Time stands still.
Tears stream down her cheeks as she turns to face the man standing there, waiting. He's breathing heavily, but she knows running again is futile. It's over. The total calm she feels in the face of such indescribable fear is almost funny. Silence hangs in the air, and then the surreal moment passes. She snorts sharply, shakes her head almost imperceptibly as she speaks to the man. He mutters a simple response, shakes his head no, moves forward, closing the distance to Katie in less than a second. His face is lost in shadow, but she was looking at the knife as it flashed silver in the pale, second-hand light. At the knife, and the hand holding it.
Erica shuddered as she took her hand off the body, opened her eyes, overbalanced and planted her backside firmly on the dirty cobblestones.
"Jesus, are you all right...?" Holborn asked. She looked up at the detective, blinking.
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine." she said. "I need pen and paper." She could never make out speech, but she'd seen the tattoo on his wrist. She handed Holborn the sketch. Headed toward her car.
A man, hidden across the alley, put away his own pen, and started walking.