“What’s up?” Jack had walked into her office and looked startled at her expression. “Why?”

“You’ve got murder in your eyes.”

“No, I don’t. That would be our defendant. I’m just worried.”

“What about?” He sat down in the chair across from her desk.

“Savannah. We got a stupid anonymous letter this weekend, from some guy who says he wants her body. I’m probably being paranoid, but I wondered if Luke Quentin got someone to drop it off. Do you want to look up his visiting record and see if anyone has come to see him, and let’s check them out.”

“Sure,” Jack reassured her. “But it’s probably not him. He’s not that stupid. I just spent another two hours with him, and he’s a smart guy. What’s the point of lusting after your daughter? Or sending anonymous letters to bug you? He’s in jail, and the last thing he wants to do right now is beat a path to your front door and piss you off. You’re a pretty formidable opponent, and you’ve got the upper hand. I don’t think he’s your guy. It’s more likely just a random thing. She’s a pretty girl. Anyone could have written that letter.”

“I guess you’re right. I’m just edgy. And I don’t like people stalking my daughter.” Alexa looked fierce as she said it, a mother lioness protecting her cub, and Jack smiled.

“Is she scared?”

“Not really. But we were both unnerved.”

“It’s probably just some kid who likes her. Boys do dumb stuff at that age. Come to think of it, at every age.”

“Jason Yu says it’s a guy in his twenties or thirties.”

“You asked him?” Jack looked surprised. Having the handwriting analyzed by forensics seemed like an extreme measure to him. “You are worried,” he said when she nodded.

“I just wanted to be sure, so I know what we’re dealing with. So it’s a man and not a kid. But it’s still probably nothing.”

“I’ll check Quentin’s visiting record. And if it happens again, let me know.” She nodded, and he filled her in on the interrogation that morning. Nothing new had turned up. But they were sending Quentin’s early DNA results to the other states to see if there was any kind of match. And by late that afternoon, he was able to tell Alexa that Quentin had had no visitors at all, so it was unlikely that the letter to Savannah had been instigated by him. Alexa wasn’t sure if she was relieved or not. If it wasn’t Quentin, who was it?

It was two days later when Jack walked into her office again. Alexa was having a bad day. Everything had gone wrong, and she had just spilled her coffee over her desk, drowning her papers, and had ruined a new skirt.

“Shit,” she was muttering to herself when he walked in, beaming.

“Bad time?”

“No, I just spilled my coffee.” She was trying to salvage the papers on her desk. The skirt was a mess. “What’s up?” He tossed a file onto the dry part of her desk.

“Bingo!”

“Bingo? What about?” It had been a busy morning, and her mind was going in a million directions at once.

“We have matches in Iowa and Illinois. Some of Quentin’s hair under three victims’ nails. So now we have seven. I think this is just the beginning.” They had made the matches from the evidence in the rape kits put together by the coroner in each case and meticulously preserved.

“Holy shit!” She was both elated and sorry at the same time. Sorry for the families of the victims, but thrilled that they had the perpetrator behind bars. “Will they let us incorporate their cases and add them to trial here, or do we have to extradite him for trial there after ours?” Their worst fear was that the FBI would take the case away from them since he had crossed state lines. Alexa wanted to keep the case and so did Jack and the DA.

“I haven’t gotten that far.” So far they had him on a killing spree in three states. It was going to get complicated now. There were mechanics and legal technicalities involved. And then Jack’s face clouded over. “One of the victims is Charlie’s sister, which was what got him involved in the case in the first place. But it’s going to be hard on him knowing that for sure.”

“Did you tell him?”

“Not yet, but I will. I’m thinking of taking him off the case. This is a little too close to home. He got the collar, that’s good enough.” The “collar” in copspeak was the arrest.

“I think you should take him off. I don’t want him losing it in court, and blowing our case. Or going nuts and shooting the guy. We’ll have enough headaches without that.”

“He’s a good cop. He won’t go crazy. I just don’t want to upset him more than he already is.” Alexa agreed, and she and Jack celebrated for a minute that they were about to avenge three more victims at the trial. It was all they could do for those girls and their families now.

But when Jack talked to Charlie about it later that afternoon, Charlie was adamant about not leaving the case, and he begged Jack not to take him off it. He had been involved in the investigation since the beginning and had been instrumental in bringing information to the task force. His feelings were hurt that Jack and the assistant district attorney thought he could lose it in court. He had been cleared to join the task force at the outset, and had made full disclosure about his sister. He had been closely observed, and made no slipups so far.

“What kind of cop do you think I am? A nutball? I’m not going to shoot the sonofabitch, although I’d like to. I’ve worked my ass off for the last year to bring this guy to justice and bring him in. I was one of the early ones who suspected it was him. And by sheer luck we nailed him on the crimes here first, which puts him in our jurisdiction. Jack, you can’t take me off this case.” There were tears of disappointment in his eyes. He wanted to do this for his sister. Jack hadn’t realized they were twins until he read her birth date on the paperwork the Iowa police had sent him. Iowa was Charlie’s home state, although he had moved to New York years before.

“All right, all right. But if it gets to be too much for you, I’ll let you out. Or take you off it, if you get too stressed.”

“I’m not too stressed,” Charlie said calmly. “I’ve never hated someone so much in my life. That’s different.” Jack nodded, hoping he was doing the right thing, and remembering Charlie smashing Quentin’s face into the pavement and breaking his nose the night they arrested him.

“I’m leaving you on the case, but I don’t want you alone with him for interrogation, and I don’t want you in his face, or him in yours. Is that clear?” Charlie nodded. “That’s a little too much for your nerves and mine. Agreed?”

“Agreed.” Charlie left his office then, having to digest the information he had suspected for months but never known for sure. Luke Quentin had raped and strangled his twin sister. He waited until he got home, to lie on his bed and burst into tears. It was early days yet, and they had a long way to go, but the case was taking a toll on all of them, in one way or another, and it was going to get a lot worse.