was sure that the guy who’d attacked me must also have attacked other women.” The urgency came back into her voice. “We discussed it again the night she died.”
    I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Discussed what?”
    â€œAbout how the police had long since given up investigating the rape. She had this idea, after Rodriguez was acquitted, that now they’d have no choice but to start looking into the possibility that the guy who’d attacked me was still out there, that I hadn’t been his first or his last, that he’d been attacking other women and getting away with it. She wasn’t going to just walk away after the case was over. In her mind, the jury’s verdict was only the beginning. She wanted to get the real guy. I believed in her. I wanted to get him, too.”
    â€œAnd then she turned up murdered.”
    â€œHe
killed her. Because he knew she was gunning for him.” Her voice rose, becoming almost manic. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. And now they’ve got Rodriguez behind bars for the crime, so that means the real killer can do whatever he wants. As far as the police are concerned,
he
doesn’t exist. And that means he never did.”
    â€œWhat did you mean before about Jordan saying the two of you were safe?” I wondered if there’d been threats, or some other indication that they might
not
be safe, that the rapist had one orboth of them in his sights nearly two years after Britney had been attacked.
    â€œShe said he wouldn’t dare come after me again. His whole MO is watching, waiting in the shadows. Like a panther in a tree. That’s what we started calling him during the