Hothouse Orchid (Holly Barker 6)

“You’re right.”

“The problem is, you may have to tail Jimmy for days or even weeks before he makes his move. I mean, right now he’s home free, and he knows that if he commits another murder the whole Bruno-as-killer thing will be blown.”

“I think he would change his MO, make it seem that there’s a different murderer out there,” Lauren said.

“You may be right,” Holly agreed, “but you’re still going to have to wait for the pressure to build inside Jimmy, and that could take a while.”

“It won’t take a while,” Lauren said.

“How can you make it happen sooner?” Holly asked.

“By being the victim.”

“Lauren, I thought we agreed that was a stupid idea.”

“Listen to me, Holly. If I don’t do this we have only one other alternative: we wait for Jimmy to grab another woman. We’d be using an innocent person as bait, and who knows what could happen?”

“You have a point,” Holly said.

“But if his intended victim is me, we have two advantages: we choose the time, and we have him on video and audio. All I need to do is use a code word, and backup is all over us. They have the location, and they’re close.”

Holly shrugged. “Again, you have a point.”

“Cops do this sort of thing all the time,” Lauren pointed out. “It’s just like an undercover drug bust, and the state police have the equipment to make it work. They have surveillance vans that can track his car in real time, pinpoint it, and they have real-time viewing of what’s happening in the car. Hurd can make that happen.”

“Lauren,” Holly said, “do you know what transference is?”

“I think so,” Lauren replied. “It’s like when you transfer your feeling about someone, like your wicked stepfather, onto someone else, like your boyfriend.”

“Right. And do you see any transference going on here?”

“Yeah, I’m transferring my feelings about Bruno to Jimmy. That’s a perfectly valid conclusion, and I think I have perfectly valid reasons for doing it. I hate rapists.”

Holly thought about that for a few seconds. “I think you should have a helicopter, too,” she said. “There’s going to be a very short time between when Jimmy makes his move and you’re in real trouble. Remember, all the other victims, including me, were unconscious immediately.”

“We’ve got the vaccination gun,” Lauren said.

“You can buy those things at a medical supply store,” Holly said, “or shoplift one.”

“I think Jimmy would want me conscious,” Lauren said. “I think he would want a real sexual experience, at least at first.”

“The problem is, Lauren, if you give him a real sexual experience, a consensual one, you’ve got no case against him; it’s just two people fucking.”

“No, no. I make him think it’s real, then I say no.”

“In that case, you’d have to fight him off,” Holly pointed out.

“Not for long; I’d yell the code word, and help would be there.”

“He could kill you in seconds.”

“I’d be armed.”

“If you’re unconscious, that won’t help. And you can’t just shoot him without provocation, Lauren; you’ll be on camera the whole time.”

“How I handle it will have to be left to me,” Lauren said.

“There’s something else,” Holly said. “How are you going to get hold of Jimmy’s car long enough to do all this installation work on it?”