Two men in bright blue running suits jogged up the greenbelt toward him. The second they passed Ms. Breedlove, they craned their necks around and eyed the sway of her white shorts. When they turned back, they wore identical smiles of appreciation. Joe didn't blame them for straining their eyes for one last look at her. She had great legs and a great ass. Too bad she was destined for a prison uniform.

Joe followed her across a footbridge out of Ann Morrison Park, careful to keep an even distance as they continued along the Boise River.

Her profile didn't fit that of a typical thief. Unlike her business partner, she wasn't in debt up to her eyebrows. She didn't gamble, and she didn't have a drug habit to support, which left only two possible motivations for a woman like her to participate in a felony.

One was thrill, and Joe could certainly understand the pull of living on the edge. Adrenaline was a powerful drug. God knows he'd loved it. He'd loved the way it crawled across his skin and tingled his flesh and raised the hair on his head.

The second was more common-love. Love tended to get a lot of women in trouble. Joe had met more than his share of women who'd do anything for some worthless son of a bitch who wouldn't hesitate to turn her in to save himself. Joe was no longer surprised by what some women would do for love. He was no longer surprised to find women sitting in jail doing time for their men, tears flowing, mascara running, saying shit like, "I can't tell you anything bad about so-and-so, I love him."

The trees above Joe's head became denser as he followed her into a second park. Julia Davis Park was lusher, greener, and held the added attractions of the historical and art museums, the Boise Zoo, and of course the Tootin' Tater tour train.

He felt something work free of his pocket an instant before he heard a plop on the pavement. He grabbed his empty pocket and turned his head to see a pack of Marlboros laying on the path. He hesitated several seconds before he retraced his steps. A few stray cigarettes rolled across the blacktop, and he hurriedly stooped to pick them up before they rolled into a puddle of water. His gaze shifted to the suspect, who was jogging at her usual sedate pace, then back to his smokes.

He placed the cigarettes into the pack, careful not to break them. He intended to enjoy every last one. He wasn't worried that he'd lose the suspect. She ran about as fast as an arthritic old dog, a fact he appreciated today.

When he returned his gaze to the path, his hand stilled, and slowly he shoved the cigarettes back into his pocket. All that greeted his well-trained eyes was the black trail as it wove through thick towering trees and grass. A gust of wind blew the heavy boughs overhead and flattened his sweatshirt against his chest.

His gaze shot to the left, and he spotted her cutting across the park toward the zoo and kiddie playground. He set out in pursuit. As far as he could see, the park was empty. Anyone with any brains at all had made a run for it before the impending storm broke. But just because the park appeared empty didn't mean she wasn't meeting someone.

When a suspect deviated from a set pattern, it usually meant that something was about to happen. The taste of adrenaline numbed the back of his throat and brought a smile to his lips. Damn, he hadn't felt this alive since the last time he'd chased a dope dealer down an alley in the north end.

He lost sight of her again as she ran past the rest rooms and disappeared around back. Years of experience slowed his steps as he waited for her to appear again. When she didn't, he reached beneath his sweatshirt and popped the snap to his shoulder holster. He flattened himself against the brick building and listened.

An abandoned plastic grocery bag tumbled across the ground, but he heard nothing except wind and leaves rattling above his head. From his position he could see exactly squat, and he realized he should have hung back. He stepped around the side of the building and came eye level with the trigger of a can of hair spray. A blast hit him full in the face, and immediately his vision blurred. A fist grabbed his sweatshirt, and a knee slammed between his thighs, missing his berries by a mere half inch. The muscle in his right thigh cramped, and he would have doubled over if it hadn't been for the solid shoulder block to his chest. His breath whooshed from his lungs as he hit the hard ground flat on his back. A pair of chrome handcuffs, tucked in the waistband of his shorts, dug into the small of his back.

Through vision hazed over by Miss Clairol, he looked up at Gabrielle Breedlove standing between his widespread legs. He let the pain cramping his thigh wash through him, and he fought to steady his breath. She'd gotten the jump on him and tried to shove his gonads into his throat.

"Jesus," he groaned. "You're a crazy bitch."

