Two months ago, Jillian, Carol and Meg had gone together and put flowers on Eddie's grave. It was as much as they could do for now. After that visit, on her own, Jillian had written another check for Eddie, Jr.'s, college fund.

“At least there won't be a trial this time,” Meg said now.

“Thank God,” Carol echoed.

Jillian was more philosophical. “It would've been too hard for D'Amato to argue the case. Viggio's lawyer would simply keep saying Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, and the whole thing would've grown too confusing. A plea bargain was probably better all the way around.”

“Cool, composed, Jillian,” Carol said, but smiled.

Jillian's look was more somber. “He killed my sister, Carol. I would've liked to see him on trial. I would've liked to hear twelve jurors find him guilty. And maybe it would've helped us make a better transition, refocus our anger where it belongs.”

“He's never getting out of jail,” Meg spoke up.

“Yes, but if only he could've died like David Price.”

No one argued that. As part of Viggio's plea bargain, he had to make a full allocution of his and Price's scheme. The details had been chilling. How Viggio had grown increasingly convinced that he needed to come up with the perfect way to commit rape. How he had approached David Price while they were both being held in ACI's Intake and worked with David to devise the perfect plan. Viggio had already heard about Korporate Klean from his last time behind bars. One of the big jokes among inmates was that when you finally get out, the only job you could get would be cleaning up after a bunch of “jerk offs”-everyone knew Korporate Klean had the contract for the sperm bank.

From there, things fell into place. Viggio spotted Eddie in the waiting room and realized they were a close physical match. He struck up a conversation with the guy, found out he worked for the Rhode Island Blood Center and needed some extra money because his girlfriend was pregnant. He started shadowing Eddie at the college blood drives and realized this was the perfect opportunity. He could attack socially conscious college coeds, and it would simply further implicate Eddie in the eyes of the police. He'd written the details to David Price, who had recommended using latex ties. That would make the frame airtight. David had also kindly suggested Meg as the first victim. A suitable “trial run,” he'd called her.

Even if Viggio did screw up, they figured Meg wouldn't go to the police. She wouldn't want to have to admit her association with David Price, whose name Viggio made sure to mention during the rape. That the trauma of the attack induced amnesia wasn't part of the plan, but hardly hurt them.

Viggio scoped out the other victims in advance. Carol was a last-minute substitute but felt safe to him: he'd spent enough time in her neighborhood to figure out her husband's car was never in the driveway. Trish met his criteria of a young coed living alone. Jillian's intrusion had startled him, but it had proved irrelevant to his plan.

By this point in the allocution, Viggio's voice was cocky. In theory, he'd suffered three complications-Meg's memory loss, Carol's substitution and Jillian's unexpected arrival, and none of them had stopped him. He was invincible. Then the women had gone on TV, and not even that mattered. The police did the sensible thing. They arrested Eddie Como, and phase two of the plan went into effect.

David's involvement hadn't been free, of course. He saw Eddie's frame-up as the perfect opportunity to get out of prison. Viggio had instructions to hire an assassin, kill the assassin, then immediately strike again, leaving Eddie's sperm at the scene. The new rape would stir the public into a panicked frenzy. And David could step to the plate with his offer to save the day. A hop, skip and jump later, and David would finally be out of prison.

Viggio, of course, had had his reservations. But once he figured out he could kill David Price the same way he'd killed the hired gun, he hadn't minded anymore. He'd followed David's instructions and inserted the wooden lock pick and Alka-Seltzer tablets into David's favorite pair of clothes, which were then dutifully retrieved by David's lawyer from David's storage area. Then Viggio had kidnapped Meg to increase police pressure to release David. Finally he'd secured a getaway vehicle, to be left at David's former home.

Of course, what David didn't know was that Viggio had taken the liberty of booby-trapping the getaway car with a bomb. For Viggio, David getting out of prison equaled David winding up dead, which equaled Viggio attacking, torturing and killing young women forever. It was the perfect plan.

Until the police pulled up in his driveway, and Detective Waters tackled him in a neighbor's salvage yard. Viggio wasn't going anyplace anymore.

And the three women… The three women were doing their best to heal.

Now Meg turned to Jillian. “Your turn,” she said. “Carol is getting a fresh start with Dan, I'm getting a fresh look at my sordid past. Now what's new with you?”

“Not much.”

Carol and Meg exchanged looks.

“I would never call Sergeant Griffin ‘not much,' ” Carol drawled.

Jillian promptly blushed.

“Uh huh,” Carol said. “So that's the way it is.”

“You have a dirty mind!”

“Damn right. Come on, Dan and I are seeing a sex therapist who has literally banned us from having sex for the next six months. I have to live through someone.”

Both Jillian and Meg looked at her curiously. “Does that work?” Meg asked.

Carol's turn to blush. “Actually… well, yes. It… it takes the pressure off. Sometimes, before, when he would touch me, I would freeze up. I was already thinking, then he's going to want to touch here or touch there and I just couldn't handle that level of intrusion. I wasn't ready. Now-now I know a kiss will be just a kiss. I can focus on that. On him kissing me. And when I do that, all the other things go away. I'm not in the bedroom anymore. It's not dark, the TV's not on. I'm just a woman kissing her husband of over ten years. It's… nice. Honestly, we're dating again.”

“I'm going to cry,” Meg said thickly, and rubbed her eyes. “You're getting to fall in love all over again, and I can't even figure out if I'm ever going to have a normal relationship. Look at me! I'm almost twenty-one, my sister is really my daughter, and the total sum of my sex life boils down to one pedophile whom I thought I loved, and one rapist who was a present from the pedophile. Now that's sick!”

“Molly is your sister,” Jillian said evenly. “You've said yourself it's better to keep it that way.”

“If I'm her mother, then she must have a father. I don't want her to ever ask about her father.”

“Then remove that from the equation. Molly is your little sister, you love her, your parents love her and she is very happy.”

“Molly is very happy.”

“The rest… Meg, you were only thirteen when David first approached you. That's much too young to know better. And you certainly can't blame yourself for being raped. So that means you've made only one mistake, as a thirteen-year-old girl. You're nearly twenty-one now. You're strong, you're resilient, you're smart. You're going to be all right.”

Meg sniffled a little. “What if I meet the right guy, freeze up, and he goes away?”

“Then he's not the right guy,” Carol said firmly.

But Meg was looking at Jillian. “I wasn't raped,” Jillian told her.

“You were assaulted.”

“I… I have moments.”

“You think about your sister,” Meg said quietly.

“I do.”

“Poor guilt-ridden Jillian.”

She didn't deny it. “ Griffin told me something earlier, during his investigation. And it was one of the hardest, saddest, truest things I ever needed to hear: Trisha loves me.”

“She does,” Carol said immediately.

“She does,” Meg seconded.