Danielle Steel - Southern Lights

“That just means he’s good at what he does. I don’t know why I think so. But I’ve seen guys like him, and so have you. Ice cold and dead inside. They’re like machines, they’re not human beings. He’s a classic sociopath, and they’re usually smart, just like he is. The most dangerous guys around. They’d as soon kill you as shake your hand. He may not have killed anyone when he was younger, but I’m convinced he would now. Maybe something snapped the last time he was in prison. I think he’s one sick, twisted sonofabitch, and he’ll give us a run for our money. He’s covered his tracks pretty well. I don’t know why we got lucky with the blood on his shoes. Sociopaths don’t usually make mistakes like that. Maybe he got too cocky, and he sure didn’t know we were watching him.” That had been clear in the interrogation, and they hadn’t told him. They had just let him talk to see what he said.

“Shit, I hope we get him,” Alexa said with fervor. She wanted nothing more. She wanted to put him away.

“So do I,” he agreed.

“It makes me sick when I see those girls’ faces. They’re all so young and pretty. They look like my daughter.” As she said it, a chill ran down her spine. She hadn’t thought of it before, but they did. Savannah was just his type. But fortunately, he was safely in jail, and not wandering the world. For now.

“How is she, by the way?” Jack asked, changing the subject. He felt as though he knew her from the gallery of photos on Alexa’s desk, and he’d met her once or twice at the office. She was a pretty girl just like her mother.

“She’s applying to college. She wants to go to Princeton, at least that’s in New Jersey. I’m scared to death she’ll get into Stanford. I don’t want her that far away. My life is going to be a wasteland when she goes.”

He nodded and could see the real sadness in Alexa’s face. She was too young to have given up her whole life for a child. “Maybe that’s something for you to think about. You still have time to do something about it.”

“Excuse me? This from a guy who works as hard as I do? My last date may have been in the stone age, but something tells me yours was several millennia before.” He laughed out loud at her response.

“So take it from me, it’s a mistake. It’s too late for me now. By my age, I can either go out with younger women who want babies, and I don’t, or women my age who are angry and bitter and hate guys.”

“And there’s nothing in between?” Alexa wondered if he had a point. She knew she was bitter herself, about Tom, and men in general. She had vowed never to trust any man again, and she hadn’t, even those she had gone out with, rare as it was. Her walls were a mile high.

“Nope,” Jack confirmed. “Hookers. But I’m too cheap to pay for sex.” They both laughed at that, and he paid for their lunch as Alexa thanked him. “Don’t say that I don’t take you to the best places. If the theory about getting laid in exchange for a good dinner holds, you should probably kick me in the shins for lunch. How’s your stomach holding up after that salad? Feeling sick yet?”

“Not yet. It usually takes about half an hour.” The jokes about the deli were legion, but it was just as bad as they all said, and worse. All the cops swore the jail food was better, and it probably was.

They walked back into the building together, and Jack said he’d keep her posted on the latest developments about Quentin. The press was taking a major interest in him, and they were all being extremely careful about what they said. Reporters had already tried to interview Alexa and she declined. She was leaving that to the DA.

Alexa spent the rest of the afternoon in meetings, worked on her file for the grand jury, and left work earlier than usual, at six o’clock. Her mother and Judge Schwartzman were coming for dinner, and Savannah had just put a chicken in the oven when she got home. She looked pretty and fresh and had played volleyball that afternoon. She was elated that they’d won against a rival school. Alexa tried to get to her games whenever she could, but it wasn’t as often as she liked. And she was struck again by the resemblance between her daughter and Luke Quentin’s victims. It made the death of all those young women seem that much worse to her.

“How’s your big serial killer case coming?” Savannah asked her as they stood in the kitchen. Alexa was making a salad, and they had just put baking potatoes in the microwave. Her mother and Stanley Schwartzman were due in half an hour. They could chat, as they always did, until dinner was cooked.

“It’s coming along,” Alexa answered. “I have a grand jury hearing on it in two days. How are the applications coming? Did you finish any more? I want to see them before they go out,” she reminded her, but Savannah wrote excellent essays, and her grades and board scores were high. She was going to get in everywhere. Alexa had done her job well, and Savannah was a bright girl.

“I finished Princeton and Brown. I still have Stanford and Harvard to do. I don’t think I’ll get in anyway, they’re both too hard. GW would be okay too. And Duke.” Going to college still seemed unreal to her, like a dream, but she was excited about it. She was looking forward to talking about it with her dad when they went skiing.

Alexa and Savannah chatted in the kitchen, as they set the table and finished making dinner, and then the doorbell rang. It was Alexa’s mother and Stanley. He was a handsome, distinguished-looking, vibrant man, despite his age, and exactly what a judge should look like. He was serious, conservative, but he had a great sense of humor and a twinkle in his eye.

The chicken was delicious, and everyone pretended not to notice that the baked potatoes were overcooked. The conversation was lively, and the three generations of women always had a good time together, and Stanley enjoyed being with them. Alexa reminded him of his own daughters, and Savannah of his favorite granddaughter who was the same age, and at Boulder, having a ball. They talked about Savannah’s applications, and a funny case Stanley had heard recently, a suit brought by a man who had sued a co-worker for sneezing on him constantly and making him sick. The case had been dismissed for lack of malicious intent or tangible damages, and no damages had been awarded.

