Chapter 14
The operation launched at six a.m.
Harper stood in the command center—a converted conference room at the station—watching monitors stream live feeds from eight different locations across Blackridge.
The Daily Grind coffee shop. Summit Fitness gym.
The downtown farmers market. Three different grocery stores.
A bookstore. A park where two victims had been seen jogging.
Each location had two undercover officers working in shifts, plus mobile units ready to respond. Sanchez coordinated the tech side, monitoring security cameras and body cam feeds. Morris and Holt managed the ground teams.
It was the most comprehensive surveillance operation Blackridge had ever mounted.
“Team Three, status?” Holloway spoke into his radio.
“In position at Summit Fitness,” came the response. “Light foot traffic. No subjects matching profile yet.”
“Team Five?”
“Farmers market setting up. Vendor booth is almost done. Good visibility of the whole space.”
Harper studied the screens, cataloguing every face that appeared. Women in their twenties, brunette, petite—potential victims. Men aged thirty to fifty—potential suspects. The killer was out there somewhere, and if he was still hunting, he’d show up at one of these locations eventually.
“You should eat something,” Silas said, appearing at her elbow with coffee and a breakfast sandwich. “It’s going to be a long day.”
Harper accepted both gratefully. They’d been at the station since five a.m., coordinating final details. She’d barely slept despite Silas’s best efforts to make sure she rested.
“How are you feeling about this?” Silas asked quietly.
“Cautiously optimistic. If he’s still selecting victims, he has to show up somewhere.” Harper bit into the sandwich. “But he’s smart. He might see through this just like he saw through the coffee shop stakeout.”
“That was obvious. Just the two of us sitting there for fifteen hours. This is different. Eight locations, multiple teams, everyone blending in. He can’t watch all of them at once.”
“Unless he’s already gone to ground. Already selected his next victim and is waiting for the right moment.” She sipped her coffee, grateful for its warmth.
Silas squeezed her shoulder briefly. “We’ll catch him. One way or another.”
The morning crawled by with painful slowness.
Harper watched the screens until her eyes burned, studying every person who walked through camera range.
Sanchez ran facial recognition on anyone who appeared at multiple locations.
Morris coordinated with the ground teams, getting updates every fifteen minutes.
By noon, they’d flagged twelve people of interest—men who matched the general profile and were observed at two or more locations. Background checks came back clean on all of them. Regular citizens going about their daily routines.
“Team Seven has a possible,” Morris said, pulling up a feed from the bookstore. “White male, late thirties, watching a female matching victim profile. She’s browsing the fiction section, he’s pretending to look at magazines but keeps glancing her direction.”
Harper leaned closer to the monitor. The man was medium height, medium build, wearing jeans and a nondescript jacket. His body language was tense, focused.
“How long has he been watching her?”
“About ten minutes. He followed her from the café section to fiction.”
“Send me his image,” Harper said. “I want to run it against our database.”
The photo came through seconds later. Sanchez ran it through facial recognition while Harper studied the man’s features. Something about him felt wrong, but she couldn’t pinpoint what.
“Got a hit,” Sanchez said. “David Mitchell, thirty-six, works in IT for a local firm. No criminal record. Lives in the Riverside Apartments—same complex as victim Amy Thorne.”
Harper’s pulse quickened. “Same building?”
“Same complex, different building. He’s in Building C, she was in Building A.”
“That’s still significant. Get a team to follow him discreetly when he leaves. I want to know where he goes, what he does.”
They watched for another twenty minutes as David Mitchell continued his browsing, occasionally glancing at the young woman. Finally, she checked out and left. Mitchell waited exactly two minutes, then left as well.
“Team Eight, subject is mobile,” Morris radioed. “Headed east on foot. Stay with him but keep your distance.”
Harper switched feeds to follow the mobile unit’s body cam. They tracked Mitchell for six blocks. He stopped at a sandwich shop, ordered lunch, sat down to eat while scrolling through his phone. Completely normal behavior.
After lunch, he returned to an office building downtown. The mobile unit confirmed he went back to work.
“Another dead end,” Harper muttered.
“Or just a guy who noticed a pretty woman and looked,” Silas said. “We can’t arrest people for having eyes.”
By three p.m., Harper needed a break from the screens. The constant vigilance was exhausting, and they hadn’t seen anything genuinely suspicious yet. Just normal people living normal lives.
