A/N: I don't own them. They belong to minds more creative than my own.
Even though it was the middle of summer the damp, warm air had an undeniable chill to it. It fit with the theme of the evening, really. The whole air of the night had a cold, uneasy feeling to it.
Julie wore strappy, cheap-looking, gold, stiletto heels and a faux leather, black halter mini-dress that was cut low down the front. A wireless microphone dangled between her breasts, disguised as a gold locket. Her hair had been curled and pumped with enough volume to hide her earpiece.
She was marching evenly back and forth down 11th avenue between 32nd and 33rd streets. Head up, shoulders back. Julie Kemp exuded the confidence that Alex had so hoped for.
There were two unmarked vans parked a block and a half away from the block Julie was strolling in either direction. One held Alex, Bobby and Officers Nelson and Richardson, the guys from Vice who had been coming out with Alex, Julie and Matt in the evenings. The other held Kemp and three of his other Vice squad members. Three back-up squad cars patrolled the area circling a five-block radius in turn.
Their only blind spot was an alley that cut midway through the block. There was only one entrance to the alley, on 11th avenue, but it was possible for someone to come through from one of the surrounding buildings. To account for this there were two officers positioned on the roof of one of the buildings, but due to their height and the darkness of the alley below it was hard for them to see anything at all.
Through binoculars Alex could see Julie clearly. They kept their distance so as to be sure not to alert their suspect to their presence. It had been three hours and so far… nothing. Bobby could tell that Julie's feet were starting to get tired by the way she was walking, her steps getting deliberately slower, and by the way she would from time to time stop and lean against a street light.
"John Doe approaching from the South." Kemp's voice came clearly over the radio.
"Got a visual?" Matt responded.
"Couldn't get a good look. He seemed to come out of the shadows from around the corner on 31st street. Could be our guy though."
Alex stared hard through the binoculars but the man appeared to be wearing a hooded sweatshirt and in the darkness she couldn't get a good look at his face.
"You need something, sugar?" Julie's voice dripped like honey over the wire.
The man appeared to pause as if in thought, but then just moved on.
Eames let out a breath she didn't even know she had been holding. As much as she wanted their suspect to come along she also felt like a mother protecting her young, and she didn't want to let her out into the world unprepared.
Julie began walking the block again in a slow, deliberate manner. Occasionally she would glance over her shoulder to make sure no one had come around the corner or out of the alley and was making their way up behind her unannounced.
Matt, for his part, was decidedly uneasy at being positioned so far away from his partner. It was on this night that for the first time he felt as though he had a responsibility to this woman.
Nelson stepped out of the back of the van for a smoke and Goren followed him, unable to confine his restlessness to the vehicle. He leaned against the edge of the van on the street side, facing south, looking to where Julie was pacing her own block. In the isolation of the night and the area of town they were in he could see her even from a block and a half away. There were no cars obstructing his view. He would lose sight of her as she moved to the midpoint on her block but Goren took comfort in the fact that Kemp and the others could then see her coming and going on the other end.
& &
Deep breaths. Slow, deep breaths. In her mind Julie Kemp could comfort herself. She could talk to herself and pretend she was not alone on the poorly lit street waiting for a madman.
In reality she was very alone. Sure, there was back-up all around her but a lot could happen in the seconds it would take for them to tighten the noose around their suspect.
She tried hard to hide her nervousness. She knew the old saying "fake it until you make it" and she really believed she could talk herself into a higher level of confidence. It had worked, to a point. Maybe to a fault. If something happened to her tonight would she have anyone to blame other than herself, she wondered.
When her partner Matt Hartley had first said she was not ready she was offended. It made her blood boil to be told she wasn't up to the challenge by a male colleague. Still, once she got past her initial stubbornness in her own head she could reconcile the fact that maybe he was right.
She reflected on the fact that in the academy one of her instructors once told her that "the adrenaline would kick in" and she would "know what to do even in the scariest of situations," that it was in "the way NYPD Officers were built."
Her steps were being taken slowly. She was trying to figure out a way to lessen the pressure on her feet. In choosing her shoes she had gone for those that had the most sex appeal and not those that were most practical for walking for extended periods of time.
She was unsure of how much more she could take of this endless pacing. On what was usually a block filled with other working girls at this hour the night had taken on a deafening silence. In the hours she had been on the street only a handful of potential Johns had come by, none yielding any of the desired result.
Over her wire she could here the occasional comment between the vans, her colleagues keeping one another appraised of their surroundings. Still, people were running out of idle chitchat at this hour.
The wind blew suddenly sending the warm, damp air through her hair. It was almost enough to distract her from her own thoughts.
She was walking towards the North, heading up to the 33rd street end of the block.
A creepy chill passed over her, but she couldn't tell if it was merely that feeling you got when you were alone on a street in New York City.
As she moved past the alley the sensation came over her that someone was on the block with her, following her.
She wheeled around quickly to see if anyone was there.
That's when the world went black.