The 6th Target (Women's Murder Club 6)

“Keep your hands where I can see them,” I called out.

The man looked volatile. He seemed to hesitate, move back into the street, then forward toward my doorway. His eyes darted everywhere, and I could make out that he was singing under his breath.

God, he was crazy — and he was dangerous. Where was his gun?

“Hands up. Stay where you are!” I yelled again.

The man stopped walking around. He raised his hands, flapping his envelope side to side like a white flag.

I scanned his face, trying to match what I saw against my mental picture of the shooter. This guy had shaved, and he’d done a poor job of it. Wisps of beard showed dark against his pale skin.

In every other way, I saw a match. He was tall, skinny, wearing clothes similar or identical to those worn by the shooter about sixty hours ago.

Was this Alfred Brinkley? Had a violent killer simply rung my doorbell to turn himself in? Or was this a different kind of lunatic, looking for a spotlight?

I stepped out onto the moon-shadowed sidewalk, gripping my Glock in both hands, pointing at the man’s chest. The unwashed smell of him wafted toward me.

“It’s me,” he said, staring down at his shoes. “You said you’re looking for me. I saw you on TV. In the video store.”

“Get on the ground,” I barked at him. “Facedown, with your fingers entwined on top of your head where I can see them.”

He swayed on his feet. I shouted, “Get down — do it now!” and he dropped to the sidewalk and placed his hands on his head.

With my gun pressed to the back of his skull, I ran my hands over the suspect’s body, checking for weapons, images from Rooney’s video flickering through my mind the whole time.

I pulled a gun from his jacket pocket, stuck it into the back of my waistband, and searched for more weapons. There were none.

I holstered my Glock and yanked the cuffs from my belt.

“What’s your name?” I asked, dragging back each stick-thin arm until the cuffs snapped around his wrists. Then I picked the envelope up from the sidewalk and stuffed it into my front pocket.

“Fred Brinkley,” he said, his voice filling with agitation. “You know me. You said to come in, remember? ‘We will find whoever did this terrible thing.’ I wrote it all down.”

The pictures from the Rooney video looped in my head. I saw this man shoot five people. I saw him shoot Claire.

I took his wallet from his hip pocket with a shaking hand, flipped it open, saw his driver’s license by the dim light of the streetlamp across the road.

It was Alfred Brinkley.

I had him.

I read Brinkley his rights and he waived them, saying again, “I did it. I’m the ferry shooter.”

“How did you find me?” I asked.

“Your address is on the Internet. At the library,” Brinkley told me. “Lock me up, okay? I think I could do it again.”

Jacobi’s car pulled up just then, brakes squealing. He bolted out of the driver’s seat with his gun in hand.

“You couldn’t wait for me, Boxer?”

“Mr. Brinkley is cooperating, Jacobi. Everything is under control.”

But seeing Jacobi, knowing that the danger was over, sent waves of relief through me, making me want to laugh and cry and shout woo-hoooo all at the same time.

“Nice work,” I heard Jacobi say. I felt his hand on my shoulder. I gulped air, trying to calm myself as Jacobi and I got Brinkley to his feet.

As we folded him into the backseat of Jacobi’s car, Brinkley turned toward me.