"I'm talking about Lipton," he said. "I didn't kill Marcia. I didn't kill Frank Castle or the other girl. He killed them all. And he's going to kill you."

Casey wrinkled her face in doubt. She was still trembling. Sales got up and removed a big flannel shirt from his pile of things. He crossed the floor of the cave and put it around her shoulders. The kindness of the act was magnified a hundredfold. The relief she felt was overwhelming. She railed against the inexplicable sudden feeling of gratitude she had toward Sales. After all, he had kidnapped her and terrorized her. Casey remembered reading that victims of torture experienced similar emotions, and she suspected this was the same thing. Whatever was causing it, she couldn't help the way she felt, almost giddy.

"I'm not crazy," he said, sitting back down and leaning back against the wall. With profound sadness he continued, "And if I was a killer, I would have killed you for what you did."

Casey looked at Sales, and the memory of her tearing him apart on the witness stand was painfully fresh. Tony Cronic's warning about accusing an innocent man of having sex with his daughter came to her mind. Despite the complexity of emotions she was feeling, shame jumped to the forefront.

"Why do you say he's going to kill me?" Casey heard herself say, the lawyer's part of her mind automatically probing for information.

Sales shrugged. "Because he's watching you. He has a white van that he drives. I don't know how he gets in your neighborhood past the security gates, but I saw him."

Casey thought of the white van she'd seen and the shadowy figure in the parking garage at work.

"He disappeared after the trial, you know," Sales said. "He probably knew I was going to kill him…"

"You said you weren't a killer," Casey said, unable to keep a hint of panic from seeping back into her voice.

Sales considered her in the gloom of the cave. He looked down as if contemplating his words, then looked up at her again. "Yeah, well that's different… You don't have any kids. You can't really understand…"

His eyes were alight again. Casey said nothing. She didn't want to think about it.

"You can't love anything like you love a little girl. You can't imagine it," he said emotionally. "Having your child die, having her killed, having her tortured, cut up… that's too much for anyone to think about. But I didn't have a choice, Casey Jordan. Lipton did those things to my little girl…

"Someone who did that," he said bitterly, his voice rising, "you kill someone who did that, you rip the life from their body. It's not murder… It's justice."

"Why am I here?" Casey asked after an uncomfortable silence.

"I told you," Sales said, looking so deeply into her eyes that she felt exposed. "I want your help."

"How would I help you?" Casey asked.

"I want you to tell me how to find him. What he does, how he does it. I know there was another girl. I want to know where. Where was he then, where else has he gone. You're his lawyer. There are things you know about him that no one else knows. I want to know. That's how you can help find him."

"But there's more," Casey said.

"Yes, there is more," Sales told her. "I know he wants you. If I can stay close to you, I'll get a chance at him. Sooner or later, I'll get a chance at him… you're the perfect person to help. You're the one who got him off."

Casey looked at him for a long time before saying quietly, "I still don't know that he killed anyone."

"Hah!" Sales snorted. "You don't know? You don't know? Think about it! You know goddamn well he did it."

"Either he did it or you did it," Casey said angrily. "I don't really know. You didn't have an alibi. You could have killed the girl in Atlanta."

"Could I?" Sales said disdainfully.

"Yes."

Sales jumped to his feet, and with his flashlight in one hand blinding her, he brandished the knife with the other. "If I was going to kill anyone, I'd kill you. How come I didn't kill you just now? Explain that away, Casey Jordan. If that's what I do, I'd kill you!" His words resonated through the cave before the darkness could swallow the sound.

Casey wasn't scared all over again. She knew Sales was angry, but there was no malice in his words. He was speaking out of frustration, and what he said was true. She had expected him to kill her. If he had killed everyone else, why wouldn't he have done it? Unless…

"Unless you want me to get to Professor Lipton," she said, shielding her eyes from his light with her hand. "You hate him."

"I would," Sales said. "But if that were true, why would I kill Frank Castle?"

"To make it look like Professor Lipton," she said.

"Now you're not even thinking," he retorted. "If all I wanted was to kill Lipton, why would I bother trying to frame him for another murder?"

"Because of what Frank Castle did to you at the trial," Casey said. It was surreal to be sitting there talking about life and death as if they were poker chips.

"Now we're back to you," Sales said calmly, taking his light off her and shining it on the rock floor that lay between them. "If I was going to kill someone over what happened at the trial, you'd have been first on my list. Believe me, you would have been the only one on my list… And if Lipton wasn't the killer, he wouldn't be stalking you. And if he wasn't the killer, stalking you, then there wouldn't be any reason to keep you alive to help me find him."

Casey was used to thinking quickly on her feet, and she knew that everything Sales said was perfectly logical. "You said you wanted me to tell you how to find him."

"I do," Sales said. "But if that's all I wanted, I could have gotten it out of you. Believe me, I could have gotten it out of you and then killed you."

"But we have the disk," she responded.

"What disk?"

"A copy of his computer hard drive. It might have information on it."

"I never knew about a computer disk," Sales said.

Casey rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands. Of course he didn't know about that. She sighed wearily. "I'm exhausted. I just don't know anything right now. Why is Bolinger so convinced you killed Frank Castle?"

"When he came to question me after Castle was killed," Sales said, "I got in my truck to follow him down to the police station. While I was driving, I reached under my seat for a little thing of lip balm that I dropped. I felt a sticky rag under there, and I had no idea what it was. When I put on the light, I saw it was a shirt and it was all covered with blood. The blood was all over my hands and this knife was wrapped in the middle of the shirt…

"Don't you see?" he said. "Lipton put it there. The police would've found it and I would've gone to jail for the rest of my life, if they didn't give me the death penalty. That's what he wants. He's afraid of me. I'm the only thing he is afraid of, because he knows he can't kill me. I'll crush him like a bug. He kills women, girls he can overpower, Frank Castle. He's big and he's strong and he's smart, but he still knows that I'll kill him if I get my hands on him. That's why he wants me in jail. Without me he can do what he wants, kill anyone he wants…"

"Meaning me?"

"You and others, too. He'll keep killing," Sales said simply. "He won't stop."

"Why are you so sure he wants to kill me?" Casey asked.

"Because I know. I thought so before I saw him going past your house. I saw the way he looked at you all during the trial. I know. It's a sense, but I know."

"How did you know it was him that drove past?"

"I watched your house for two days. I know him," Sales said.

"Why didn't you just follow him then?"

"I didn't have a car," Sales explained.

"What are you going to do with me now?" Casey asked quietly.

"I'm not going to do anything with you," he said. "I'm not going to force you to help me. At best, you'd slow me down. At worst, you'd trip me up. You do what you want. I'll take you to your car. But if you don't help me, you're making a mistake, a big mistake…"