“I’m going to walk the perimeter,” she told Holloway. “Check in with some of the ground teams in person.”
“Take Kane with you,” Holloway said without looking up from his own monitors.
Harper and Silas drove to Summit Fitness first. The undercover officers—a male-female pair posing as a couple working out together—reported nothing unusual. Steady stream of members, mostly regulars, no one who set off alarm bells.
Next was The Daily Grind. The officer posing as a remote worker had been there since opening at six a.m. and would stay until close at ten p.m. He’d catalogued forty-seven customers so far, cross-referenced them against the database, found no matches to persons of interest.
“This is like looking for a needle in a haystack,” Harper said as they drove toward the farmers market. “Except we don’t even know if the needle is in the haystack or in a completely different haystack.”
“Mixed metaphor aside, you’re right. But what else can we do?” Silas navigated through downtown traffic. “We can’t just sit around waiting for him to kill again.”
“I know. I just wish we had more to go on.” Harper scanned the farmers market crowd, cataloguing faces out of habit.
A Blackridge PD patrol car was parked near the market entrance. The officer was leaning against his vehicle, keeping watch on the crowd—part of Holloway’s directive to increase visible police presence.
“Let’s check in,” Silas said, heading toward the patrol car.
The officer straightened as they approached. Harper catalogued his features automatically: mid-thirties, brown hair, average build, clean-shaven. Nothing remarkable.
“Detective Kane. Agent Sinclair.”
“Officer Sutton,” Silas acknowledged. “How’s it looking out here?”
“Quiet so far. Lot of families, regular vendors. Nothing that raises flags.” Sutton gestured to the market. “People seem a bit on edge though. The press coverage has everyone spooked.”
“That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Harper said. “Awareness keeps people safer.”
“True. I’ve had at least a dozen people ask me if they should be worried walking alone.” Sutton shook his head. “Told them to stay in groups, trust their instincts, all the usual.”
“We appreciate you putting in the extra hours,” Silas said.
“Just doing my part. We all want this guy caught.” Sutton checked his watch. “I’m on until eight, then Morris is taking over the evening patrol.”
They chatted for another minute about shift schedules and coverage areas, then moved on to check in with the undercover team at the market.
They checked in with the farmers market team—two officers posing as shoppers, casually browsing while keeping watch on the crowd. Nothing suspicious so far. Just vendors selling produce and handmade goods, shoppers filling reusable bags, street musicians playing for tips.
“Let’s grab coffee,” Silas suggested, gesturing to a vendor selling espresso drinks. “We’ve been going nonstop since five a.m.”
They got lattes and found a bench with a good view of the market. Harper sipped her drink, watching people flow past. Families with children. Elderly couples holding hands. Young professionals picking up dinner ingredients. Normal life, continuing despite the darkness lurking in the shadows.
“Do you think he knows?” Harper asked. “About the operation? Do you think he’s watching us right now, laughing at our efforts?”
“Maybe. Or maybe he’s lying low because he knows we’re closing in.” Silas stretched out his long legs. “Either way, we’re doing the right thing. Being proactive instead of reactive.”
Officer Sutton walked past their bench, nodding politely at them. “Agent Sinclair. Detective Kane.”
“Officer,” Harper acknowledged. Up close, Sutton looked tired. Dark circles under his eyes, jaw tight with tension. The case was wearing on everyone.
After the officer moved on, Harper turned to Silas. “How well do you know him?”
“Sutton? Not well. He works patrol, I’m Major Crimes. Our paths don’t cross much except at briefings.” Silas considered. “Seems solid enough. Why?”
Harper shrugged. “Just being thorough. Checking in with everyone.”
She continued scanning the market crowd.
They finished their coffee and headed back to the station. The command center was quieter now, the initial adrenaline of the operation settling into the tedious work of sustained surveillance.
“Anything?” Harper asked Holloway.
“Few more persons of interest flagged, all cleared after background checks. No one who looks like a viable suspect.” Holloway rubbed his eyes. “We’ve got teams rotating out for dinner now. You two should eat something substantial.”
Harper wasn’t hungry, but she knew better than to argue. They grabbed Thai food from the same restaurant they’d eaten at the day before, bringing it back to eat in the conference room while monitoring feeds.
“This is day one,” Silas said, reading her frustration. “We’ve got two more days. Give it time.”