Stirred

“My pleasure, Jessica.”

She could feel the awkward moment coming as they made their way through the empty restaurant, the servers already setting the tables with fresh linens and clean glass and silverware for tomorrow. In ten seconds, they were going to be standing on the sidewalk, the question of whether the night was over or just begi

She wasn’t going to sleep with him—she knew that.

But maybe a quick nightcap back at his place or hers? No harm there.

Rob opened the door, and then they were out on the sidewalk in the cool spring night.

Jessica stopped near the street, her hands in her pockets, half-looking for a cab, half-wondering if she needed to.

“I’m really glad I took a chance asking if I could sit next to you,” Rob said.

“Me, too,” Jessica said. “It was a really lovely evening.”

Come on, continue it. I’m sending you the signal. If I’d wanted our time together to be over, I would’ve already said good—

“Any chance I could interest you in a late-evening walk?”

Rob extended his arm, the boldest move he’d made yet, and she melted a little bit.

“That sounds very nice.”

She took his arm, felt a cord of muscle under his shirt.

“I was thinking maybe we’d walk toward the river,” Rob said. “It’s so beautiful at night.”

They headed east on West Fulton, the clouds glowing with the reflection of the city lights.

“It’s fu

“And I’m glad I did,” Jessica said. “I go out a lot, too.”

“By yourself?”

“Yeah. It’s just…well, you know…so hard to meet people.”

“To meet the right people.”

“Exactly.” She laughed. “Everyone’s so fake.”

“It’s an epidemic,” Rob said. “People never say what’s really on their mind. It’s all a game these days.”

“I’m right there with you, Rob.”

The streets were quiet, the last of the revelers stumbling out of bars in search of their cars or a late-night cab.

Straight ahead, the downtown rose into the night like a range of luminescent mountains, and Jessica could smell the river. The breeze had taken on a cold, dank component as it swept toward them across the water.

They walked up North Canal, the river flowing like liquid glass.

Halfway across the bridge on Kinzie Street, Rob stopped, and they leaned against the railing.

Watched the current pass beneath them.

Watched the lights of downtown twinkling in the dark.

A comfortable moment of silence, she thought. And a good omen, perhaps, that they could share one on a first date.

Rob pointed toward the old Kinzie Street railroad bridge. “You ever see it up close?” he asked. “From the shore, I mean?”

“I’ve never walked over to that side of the river.”

“Well, come on.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, let’s go.”

He took her by the hand, his grip firm and dry, and they moved at a brisker pace across the bridge and then south down the river walk. His stride was brisk, purposeful, and it challenged Jessica to keep up with him.

“Are you sure we’re allowed to be here?” she asked.

“Of course. The city is ours.”

It was two fifteen when they arrived at the base of the old railroad bridge. It soared into the sky, locked open in a raised position at a forty-five degree angle over the Chicago River.

Sirens wailed somewhere in the distance, but otherwise the city stood as quiet as one might ever hope to hear it.

Snowstorm quiet.

Not another car nearby except for a white van parked near the path.

Rob put his arm around her.

She let her head tilt over and rest against his shoulder, wanting to kiss him, thinking if it was going to happen, now was the moment—standing by the river and feeling like they were the only two people still awake in this gorgeous city.

He was staring up at the steel girders of the bridge, and if she could only get him to look down at her, she felt sure it would happen.

The perfect culmination to this glorious surprise of an evening.

“A pe

Finally Rob looked down at her.

“I was thinking,” he said, “how beautiful you’re going to look hanging from the end of that bridge over the water.”

The wine buzz vanished.

She stared up at Rob, trying to replay what he’d just said, certain she’d misunderstood, but his grip on her shoulder tightened.

“Wondering if you heard me right, Jessica?”

A strong, metal ache filled her mouth, her heart pounding now, something clenching up inside her chest as the strength flooded out of her legs.

“Happy to repeat myself,” he continued. “I said, you’re going to look so beautiful hanging from the end of that bridge.”

“Rob—”

“That’s not my name. I’d prefer you call me Luther. Luther Kite. Perhaps you know me by reputation? I’ve killed a lot of people.”

She screamed for less than a second before his hand covered her mouth, everything happening so fast and with such brute force, her head caught in the crook of his arm as he muscled her toward the base of the old railroad bridge, toward the shadows.

Mace. I have Mace.

The can was in her purse, probably buried at the bottom. She hadn’t even touched it since she’d bought it two years ago after taking that self-defense class with Nancy and Margaret.

He dragged her into the shadows, and Jessica felt him lift her—airborne for two seconds—and then her back slammed hard into the ground, the breath driven out of her.

Motes of light starred her field of vision, pure panic and oxygen deprivation, but her left arm—thank God—was free. She felt her purse underneath her, got two fingers on the zipper, tugging it open as he whispered in her ear, “No more screams, Jessica. You understand me?”

Frantic nodding.

“Screaming will only make it worse on you. So much worse.”

She jammed her hand into the purse, the back half inaccessible, crushed into the grass under the weight of her and this monster.

“If I take my hand away from your mouth, will you be quiet?”

She nodded again as her fingers grazed the top of the canister, fighting for a workable grip, her chest blitzing up and down. Even her hardest workouts, when her pulse redlined for several agonizing minutes, could never achieve this level of cardiac frenzy.

The man took his hand away, and she stared up at him, her fingers clutching the top of the canister, straining to pull it out from underneath her.

He clamped one hand around her throat, still pi

“I’ll let you do whatever you want to me,” she said, trying to steady the quiver in her voice. “Just don’t hurt me. Please, God, don’t hurt me. I won’t tell anyone, I swear to you. I just want to live.”

Luther grabbed her right wrist and said, “Give me your hands.”

He was reaching for her left when the canister of Mace broke free.

She found the trigger.

Swung it up in a single, fluid movement, and then she was pointing it in Luther’s face, her finger squeezing, not even certain if she had the damn thing pointed in the right direction, just praying she wouldn’t Mace herself.

A burst of pepper spray exploded sideways out of the nozzle as the man swatted the canister out of her hand.

Luther smiled down at her, Jessica so frozen with concentrated terror that she didn’t even react as he turned her over and bound her wrists together with a thick loop of plastic.

When he rolled her back over, she said, “Please…is there anything I can do?”