"Thaf's right, just give me an excuse to shoot your kneecaps."

Joe blinked a few more times, and his vision cleared. Slowly his gaze moved from her face, down her arms, to her hands. Shit. In one hand she clutched the hair spray, her finger poised on the nozzle, but her other hand gripped what looked like a derringer. It wasn't pointed at his knees but directly at his nose.

Everything within him stilled. He absolutely hated handguns pointed at him. "Put down the weapon," he commanded. He didn't know if the derringer was loaded or if it even worked, but he didn't want to find out. Only his eyes moved as he looked back up into her face. Her breathing was erratic, her green eyes wild. She looked unstable as hell.

"Someone call the police!" she began to yell frantically.

Joe frowned at her. Not only had she managed to knock him on his ass but now she was screaming her head off. If she kept it up, he was going to have to blow his cover, and he really didn't want to do that. The thought of walking into the police station with the number one female suspect in the Hillard case, the suspect who wasn't supposed to know she was a suspect, and explaining how she'd brought him down with a can of hair spray filled him with a sick dread that gripped the base of his skull. "Put down the gun," he repeated.

"Not a chance! You so much as twitch and fill you with lead, you filthy scum."

He didn't believe there was another soul within one hundred feet, but he wasn't positive, and the last thing he needed was a heroic civilian coming to her rescue.

"Someone help me-please!" she hollered loud enough to be heard in several distant counties.

Joe's jaw clenched. He'd never live this down, and he didn't even want to imagine facing Walker and Luchetti. Joe was still on the chief's shit list for the fallout after the Robby Martin shooting. He didn't have to think too hard to know what the chief would say. "You screwed the pooch, Shanahan!" he'd yell right before he busted Joe to patrol division. And this time, the chief would be right.

"Call 911."

"Quit screaming," he commanded in his best law enforcement officer's voice.

"I need a cop!"

Damn. "Lady," he gritted between his teeth, "I am a cop!"

Her eyes narrowed as she gazed down at him. "Right, and I'm the governor."

Joe moved his hand toward his pocket, but she made a threatening motion with the small weapon, and he decided against it. "In my left pocket is my identification."

"Don't move," she warned him once again.

Her auburn curls blew about her head, wild and unruly, looking like maybe she should have used some of that hair spray on her head instead of his face. Her hand trembled as she pushed one side of her hair behind her ear. In an instant he could have her on the ground, but he'd have to distract her first or run the risk of getting shot. This time in a place where he was unlikely to recover. "You can reach into my pocket yourself. I won't move a muscle." He hated tackling women. He hated slamming them to the ground. But in this case he didn't think he'd mind.

"I'm not stupid. I haven't fallen for that trick since high school."

"Oh for God's sake." He struggled to control his temper and barely won. "Do you have a permit to carry a concealed weapon?"

"Give me a break," she answered. "You're not a cop; you're a stalker! I wish there was a cop around here, because I'd have you arrested for following me around this past week. There's a law in this state against stalking, you know." She sucked in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. "I bet you have a record for some sort of deviant behavior. You're probably one of those psychos who makes obscene phone calls and breathes really heavy. I bet you're on parole for harassing women." She took a few more deep breaths and tossed the hair spray. "I think you'd better give me your wallet after all."

Never in his fifteen-year career had he ever been so careless as to let a suspect-let alone a female-get the jump on him.

His temples pounded and his thigh ached. His eyes stung and his lashes were stuck together. "You're crazy, lady," he said in a relatively calm voice as he reached into his pocket.

"Really? From where I'm standing, you look like the crazy one." Her gaze never left his as she reached for the wallet. "I'll need your name and address to give to the police, but I bet they already know who you are."

She didn't know how right she was, but Joe didn't waste any more time talking. The second she flipped open the wallet and glanced at the badge inside, his legs scissored around her calves. She hit the ground, and he lunged on top of her, pinning her with his weight. She twisted one way, then the other, pushing at his shoulders, bringing the derringer dangerously close to his left ear. He grabbed her wrists and forced them above her head, using the full length of his body to pin her to the earth.