Steady, Carol. Steady…

The gun in her hand. The breath held in her chest…

She watched the brass doorknob slowly begin to twist.

Jillian bolted out of bed. She grabbed her bathrobe, made it to her door, then did an abrupt about-face and raced back to her bed for her pepper spray. The alarm still sounded shrilly through the house.

Running out into the hallway, she found Toppi standing in a white linen nightgown, looking sleepy-eyed and dazed.

“Did you-”

“No.”

“Libby!” they both cried and went rushing for her room.

Jillian shoved through the door, leading with her pepper spray and looking around frantically. Libby was lying in her bed. Her face was stark white. She had the security remote clutched tight against her chest.

“Mom, Mom, what is it?”

Libby raised her trembling arm. She pointed to the window behind them. And very slowly, Jillian and Toppi turned.

Eleven thirty-three P.M.

Griffin was still at headquarters sifting through paperwork and rubbing the bridge of his nose tiredly when the officer on duty stuck his head into the conference room.

“Sergeant.”

“Officer Girard.”

“Sir, 911 just got a report of a disturbance over in East Greenwich. A home security system is going off, and apparently a woman in a bathrobe is now running through the yard. I thought you'd want to know-the house belongs to Jillian Hayes.”

“Damn.” A disturbance at Jillian's house tonight of all nights could not be a good thing, and he was at least twenty minutes away. Griffin started talking as he headed for the door.

“Do me a favor, Officer, and put in a call to Detective Fitz.”

“He's with Providence?”

“That's the one.”

“Sorry, sir, but I believe the Providence detectives are out on a call. I heard it on the scanner, though they seem to be keeping the details hush-hush. Some kind of incident on College Hill.”

Griffin drew up short. “On College Hill?”

And Officer Girard repeated, “Yes, sir. College Hill.”

The bathroom door swung open. Carol closed her eyes, then squeezed the trigger.

Pop, pop, pop. The tiny.22 leapt in her hand. And the dark shrouded form fell flat on the floor.

“Oh my God,” the dark shrouded form moaned. “I think you just shot me.”

And Carol said, “Dan?”

Jillian was running. She tore through her yard in her baby-blue bathrobe, shoving back tree limbs, pouncing on bushes. Lights were blazing, neighbors gathering, sirens roaring down the street. She was making a spectacle of herself. She didn't care.

“Come out, come out, you bastard!” she cried. She pointed her pepper spray and attacked a shuddering leaf. “You want to play a practical joke? I'll show you a joke, you cowardly son of a bitch. Come on. Show yourself!”

She ran close to the perimeter. Her neighbors shrank back. She ignored them, tears streaming down her face, her nose running from the blowback of pepper spray. He had to be out here somewhere. He couldn't have gone far. And she would find him, and she would grab him by his scruffy, probably teenage neck, and, and…

She needed to hurt someone. She needed to inflict violence and pain, and that scared her, too, so she kept running, trampling new budding bulbs and freshly planted pansies. She had to move. She had to fight. She was not in a dark basement anymore. She was not powerless!

There, that bush. It moved. Cowardly son of a bitch…

Jillian made a beeline for the trembling sand cherry, and abruptly ran into something hard. “Umph,” she said, falling back a few steps, then belatedly raising her eyes to discover Sergeant Griffin's large, unrelenting form.

“Jillian,” he said quietly.

“Did you see what he did?”

“The officers told me what happened.”

“It was my mother's bedroom. Do you know what that did to her? The EMTs had to come, she's having problems breathing. If that sick bastard gave her another heart attack, I swear I'll kill him myself. I'll find him and I'll rip him from limb to limb!”

“Jillian,” he said quietly.

“It was my mother's bedroom! What kind of idiot does such a thing? Today of all days. My poor mother. Oh God, my poor mother…”

Her shoulders convulsed, then she was swaying from side to side. She looked down to see that her bathrobe had come open and she was standing half-naked in the middle of her lawn. Sirens everyplace, police lights washing her home in violent red light. People everywhere, staring at her, staring at her home, gossiping about her pain.

Eddie Como lives. Scrawled across her mother's bedroom window in red dripping spray paint. Eddie Como lives.

“It's not funny,” she mumbled. “It's a horrible, horrible practical joke.” And then she swayed again and Sergeant Griffin had to catch her in his arms.

“I'm very sorry,” he said.

“I hate this!” Her voice was muffled against his chest.

“Jillian…” he said gently, and something about his tone finally cut through her haze. Slowly, she raised her head. His blue eyes were somber. So somber. She stared and stared and stared. And then, for no good reason, she was thinking of his dead wife. What had it been like to love this man? To be held in these strong arms, to look up at this steady gaze, and to still feel yourself, slowly but surely, slipping away?

“What happened?” she whispered.

“I'm very sorry. I just talked to Detective Fitzpatrick… On College Hill. There's been another incident.”

“But there can't be. Eddie… he's gone. It's over, it's ended. Even this… It's probably just some teenage jerk with a spray can. Please tell me it's just a teenage jerk with a spray can. I need it to be just a teenage jerk with a spray can.”

Sergeant Griffin didn't say a word. His arms were still around her, supporting her half-crumpled form, shielding her from her neighbors. He wouldn't let her go until she was ready. She understood that now. He would stand here as long as she needed, support her as long as she needed. It was his job, and even back then, on the pedophile case, the reporters had said that he took his job seriously.

She studied his face, broad, hard-planed, firm. She looked into his steady blue eyes. Impulsively, she reached up a hand and touched the raspy line of his chin. She wondered what he would think to know that no one had touched her, and she had touched no one, for well over a year.

Then very slowly, she straightened up, stepped away, and belted her robe at the waist.

“Brunette?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Latex strips?”

“Yes.”

“Is she…?”

“Manual strangulation.”

Jillian closed her eyes. “All right, Sergeant. Maybe you had better come inside.”

Twelve twenty-one A.M.

The lights were out in the Pesaturo home. Tom and Laurie slept peacefully on the opposite sides of their king-sized bed. Little Molly was curled up with her head at the foot of her pink Barbie bed. While in her room, Meg began to thrash from side to side in the throes of a dream.

Rich chocolate eyes. Soft, gentle hands. A slow lover's smile. His fingers stroke her hair. His hand drifts down to her breast. She arches her back and aches for him to do more.

“We should stop,” he whispers in her ear.

“No, no…”

“It wouldn't be right.” His thumb flickers over her nipple. His fingers squeeze tight.

“Please…”

“This is wrong.”

“Oh please…”

His hand moves down. She arches her hips toward him, straining. And then… His hand presses against her. Her whole body thrums. She throws back her head.

Rich chocolate eyes. Soft, gentle hands. A slow lover's smile.

Meg thrashed again in her sleep. She whispered, “David.”