“No, I didn’t,” he said quietly.

“It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.” He wondered if she regretted it too, but he didn’t ask her.

“They both suffered for my stupidity and weakness,” he said honestly. “There’s nothing right about it.” And Luisa was the winner and didn’t deserve to be. Everyone else involved had been losers, including him. And he had allowed it to happen.

“Maybe it will do you good to have her here now.” And then she added with a wicked grin, “If Luisa doesn’t make life too miserable for you. She’s not happy to have the girl here.” Tom laughed at what she said.

“No, she isn’t. And she’s making life miserable for Savannah too.”

“She looks as though she can handle it. How is she with Daisy?” She was curious about her. Seeing her had whetted her appetite for more information.

“Very sweet. Daisy loves her.” His mother nodded.

“Bring her to see me again. She ought to learn more about her own history. There’s more to her life than those two women lawyers in New York. She should know about our family too.” It was a huge sign of acceptance that she wanted to share that with Savannah, and Tom was stunned as he thought about it when he drove away. He told Savannah that night that her grandmother wanted to see her again. Savannah looked pleased.

“I liked her too. Maybe she can tell me all about the United Daughters of the Confederacy next time, and the generals in her family.”

“That’s just what she wants to do,” he said, as he gave Savannah a hug and left the room.

He moved back into his bedroom that night, with Luisa. She was still furious with him, but it was his bedroom too, and his house. He had no intention of sleeping on the couch in his study forever, because his daughter had come to visit. He took Daisy and Savannah to a movie that night, and invited Luisa. She didn’t want to come, but he had asked her. He had a great time with both his daughters.

When he got into bed when they returned, Luisa turned her back on him, but she hadn’t moved into one of the guest bedrooms, which he had thought she might do. She wasn’t speaking to him, but he had reclaimed his territory, and his life. He felt like a man again, for the first time in ten years. Luisa no longer had him on the run, and she no longer owned him. He wanted to let out a shout of victory, but instead he just turned over and went to sleep.

Chapter 11

The week after Savannah’s visit to her grandmother was another crazy one for Alexa. The FBI had backed down about taking the case, after a lot of pressure from Joe McCarthy, but they were still waiting to pounce and grab it if anything went wrong. So far nothing had. But Alexa felt she had to be constantly on her toes. And they had just gotten word of a link between Quentin and another murder, this one in a state where they didn’t think he’d been. As it turned out, he hadn’t, and the forensic evidence didn’t match. She wanted to be particularly careful they weren’t just throwing things at him to see what would stick. She had to be absolutely sure that the murders he was accused of were in fact crimes he had committed, and all the evidence matched up, beyond a reasonable doubt. She didn’t want to lose this case, or try to convict him for crimes he didn’t commit. She wanted to be absolutely, totally, completely sure that she was on the right track in each case, and she believed she was. Without solid conclusive evidence from other law enforcement agencies in other states, she would not add their cases to her own. It was her cautious thoroughness so far that had convinced the FBI director to let her keep the case. He didn’t think anyone could have done a better job, and Joe assured him that was true. All of which put additional pressure on Alexa to not make one minute slip or mistake. She looked and felt worn out. The trial was ten weeks away. And Quentin was continuing to hold court with a hungry press. Alexa refused to make further comment, which the FBI liked too, and at every opportunity she thanked them for their help, gave them credit where it was due, and was grateful for their enormous investigative machine that she was benefiting from to build her case.

Pennsylvania had found another victim, and the body had been exhumed, although her family had been reluctant to do it and had to be convinced. Jack flew out to see them, and begged them to cooperate, which they finally did, in tears. And it was a match with Quentin. That brought his number of victims to eighteen, and Alexa had a gut instinct that they had found them all. She wasn’t sure why, but they had combed every state he had been in since leaving prison and checked him against every murder, rape, and missing person. There were no loose ends anymore. The twenty-two-year-old medical student in Pennsylvania was the last one. Eighteen beautiful young women, all dead because of him. It was unthinkable, especially to the girls’ parents, but it happened every day. Alexa was grateful daily that she had sent Savannah away. There had been no letters since she left. She had decided to take Savannah to Europe in the summer, with the vacation time she had, and after that Savannah was leaving for college, and would be even harder to find. Quentin had robbed her of her last months with her daughter, but she was safe, and he had done worse to others, and robbed them of their lives. Talking to the parents of the victims had nearly broken Alexa’s heart.

And throughout, his public defender was insisting they were wrong, in the face of evidence, victims, DNA matches, and three psych reports now that confirmed he was a sociopath. Alexa almost felt sorry for her, she was completely under his spell, and could have been yet another victim if they met when he was outside. He was a textbook sociopath, and every time he saw Alexa, which wasn’t often, and too frequently for her, he undressed her with his eyes, just to let her know he could, and to let her know that she had no power and he did. He was a terrifying man, and smooth as silk. This was a case Alexa wanted to win, more than any case she’d had before.

They were interrogating him again that afternoon, about the latest Pennsylvania victim, and as always he strutted into the room. He had been working out, for lack of anything better to do, and his heavily developed muscles rippled in his jail-issue jumpsuit, and he observed everyone in the room with his now-familiar glacial eyes. This time Alexa decided not to hide behind the two-way mirror in the observation room. She sat among the cops across the table from him in the small stuffy room. The smell of male sweat hung heavy in the air. It wasn’t pleasant, but Alexa didn’t care, and Judy Dunning was there too, and gave him a sympathetic smile. With a half smile, Luke looked at the others as though to show them what he could do. He had completely turned her around, on her head, and upside down. There were also two special FBI agents in the room, Sam Lawrence and a new one she hadn’t met, and Jack’s original investigation team, Charlie McAvoy and Bill Neeley. The room was jammed, and the questioning began.

They asked him about the victim, about whom he claimed to know nothing, and showed him a photograph of her. She had apparently been approached on a dark street near her apartment, coming home late from the library of the medical school. Like the others, she had been raped and “snuffed” out, strangled during sex. Her body had been found in a shallow grave in a park. She hadn’t been found for four months, and the body had deteriorated badly by then. And Luke had been in town when it happened. Luke shrugged when he looked at the picture of the girl when she was alive, and tossed it back on the desk. His eyes hooked Alexa’s, and he paused for a long moment when he looked at her. She could have been wrong, but she had the feeling this time that he was silently saying “Watch out, that could be you…or your kid.” Her eyes didn’t waver, nor did his. This was becoming a personal vendetta between them now. She was not going to be bested by him, or fooled.