Page 77 of Allure

“No? Not even after what happened?” I’m a bit surprised to hear this.

“You’ve always taken the bull by the horns. Your instincts are pretty damn good. I can’t deny that. You started to take karate lessonsbeforeyou were attacked. You didn’t wait until after. There was this one girl…” He shakes his head, his gaze shifting down the hall, a faraway look in his eyes.

I’m curious and want to press him for more details, but the professor of our class comes to the doorway and coughs loudly.

"Class has already started," he says dryly. "Are you two going to just stand here and talk instead of coming in? If you wish to talk, I suggest doing it elsewhere because you're disrupting my class, which, actually, is your class as well."

“I’m sorry, sir,” I say as sweetly as I can, and I wait for him to reenter the classroom for me to scamper inside, Declan on my heels.

Declan’s not worried, but I can’t shake my fear, and I don’t bother to bring it up to him again. In fact, as soon as this class is over, I bolt to the final one for the day, and as soon as that one is finished, I race to my car and drive over to the police station. I’m hoping that seeing them in person will help to get my point across to them more directly than if I called them, considering I still haven’t spoken to Detective Rivera. I’m not sure why he hasn’t called me back. None of his supposed leads have gotten him anywhere, but maybe he’s spoken to Declan. I hope so. I know Declan doesn’t believe me about the green eyes, but I’m certain about that. It is strange, though, that some of the others noticed the mole like I had, but they saw dark eyes.

The police officer behind the desk acknowledges me right away for once, and I’m hoping that’s a good sign.

"Hi, my name is Brooke Adams, and I'm here to discuss with whoever can help me about what I think might be an issue."

“An issue about what?” he asks. His hair is buzzed short, his eyes piercing, and he just looks tough and fierce, like he used to be a linebacker in high school and college. If he were chasing my criminal ass down, I would be terrified he would plow me to the ground so hard I would land in next week.

“Rumble Dojo is putting on a free self-defense class in two weeks. I think the mugger who has been threatening women across the city might be drawn to the event due to all of the media attention it has been drawing. I was hoping that the police could provide protection for the event.”

“We’re police officers, miss, not babysitters.”

“I know that, but if you could at the very least have a squad car parked there, that alone might be enough to deter him from showing up… Or maybe if you could have someone in a plains car just sit in the lot, he might come, and then you could catch him in the act, and this nightmare would be over.”

“I’m afraid we’re stretched too thin to be able to do what you ask.”

“Even an empty squad car—”

“We don’t have a car to waste.”

I slowly nod as if I understand, but I don’t. I really don’t.

“You guys can handle it yourselves,” he says. “Can’t you? I mean, you all know karate.”

“He has a gun,” I protest, “and… It’s fine. We’ll be fine, but if something does happen, I hope you remember this, your refusing to help us out. I know you’re shorthanded, but…”

“We are doing the best we can.”

“Tell that to his latest victim. Has she been released from the hospital yet?” I pat the counter and walk out of there, fuming.

They’re doing the best they can, I try to tell myself. I have no idea what other cases they have to handle on top of this, and it’s been a PR nightmare for them. Clearly, they don’t agree that the mugger will show up, but that doesn’t stop me from calling Detective Rivera and leaving a message for him, asking him personally if he thinks the mugger might make an appearance at the event.

To my surprise, he calls me back. Thankfully, I just parked back at the dorm, and I’m so eager to answer that I almost drop my phone.

“Hello?”

“Ms. Adams. I received your message.”

“About the self-defense class? Do you think that he might make an appearance?”

“Honestly, my gut feeling is that he won’t. I believe there’s been too much publicity surrounding it for him to be willing to risk it. He’s been moving to a different shopping center for the past few attacks, which tells me that he doesn’t want to risk being caught.”

“All of those credit cards… He’s getting more cards than money, isn’t he?”

“One woman actually had a sizable amount of cash on her, unfortunately,” he says grimly. “And there have been a few cases in which he’s been able to charge thousands of dollars’ worth of items on the cards before they’ve been canceled.”

“Damn, he works fast.”

“We believe he has the carts filled before he takes the cards so he can try.”

---