"Hey," Stride called. "Wake up, asshole."

Blue Dog's bloodshot eyes blinked open, and he took note of both men in the room. He shifted, straining against his bonds, and pain shot through his body, making him grimace. He looked down at the bandaged stump on the left side of his torso.

"Hurts, huh?" Stride asked. "Good."

"Fuck off."

Teitscher removed a digital tape recorder from his pocket and set it on the table beside the bed. "We're going to tape this conversation. My name is Detective Abel Teitscher, and this is Lieutenant Jonathan Stride of the Duluth police."

"I know who you are," Blue Dog replied. He looked at Stride. "I'm just sorry you dragged that bitch out of the fish house. I would have liked to hear her scream as the fire got her."

Teitscher ignored him. "You were read your rights when you were arrested. Do you need them read to you again?"

"I know my rights."

"Do you want a lawyer?"

"For what? A lawyer won't do me any good."

"Are you willing to talk to us?"

"What's in it for me?" Blue Dog asked.

Teitscher shrugged. "We've already been in touch with the authorities in Alabama. They're anxious to get you back to Holman. You'll wind up on trial for the cops you killed in the hurricane, and then they'll stick a needle in your arm. Of course, it'll have to be your right arm."

"Fuck you," Blue Dog said.

"I'm just telling you how it is. Before you go back to that hellhole down south, where they are going to execute you, you have to make it through the courts up here. We're going to put you on trial for murder, attempted murder, rape, assault, blackmail, fraud, you name it."

"Maybe I don't have to go back to Alabama," Blue Dog said. "Maybe you can just keep me up here."

Teitscher shook his head. "You mean, in a state like Minnesota where we don't have capital punishment? Where we don't sleep prisoners twenty to a cell? Sorry, but the fact is, no one is too anxious for you to hang around here. But it can go fast or it can go slow. You might be back in Holman in a couple of months, or the whole process might drag out, and it could be a year or more before we get around to sending you back down there. We might even need to keep you in a private cell because of your medical condition. So where would you like to spend the next year? Minnesota or Alabama?"

Blue Dog scowled. "Yeah, so, what is it you want?"

"Tell us about Lauren Erickson and Tanjy Powell."

"Like what?"

"Did you rape Tanjy?" Teitscher asked.

"Okay, yeah. But that was Lauren's idea."

"I'll bet you put the idea in her head."

"Not me. Hey, I didn't give a shit about Tanjy. I wanted money. I knew Lauren would pay to keep the photos of Tanjy and Dan out of the papers. Lauren was the one who turned it all around and wanted me to do her."

"Why?" Teitscher asked.

"Punishment. Payback. Whatever you want to call it. Those photos made Lauren crazy."

"So what went wrong?"

"Nothing went wrong. It all worked like Lauren planned. But then Tanjy called Lauren a couple of weeks ago and said she knew who raped her. Lauren freaked and called me."

"What did you do?"

"Lauren told me to meet her at their lake house. The two of them were already going at it when I got there. Tanjy saw me pull up-she probably thought it was going to be Dan, you know? Tanjy looked like she was going to bolt, but Lauren hit her hard. Real hard. Dropped her like a bag of cement. So we put her in the trunk and took her out to the lake."

"What about Maggie and Katrina?" Stride asked from the wall. "Were you the one who assaulted them?"

"Yeah, that was me."

"Was that Lauren's idea, too?"

"No, she didn't know anything about it. Not until later."

"So why did you rape them?" Stride asked.

"Why the hell not? After I did Tanjy, I realized what a rush it was. Hell, it was like fucking Serena in my head before I got to the real thing, you know?"

Stride wished that his aim on Hell's Lake had been better, and this animal who called himself Blue Dog would already be dead.

"Plus, it was safe," Blue Dog went on. "I knew all about the sex club from Sonia's computer. I figured these alpha girls weren't going to want the media dishing out the same treatment to them that Tanjy got. And I was right, too."

"What about Eric Sorenson?" Teitscher asked.

"What about him?"

"Did you work on his computer?"

"No."

"Did Tanjy tell him about you?"

"No."

"Then how did he find you? How did he figure out that you raped Tanjy and Maggie?"

"He didn't."

Blue Dog's words thudded like a bird against a clean window.

"What?"

"He didn't know a thing about me."

Teitscher and Stride stared at each other. Stride tried to make sense of his thoughts.

"Are you telling us you had nothing to do with Eric Sorenson's murder?" Teitscher asked.

"I found out he was killed when I saw it on TV."

"Do you know who did kill him?" Teitscher asked.

"I figured his wife popped him, like they said on the news," Blue Dog said, laughing at Stride. "Maybe once she had some lovin' from me, her husband didn't cut it anymore."

Stride lashed out. "Eric was Maggie's husband, and you raped her. Eric found out. He confronted you that night."

"I didn't know this Eric guy to spit on him," Blue Dog insisted. "You don't believe me? Check out my alibi."

"What alibi?" Teitscher asked.

"I was with my manager pulling an all-nighter on a corporate system in Hermantown when that guy was killed. You ask him."

"You already told us that Tanjy knew you raped her," Stride said.

Blue Dog grinned. "Tanjy was wrong."

"What?"

"Lauren told me when we were dumping the body. Tanjy thought somebody else did it. Funny, huh? She made a stupid fucking mistake, and that's what got her killed."

"Who did she think raped her?"

"Lauren never told me."

Stride ran his hands through his hair. Blue Dog had turned everything upside down. Just when he thought the investigation was over, he realized that the questions that started everything hadn't been answered yet.

Who killed Eric?

And why?

"Have you ever met a woman named Helen Danning?" Stride asked.

Blue Dog shook his head. "Never heard of her."

"You ever come across a blog called 'The Lady in Me' on any of the computers you were pawing through?"

"No."

"If you're lying to us about any of this, I'll have you back in Holman on the next flight."

"It's the truth," Blue Dog said.

Stride gestured at Teitscher, and the two men headed for the door.

"You think he's on the level about Eric?" Teitscher asked when they were alone in the corridor.

Stride wanted to say no, but he couldn't lie to himself. "I don't think he'd give us an alibi if it won't hold up."

"You know what that means," Teitscher said.

"Maggie didn't do it," Stride insisted.

"Then who did?"

"Lauren killed Tanjy. Maybe she killed Eric, too."

Teitscher shook his head. "That's not going to fly. Lauren was in Washington that night. I checked."

"So maybe Blue Dog is lying. Maggie beat the hell out of him. He may want her to take the fall for the murder."

"You know that's not going to happen," Teitscher said. "Look, I don't know if Maggie did it or not. I still think there's a good chance she did, but she's free and clear. We're never going to bring charges against her. There's enough reasonable doubt for Archie Gale to drive a truck through."

"She'll still have a cloud over her head if we don't find out who really killed Eric," Stride said.

"We all have clouds."

"This guy says Tanjy made a mistake," Stride said. "Eric and Tanjy thought someone else was responsible for the rapes. Whoever that was, he must have killed Eric."