“Where do you guys keep coming up with these women? My dick would have fallen off by now if I’d screwed them all.” The senior detective conducting the interrogation didn’t comment, and Alexa noticed Charlie McAvoy shift in his seat. He was still on the case and doing good work. He had handled his sister’s case and several others and was working hours of overtime. He looked as tired as everyone else. Only the defendant looked rested, in top form, good spirits, and great shape. He was the center of attention and a star. He cast several glances at his attorney, who smiled at him encouragingly as the interrogation wore on.

Alexa had recently demanded that he have a further medical exam to see if his body ejaculated sperm, or if it remained trapped elsewhere, as happened sometimes with men who had severe kidney problems and had been on medication for years. There was no evidence that he was, and he had refused the exams, which he had the right to do, and had offered to come in their eyes.

Everyone was tired of it, and him, as the interrogation wore down. He was so completely without remorse or concern, claiming he’d had nothing to do with any victim, and had neither raped nor killed them, that if anything, he looked bored. And in passing he made a comment that all the women he’d met in Iowa had been dogs, sluts, or cheap whores. Alexa saw Charlie tense as he made the comment, and sat there willing him not to react. For some reason then, maybe knowing that one of the victims was Charlie’s sister and wanting to goad him, he said that he wouldn’t have stuck his dick into any girl in Iowa, or most of the states where he’d been.

Charlie was tired and had been up all night, after meeting with the parents of several victims, and trying to get more information from them. His sister had been dead for a year that week, and his own parents were still devastated and so was he. But Quentin wouldn’t give it up. He kept talking about “dogs” and “sluts” and “cheap whores” and what he would and wouldn’t do to them if he had the chance. And before any of them could grab him, Charlie was out of his seat like lightning, had literally flown across the table and had Quentin by the throat, and he was in even better shape than Luke. Charlie had a choke hold on him, and Quentin responded in kind. The two men were literally strangling each other, as every cop in the room and even Alexa dove toward them to break it up.

Someone hit an alarm, and there was chaos in the room as people shouted, grabbed, scuffled, it was nearly impossible to drag Charlie off him, but two of the men finally did. Jack was standing there sweating profusely, his own shirt torn from his attempts to break up the two men. He said not a word to Luke but shouted in his detective’s face, who was choking and spitting on the floor. Luke was back in cuffs and being dragged away, spluttering too.

“What the fuck were you thinking? Are you out of your mind? You’re off the case. Now!”

“I’m bringing charges!” Luke shouted through the door as it closed, with no time to cast smoldering looks at his attorney, or menacing looks at Alexa or anyone else. It had been an incredibly dumb thing for Charlie to do, and would probably win him a year’s suspension for attacking a suspect, but he clearly needed the time off, and Jack was furious with himself for not taking him off the case before. He was quietly talking to Sam Lawrence and the other special FBI agent, who had actually been the ones to pull Charlie away from Luke. Jack explained again about his sister, and they nodded, and finally one of them laughed.

“Look, relax. I would have liked to do it myself. I just didn’t have the balls. I have three sisters, and this guy is a piece of shit.” But they also had a responsibility to protect him, and not kill him themselves. “I’m not going to file a report,” Sam said. “He had it coming. You guys can do what you want.” Jack knew he had to file one anyway. He told Charlie in his office half an hour later that he was suspending him for a year and sent him home. He had done a great job until then, but the stress had been too much for him. Quentin had killed his twin. Charlie had apologized profusely to Jack before he left, and said he would fly back to Iowa that night, but he and his family were planning to attend the trial.

Jack looked even more exhausted when he showed up in Alexa’s office after Charlie left.

“Shit. That’s all we needed. Thank God the FBI guys were nice about it. McCarthy is going to kill me when he hears it. I should have taken Charlie off the case as soon as we knew his sister was one of the victims. I don’t know what I was thinking. I must have shit for brains.”

“You’re human, like anyone else,” she reassured him, but it had been a tense moment, and a very stupid mistake on Charlie’s part. He had totally lost control. “This case is getting to all of us.” It had impacted everyone’s life, including hers.

They sat and ate Power Bars together for an hour, and to distract her, he asked about Savannah, and once again she admitted her concerns, and shared them with him.

“She went to see her grandmother there. She’s settling in, and it worries me a lot. I don’t want her falling in love with Charleston and deciding that’s where she wants to live.” It was a major concern for her, but the alternative, of bringing her back to New York, was worse, and out of the question until after the trial.

“I don’t have any, but it seems to me, kids do what they want, and usually just the opposite of what their parents want for them. I don’t think you’ll have much control over what she decides. But even if Charleston is pretty, it’s not New York. She’s used to a bigger world, and she’s going to college.” He had a point and what he said reassured her, and they went back to talking about the case. She was going down to Charleston herself that weekend. She could hardly wait to see Savannah, but was dreading all the bitter memories it would revive for her, some of them even bittersweet.

In the end, there was no major fallout from Charlie’s outburst in the interrogation room. Both the DA and the FBI were satisfied with Jack’s suggestion of a year’s suspension, and with the fact that Charlie was already gone and had left that day. There were extenuating circumstances, since his twin sister was one of the victims. And with him off the case, it wouldn’t happen again, but it had been a close call. No one knew what could have happened if the other men hadn’t been able to stop Charlie. It would certainly have solved the problem, but created others far worse for him. No one would have been sorry to see Luke Quentin dead, except Judy Dunning, whom Alexa now referred to as “the fool.”

By five o’clock on Friday afternoon, when she had to leave for the airport, Alexa was flying around her office stuffing files into a bag. She wanted to do some reading on the flights down and back. The rest of the time would be dedicated to Savannah and whatever she had planned. She barely made it to the airport on time, and talked to her mother from the cab. She looked and felt a mess, and totally unprepared to face her old world. She had told her mother about Charlie McAvoy earlier in the week. Emotions were running high on the Quentin case, and Muriel commented that it would do her good to get away. Alexa wasn’t as sure, except for seeing Savannah. She was terrified of the rest.

“What are you afraid of?” Muriel asked her from her chambers. She had just finished work for the day. It had been a good day for her. Her life wasn’t fraught with the drama of her daughter’s. She couldn’t have lived that way, or worked as hard, although she had in her youth. Those days were over now. She was busy, but her life was not going at breakneck speed. Alexa’s was. Muriel hated this case for her, and all the stress she had.

“I don’t know, Mom,” Alexa said honestly. “I guess I’m afraid she’ll stay, that Tom will be so nice suddenly, and Charleston will be so seductive, all that beauty and southern charm. I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Why wouldn’t she? What if she never wants to come home, or live in New York again?”