Emily looked stressed. But then again, she had every reason to look stressed. This was the biggest case of her young career, and she wore it on her face. She met Riley at the ferry, and they got into her car. “Rough morning?” she asked, seeing how tired he looked. 

“Great morning, actually, but I got twisted into a pretzel at the dojo.”

“Oh, you do martial arts?”

“Nope,” he said, smiling through his soreness. “Not at all, which is why I’m in pain. I was more like a crash test dummy, but I think when all this is over I’m going to start doing it more seriously. I know a guy.”

“That’s great. I used to train years ago.”

“You’re full of surprises, aren’t you Detective?” he asked, smiling at her. He swore that her cheek turned red. “So, where are we headed?” he asked as she started to drive.

“Where else,” she said. “Where else but the he wrong side of the tracks. The place where cops go. The place where the victims live.”

Even though Staten Island was unfamiliar to Riley, it was just like everywhere else. There were affluent parts, middle class areas, and, as Emily put it, the wrong side of the tracks. It was hardly unique in that, except for the fact that this part of town had become a hunting ground for a sadistic serial killer. The neighborhood transformed before him as they drove further—the housing, the types of stores, the quality of the living all around—it all changed with each passing minute of road time. Before too long Riley had a bad neighborhood on either side of his peripheral vision and all that accompanied that; dilapidated buildings, cars with broken windows, criminals, the whole nine yards.

It wasn’t too long before they were in the seediest part of town. Riley had seen worse neighborhoods in his time in the city, but this was right up there. “Come on,” Emily said as they parked their car and got out. “This way.” She navigated the back alleys like someone familiar with their geography, and after a few twists and turns they found themselves in an alleyway behind a series of storefronts. It was like a little shanty town. There were homeless people here and there, and working girls on almost every corner. “Those are some of them.”

“Some of them?” Riley asked.

“Yeah. There will be more later on.”

They started to walk in and out of alleyways, around the front of buildings, and all over the neighborhood. Almost everywhere he looked Riley could see a crime in progress, or one about to take place. Drug sales, guys with weapons on them, pimps checking on their territory, and of course all of the potential Ripper copycat victims walking around. “Jesus, there are a lot of girls. How do the cops not do anything about this?”

“Are you really asking me that?” she asked. “You know what it’s like. This is the forgotten part of town. No one comes here. Cops patrol but mostly look the other way, or make some petty arrests, but nothing ever changes.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I don’t know why I asked.”

They spent the next few hours or so just walking around the area. For whatever reason Riley didn’t feel unsafe or uncomfortable, no matter how shady the characters they encountered were. He and Emily got stares, but he paid no mind to them at all. Instead he was focused on observing the surroundings. It really did feel like no-man’s land in that part of town, at least from a police perspective. It was the kind of place where crimes were common, and it was filled with the type of people who society has turned their backs on. In other words, it was the perfect hunting ground for a predator looking to do the most damage without getting caught. Riley had to put himself in the killer’s place to fully understand. He had to think like someone who was looking to hurt others. 

“Like shooting fish in a barrel,” he said to Emily. “There’s a huge population of sex workers right out in the open, no police presence, and a whole community of people willing to look the other way. They don’t even look afraid considering that four other girls have been killed. You’d think that sort of thing would cut down on the activity around here, at least for a little while.”

“You’re thinking like a normal human being,” Emily said back. “You have to think like someone desperate enough to sell their bodies on the street and possibly get raped or killed in the process. Death is part of the game, detective. All of these women understand that. They’re plenty scared, trust me, but they’re just used to that particular fear.”

“Girls,” he said. 

“What’s that?”

“You said ‘women’, but I’d classify the majority of the females out here as girls. Some of them look like teenagers, for God’s sake. What the hell is going on around here?”

“The same thing that’s going on in town’s all over the world,” she said. “It’s just invisible to most people because it’s easy to avoid places like this. But now you’re staring it in the face.”

They walked around a while more, talking to a few girls, but mostly gauging the geography. “Do you know how the last of the Ripper’s victims was killed?”

“Remind me,” Riley said.

“She may have been killed inside. At least that’s where she was found. Her throat was slashed, and some of her organs were missing. All of his murders got increasingly more gruesome.”

“I can’t imagine that happening to one of these girls. That one over there looks like she’s sixteen.”

“I know,” Emily said solemnly. “But if the pattern holds true, one of them will end up just like Mary Kelly.”

“No!” Riley said so forcefully that Emily had to look at him. “That’s not going to happen. Not if I have anything at all to say about it.”

He was angry. Something had changed within him while he stood there, watching potential victims who belonged in a high school classroom walk by. He wasn’t content to just be a homicide detective; he needed to stop this atrocity from happening, and to put an end to this monster’s career of mutilating women. And that’s exactly what he planned to do.

“So what are we going to do about it?” 

Riley had an idea. It was basic, but it fit this situation perfectly. “We’re going to need a decoy,” he said. “Someone who fits his MO, and we’re going to need a police presence in the area. Guys who know how to not be seen.”

“I can decoy,” she said without hesitation. It wasn’t even what Riley was implying, but he wasn’t surprised that Emily jumped at the opportunity to put herself right in harm’s way. 

“Are you sure, detective?”

“Do you really need to ask me that?”

“No,” Riley said, grinning. “I’m sorry that I asked. I should know better at this point.”

“But I don’t know about the cops. Like I told you, I’ve been left alone.”

“It’s okay,” Riley said, looking away and smiling. “I know a few guys.”