Page 17 of Pursuit of Her

"What are you planning?" Foster asked.

"I'm going to find her," Eve replied simply. "Before she takes another life."

As Eve left the precinct, evening shadows stretching across Phoenix Ridge's streets, her mind cycled through the vigilante's pattern. If Reagan was following the same methodology as her previous killings, she would be conducting reconnaissance on her next target tonight.

The appointment book had revealed Arthur Pembroke's regular Wednesday night meetings at the Lighthouse Tower, which would place him near the cliffs on the northern edge of the city; the perfect surveillance location would be the adjacent rooftop.

Tonight she would find Reagan Shaw. The question wasn't whether she could track her—Eve knew Reagan's methods better than anyone—but what she would do when they finally stood face to face. The law versus justice. Duty versus truth. The system versus the woman she had never stopped loving.

Tonight would force a choice she'd been avoiding for ten years.

4

REAGAN

Rain slashed against Reagan's face as she crouched at the edge of the Harborside Building's roof, her body a shadow against the storm-darkened sky. Below, Phoenix Ridge sparkled with artificial light, its streets slick with precipitation that transformed the city into a kaleidoscope of refracted color. Thunder rumbled in the distance, a primal warning that suited her mood.

Three hundred yards across the rain-soaked expanse, the Lighthouse Tower dominated the skyline, its glass and steel façade reflecting lightning in prismatic bursts. From her position, Reagan had a perfect line of sightinto the penthouse offices of Pembroke Financial, where Arthur Pembroke worked late every Wednesday.

Reagan adjusted her scope, the waterproof casing keeping the precision optics dry despite the downpour. Through the lens, she observed her target moving about his corner office, silver-haired and arrogant in his expensive suit, utterly unaware of death's patient observation.

Sixty-two years old. Three accusations of sexual assault buried through connections and payoffs. Evidence "lost" from police files. Victims intimidated into silence or paid for their compliance. All documented in Reagan's files—files that had once vanished from Phoenix Ridge's evidence room ten years ago when she got too close to the truth.

Her earpiece hummed with the encrypted police frequencies she monitored. Tactical chatter, patrol assignments, and detective divisions—all part of the background noise that kept her one step ahead of the department she had once served with her whole heart.

Reagan checked her watch. Pembroke would remain another hour, reviewing investment portfolios of clients who never questioned the source of his consistent returns, never investigated the companies he funded that profited from exploitation. Tonight was reconnaissance only: mapping his movements, confirming security protocols, preparing for the execution she would carry out in forty-eight hours.

A voice cut through the static in her earpiece, instantly commanding her full attention.

"Unit Four, resume patrol of the northern cliff district. Check the roof access points on the Harborside Building."

Eve.

Reagan recognized her voice immediately, would know it anywhere—in darkness, in dreams, in death. Captain Eve Morgan, deploying her officers with the precise strategy that had earned her reputation as the department's finest tactical mind.

And she was sending units directly to Reagan's position.

Reagan's pulse remained steady, but her mind accelerated. This wasn't random. Eve knew. Somehow, she had anticipated Reagan's surveillance location with uncanny accuracy and had predicted exactly where she would establish position for reconnaissance.

The knowledge sent an electric current through Reagan's veins—not fear, but recognition. Eve remembered her methods, understood her thinking. After ten years, they remained connected by the invisible thread of shared tactics and mutual understanding.

Rain plastered Reagan's tactical clothing to her skin as she quickly dismantled her observation equipment. No time for the elegant exit she had planned; Eve's officers would reach the roof access within minutes.

Slinging her pack across her shoulders, Reagan moved to the building's eastern edge where the service ladder descended twenty stories to the maintenance access below. Her gloved hands gripped cold metal as thunder cracked overhead, nature's percussion accompanying her vertical flight.

She had descended three floors when the roof access door burst open above her. Flashlight beams cut through the rain-swept darkness, searching. Reagan froze, pressing her body against the building's wall, becoming one with the shadows.

"Clear," called a female voice—Officer Lucy Mitchell, if Reagan's memory of department personnel served her correctly. "No sign of anyone."

"Check the perimeter," came the response. Eve again, her voice closer now. She had come personally.

Reagan's breath caught. Ten years since they'd stood face to face. Ten years of watching from a distance, of protecting Eve through absence and deception. Now, twenty feet of vertical space and a decade of secrets separated them.

She could stay, allow herself to be discovered. She could end the charade and face the reckoning that had been building since she fired the first bullet into Reginald Sinclaire's forehead four weeks ago.

The thought evaporated as quickly as it formed. Her mission remained incomplete. Five men still walked free, still wielded power that corrupted Phoenix Ridge from penthouse offices to judicial chambers. And they still posed a threat to Eve, whether she realized it or not.

As officers moved along the rooftop above, Reagan descended in perfect silence, each movement controlled and deliberate. When her boots touched the maintenance platform, she slipped through the service door and into the building's utility passages, a shadow network she had mapped years ago during her initial investigation before the truth had changed everything.

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