"Spare me the thought of Dickie sitting on the beach with sand sticking to his crotch," Mike whispered to me as he stood to stretch.

Shortly before nine, when we were wrapping up the session, Peterson came back to the room, bracing his back against the doorjamb.

"Score one for the troopers," he said, taking a long drag on his cigarette. "They just found Dylan's white van."

"Where at?" Draper asked.

"Hudson Highlands State Park, not far from Bannerman Island. Ditched in the woods. License plate stripped off, but the VIN number's a match."

"Damn it," Mike said, cracking his pencil in half. "I apologized to Draper, I might as well eat it all and apologize to you, too, Coop. I never should have jumped the gun collaring that kid."

"Apology accepted," I said. "As soon as we get some forensics back from the lab, we'll make that call to Frankie Shea."

"That'll be the state lab in Albany, Alex," the lieutenant said. "They get to do the workup on the van. Even the olive green blanket that was balled up on the floor behind the rear seat."

The news that another blanket had been found in Dylan's vehicle galvanized all of us.

"Get a check on the arraignment, Mike," Peterson went on. "Tacchi, Vandomir-you guys okay to start to tail the kid from the courthouse tonight? I'll have relief for you in the morning and we'll keep on it till we see if there are prints or hair or whatever in the van."

Mike had flipped open his cell and was talking to the officer at Central Booking again. "Chapman here. That Dylan kid, how long till he sees the judge?"

He didn't like the answer he got. He pocketed the phone and repeated it to us.

"Walked out the door forty-five minutes ago. ROR'd," Mike said. The judge had released him on his own recognizance, denying the prosecutor's request to set bail. "Lock your doors, ladies. Mr. Dylan's on the loose.

Mike drove me home on his way to his place, a cramped walkup apartment not far from my high-rise that he nicknamed "the coffin. I went upstairs alone and used the deadbolt and chain to lock up, even though I had the luxury of two doormen on each of the three shifts. Every twist in this case seemed creepier and creepier, and the idea of a serial killer at large-spreading his victims' bodies beyond the city like a growing cancer-was chilling.

I slept fitfully, leaving home later than usual because there was no need to get Kerry Hastings to the courthouse much earlier than her ten o'clock appearance before Judge Lamont. Before I left my apartment to hail a cab, I called to tell her I was on my way and would wait right in front of her hotel.

Mercer was going to meet us in my office. He had put too much into this case not to see Floyd Warren through to his sentence. And now he would try to pitch Kerry on the idea of using her rapist to help us understand our killer's motive. It seemed senseless to me, especially as the evidence against Dylan seemed to be mounting.

I could see Kerry under the awning of her hotel when my taxi pulled up at nine fifteen, and I slid across behind the driver's seat to let her in

Good morning. I guess I don't have to ask about your weekend. The newspapers and television are full of it. I don't know how you do it, Alex. Doesn't it ever get to you, all this violence and pain? "Sure it does. But it's an awfully good feeling to be able to try to do something about it, try to put people's lives back together. Were you able to relax at all? "It's beginning to sink in now. I'm starting to feel like there is life after Floyd Warren-that we've turned the tables on him at last."

I shifted in my seat and stared out the window as the driver went back to the FDR Drive for the ride downtown. Kerry Hastings wasn't a vindictive woman, but I didn't think she'd like the idea that Mercer was about to propose.

"Do I need to tell you what I'm going to say to Judge Lamont?"

"Only if you want to," I said. Impact statements were a relatively new phenomenon, a result of the advocacy movement of the 1980s, which expanded the rights of crime victims. I didn't have to try to articulate what effect Kerry's night of terror had had on the rest of her life-she would address Lamont directly, expressing her own thoughts and emotions.

"I wrote it out. I'm sort of worried about breaking down."

I smiled at her. "This part is so much easier. You'll do fine."

She handed me a copy of the words she intended to say and I skimmed it as we cruised down the highway. "I ceased to be human during the rape," she wrote, after detailing the facts. The thoughts she had during the occurrence of the crime were things she was never allowed to speak at either trial. "I became prey to Floyd Warren, who attacked me like a rabid beast."

"Too strong?"

The cab veered from side to side as a livery driver cut into our lane. "Take it easy," I said to the driver. "We're not in a hurry, okay?"

"Is it too much?"

"It's great. If I'd been half as descriptive to the jury, the verdict would be overturned on appeal. People who don't understand these crimes need to hear this."

The driver made the turn off the highway under the Brooklyn Bridge and began to wind through the streets of Chinatown that would bring him behind the courthouse, around to the DA's office at One Hogan Place.

We came to a full stop at the intersection of Baxter Street and Hogan. I waved at a couple of colleagues crossing in front of us. One of them spotted me through the open window and gave me a thumbs-up, shouting out, "Nice win on that Warren case."

The block was unusually short and narrow for the city. The avenues on either end of it were restricted to one-way traffic, but the only two doors on Hogan Place were the entrances to our office-the south end of the vast criminal courthouse that fronted on Centre Street-and the rear door of our satellite building across the way.

The driver stopped the cab as I directed, and I leaned forward to hand him the fare. Kerry unbuckled her seat belt and started to get out.

She had one foot on the pavement and the other still in the cab when we were rear-ended with enormous force. The taxi lurched forward and my head slammed against the partition. Kerry screamed as she fell out onto the ground and was dragged along for almost fifteen feet, hanging on to the door, as the driver's foot hit the gas instead of the brake.

Cops came running from every direction, in uniform and plainclothes, throwing cardboard coffee cups and brown paper bags filled with doughnuts and bagels to the sidewalk as they dashed to Kerry Hastings's side. On any given day, hundreds of officers were scheduled to appear in the DA's office-to testify in old cases, to participate in trial prep of new matters, to transport prisoners or bring them to be arraigned, and to kibbitz with courthouse friends.

The cabdriver, sobbing, had stepped out and raised his hands over his head. He was mumbling some kind of prayer in an unintelligible dialect

It's fine," I told him. "It's just an accident. I unbuckled my belt and got out on my side to check on Kerry, who'd been surrounded by detectives, two of whom were squatting, reassuring her and checking her vital signs. Before I could get around the tail of the cab, I realized that several cops had set out to chase after the occupants of the car that had smashed into us.

Their guns were drawn and they were yelling at two young men and one woman to stop. On the asphalt park behind the office, scores of Asian children in a summer school gym class scattered as the cops ran among them and dashed between their kickballs.

I got to my knees beside Kerry. The men who were comforting her recognized me and moved back