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Stacy found an old tree near the east side of the park.
The base of the trunk was broad enough that she was able to stand behind it. Stacy dropped her chin to the vest base and asked Austin if anyone surrounding the park, including the team’s tactical snipers, could see her. Austin replied with a firm no to her question.
These next few tense minutes drove Stacy crazy. A mild panic overcame her. It would grow or fade depending on if Brian Dowdy showed up and what he might do when he did. Stacy twisted the earpiece in her ear, making sure that it didn’t fail to communicate a message from Austin or one of the tactical team’s men. Her stomach shifted uneasily. Stacy couldn’t decide what to do with her hands, so she clasped and unclasped them as if she needed to feel them to be reassured.
“There’s a car approaching,” Austin said, his voice flat and robotic through the earpiece. “It’s pulling in behind Maria’s house. Standby.”
That was a problem. Stacy had assumed that Brian would park his car in a different location away from Maria’s house. If Stacy’s theory were right, that he was the killer that had murdered Brooke Crawford as well as George and Monica DeVito and Miguel Olivo, then he wouldn’t want to draw suspicion from “Maria” or anyone else. Josie planned to come down the porch’s front steps and walk toward the park’s wooded area, allowing Stacy a chance to approach Brian from behind.
Now, everything would have to change. “Austin, get Josie off that front porch and into the yard,” she commanded, biting off the ends of each word as she spoke.
Some static came over the line. “Got it.”
Stacy felt a surge of panic overwhelm her as the potential for her plans to fall apart heightened. “Get her walking across the field and toward me. If Brian sees that she’s not Maria, we’re done.”
“I’m on it,” Austin replied, slightly annoyed.
Stacy felt her breathing become rapid and shallow. A pulse was pounding in her temples. Not now, she said to herself, thinking about having another thoracic outlet incident.
Stacy closed her eyes and held her breath. She counted to five and slowly released. Then, she did it again, only this time she counted to seven when inhaling. Stacy whipped her head around the tree trunk for an instant. Through a partially squinted eye, she saw the lithe and lean frame of Josie, wearing a long trench coat with a hoodie, scampering off the porch and heading toward her.
Stacy let out another long breath. Her breathing exercises had avoided the debilitating pain and searing burning that would overtake her breathing and lungs. Still, she had to be careful and not let this episode become a full-blown attack.
Austin's voice through the speaker in the earpiece, "He's not stopping at the back door. He's coming around the house."
A pause. Stacy looked around the trunk again. Austin and the Tactical Unit were nowhere in sight. Only two of the neighbors were home, and the team had managed to get them to leave. The rest of the streets surrounding the block had been sealed off. The perimeter had been established and secured. Fairview Park was quiet except for the presence of three people.
The tactical team had decided to monitor from the other side of the park, inside an abandoned trailer that had belonged to a contractor doing some culvert work for the city. Stacy could barely make out the outline of the trailer from her position. Still, Austin benefited from using P-series binoculars, which made everything happening at a distance seem like taking place up-close.
Josie kept walking faster. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She wore a baseball cap pulled low around her ears, and it hid most of her face, except for her sharp, pointed nose, which resembled Maria’s nose.
Austin and Stacy had not told Josie where to walk to specifically. The plan was for Brian to approach her, not chase her away from the house.
Suddenly, the plan changed again. Josie slowed her walk and turned around for a moment, looking back to see Brian gaining on her.
“What the fuck is she doing?” Austin called out over the feed.
“I don’t know,” Stacy said with a hiss, “but she’s risking being seen.”
“It’s too late,” Austin called back. “He’s got a gun, Stacy.”
Stacy reached down and dislodged her Glock from the holster. As she moved around the tree, a shot rang out.