“Once in a while you have to ask yourself if people are all crazy,” he said as he finished a dish of ice cream. “What are you working on these days, Alexa?”

“The big serial killer case that’s been all over the press,” Muriel answered for her, and he looked impressed.

“Those cases are always hard. They’re very emotionally disturbing. Cases like that always haunt me for months.” Alexa nodded. It was already starting to do that to her. She knew in every detail the faces of each dead girl, and their lives. The one she knew the least about so far was the defendant, how he had done it, when and where, and what made him tick, but she’d get there. She always did.

“I hate it when Alexa has cases like that,” her mother complained as she carried their dishes to the sink and helped load the dishwasher. She loved coming to Alexa’s for dinner, it was always easy and relaxed. And Stanley liked coming with her. They had a comfortable relationship and enjoyed many of the same things. Not enough to want to get married at this point in their lives, but enough to spend a lot of time together and talk on the phone every day. Sometimes they had lunch in his chambers or hers. “I always worry that the defendants are too dangerous and have equally dangerous friends on the outside.”

“Any sign of that?” Stanley asked, looking mildly concerned, but Alexa shook her head.

“No. It’s fine.”

The evening ended shortly after that, and Alexa and Savannah went to their own bedrooms. Savannah spent the rest of the evening talking to friends on the phone, and Alexa pored over files, until she fell asleep on her bed, fully dressed. Savannah came in to say goodnight to her, and gently took her papers out of her hand, covered her with a blanket, and turned off the light. It was not an unusual occurrence. Alexa fell asleep that way on many, many nights, especially when she was in trial. Savannah kissed her, and Alexa didn’t stir. She was purring softly, as Savannah smiled and closed the door.

The next day, after Alexa’s dinner with her mother, she got good news about the case. The latest, more extensive report on the DNA definitely determined that the dried blood caked into Luke Quentin’s boots was a match with two of the women, and that the hairs were from the other two victims, and were a clear match too. Alexa considered the news a real gift, so they could now link him to all four women. How the blood and hair got there was up to them to prove. But it was solid evidence for their side, just in time for them to go to the grand jury the next day. Jack called and told her, and Alexa beamed when she heard the news. There were still more tests to do, which would be more conclusive, but the information they had now was reliable. Luke Quentin was in big trouble. As was proper, Alexa called and told his public defender, who was not thrilled to hear the news.

“Do you really think you can make this stick?” the other woman asked her. Alexa knew her and liked her, although she was still very green.

“Yes, I do,” Alexa said firmly.

“You don’t have a lot to go on.” That much was true.

“I have four dead women, and a previously convicted felon, a repeat offender, with blood and hair of the victims on his shoes. It didn’t get there while he had lunch at McDonald’s. He claims he may have jogged through it in the park. He didn’t jog through four different crime scenes. We’re going with it. Let me know if he wants to plead.”

“I don’t think he will,” the public defender said, sounding unhappy. She was not looking forward to this case. The killing of four young women would have public opinion heavily against him, and from what she had seen so far, her client was anything but remorseful, and extremely sure of himself. A jury was going to hate him the minute he walked in. All she could do was her best, but they both knew there was a good chance she was going to lose. And Quentin had no desire whatsoever to plead guilty to the charges. He had nothing but time on his hands, and a lot to lose. If he was convicted, he was going to spend the rest of his life in prison. He wasn’t about to hand that to them. He was going to make them work to convict. “Thanks for keeping me up to date,” she told Alexa, and they both hung up and went back to work.

As always, Alexa was impeccably prepared for the grand jury hearing the next day. It was held at the courthouse in Manhattan where her office was. Jack picked her up at home that morning, and drove her downtown in an unmarked police car. The hearing was closed to the public, and everything about it was kept in the utmost secrecy. Only she, representing the DA’s office; Jack, as the head of the investigation; the defendant and his attorney; and the grand jurors would be there. The hearing would determine if there was enough evidence for an indictment for the matter to be bound over for trial. Alexa knew that eighteen of the twenty-three members of the grand jury would be there-two more than they needed to indict. And at least twelve would have to vote for the indictment, and obviously she hoped they would. She and Jack didn’t say much on the way downtown; it was early. Quentin would be brought to the courtroom with four guards, in case he tried to escape. The public defender would meet him there. She had had the right to file a motion to block the grand jury from convening, but she hadn’t done it. There was too much evidence against her client to make a motion plausible.

Jack and Alexa hurried up the courthouse steps and into the grand jury room, just as Quentin was escorted in through a separate entrance. They had both been there many times before, with good results. It was rare, almost unheard of, for Alexa’s indictments to be dismissed. And her paperwork and motions were all in order. She wanted no procedural mistakes on this case.

They took their places at the counsel table assigned to the DA’s office, while the public defender sat down at the table across the aisle and Luke Quentin was brought into the room. Alexa was surprised to see that he was wearing a suit. She had no idea where the public defender had gotten it for him, but he looked good. She wondered if maybe it was his own. It seemed unlikely. He glanced across the aisle at Alexa then, and this time he didn’t smile. His eyes bored into her and through her, like white-hot power drills that drove right through her head. There was pure hatred in his eyes, and then he turned away. She could all too easily imagine that same look in his eyes as he raped and killed some young girl. She had no doubts whatsoever about the case.