Maura thumbed through the police reports and the pink arrest report one last time and looked at the clock. It was already past 9:30 a.m. She made a few last notes, then picked up the briefcase and walked over to the courthouse. She took the back stairs and the side entrance to avoid the press scrum that lurked outside the entrance of the building and on the courthouse steps. She entered the courthouse unnoticed through the parking garage, where she waved to the bored security guard and entered the elevator.

The elevator doors opened on the third floor, and Maura saw at a glance that the hearing would be an even bigger event than she had originally thought. Already in the hallway outside Courtroom 410, an excited throng of cameramen and chattering journalists crowded in. Spotlights were set up under high pressure, microphones checked and lipstick redone.

Maura focused on the huge mahogany door and marched purposefully through the crowd with her head down, her honey blonde hair covering her face. She seemed unmoved by all the hysteria raging around her.

The inexperienced reporters, who hadn't done their homework, blurted out frantically, "Is that her? Is that the district attorney? Is that Isles?" The old hands scrambled forward before the others even had a chance to turn on their microphones.

"Ms. Isles, what leads were found at William Bantling's house?"

"No comment."

"Was Mr. Bantling on the task force's list of suspects?"

"No comment."

"Are you going to charge him with the other nine murders as well?"

"No comment."

"What are you going to plead?"

For that question, Maura shot the perky journalist a scowl. The doors closed behind her with a heavy slam.

Maura strode through the walnut-paneled courtroom and took her seat on the right side at the prosecution table. Judge Katz, of course, had chosen the most magnificent courtroom in the entire building for his hearing. The ceilings were some twenty-two feet high, and the Honorable Judge's mahogany throne rose at least six feet above the auditorium and one three feet above the witness stand. Chandeliers with metal rotundas, unmistakably from the seventies, hung across the room.

The courtroom was already packed with spectators, most of them journalists, and cameras were positioned everywhere on their tripods at the most adventurous angles. BPD officers in blue uniforms stood against the walls of the hall, and the door was secured by four green and white-uniformed prison guards. Another four guarded the back entrance, through which prisoners were brought across a hallway and bridge from the jail. Yet another four held the fort at the door leading to the judge's chambers. In the front row of the auditorium, Maura spotted a couple of colleagues from the prosecutor's office and nodded to them.

She opened the briefcase and glanced to her left. Four feet away from her sat prominent criminal defense attorney Sarah Rubio. Next to her, in a tailored black suit, gray silk tie, and shiny handcuffs, sat her client, William Rupert Bantling.

The suit looked like Armani and the tie looked like Versace.

Bantling wore his blond hair slicked back, and on his tanned nose sat an expensive-looking pair of Italian sunglasses, behind which, Maura noticed, was a thick shiner. Probably compliments of the Boston Police Department. Although Maura could see him only in profile from where she sat, it was obvious that he was an attractive man. Pronounced cheekbones, strong chin. Well, wonderful. An elegant, handsome serial killer. The love letters of the lonely and disturbed would probably flood the Suffolk County jail starting tomorrow afternoon.

Maura also noticed that he wore a Rolex under his handcuffs and a fat diamond in his left ear. So that's why Sarah Rubio was sitting next to him. She was good, but not cheap either. The handcuffs were attached to a chain that connected them to the anklets. Obviously, the guys at the prison had gone to some trouble to make him look pretty for TV. Maura was only surprised that they hadn't also given him a mask like Hannibal Lector in 'The Silence of the Lambs'. At that moment, Bantling turned his head and leaned over to Sarah with a smile. Maura noticed his perfect teeth. Without the black eye, he looked undeniably handsome. He certainly didn't seem like a serial killer, but neither had Ted Bundy.

How often did the nice grandfather next door turn out to be a child molester; how often was the CEO of a large company a violent husband? Things were never what they seemed. And it had probably been his good looks that Bantling had used to lure the girls out of the clubs. They were expecting a designated monster, a greasy, disgusting, three-eyed monster with bad breath and a knife, in whom they would recognize as the Boogeyman at first glance. But not a charming cappuccino drinker in an Armani suit with a Rolex, Jaguar, and the perfect smile.

"All rise, please!" The bailiff opened the back door of the courtroom, and in stepped a resolute Judge Katz. The first thing he did was scowl in the rough direction of William Bantling.

He climbed into the judge's chair and sat down. He adjusted his glasses on the tip of his nose, and then he cast more scowls into the courtroom.

"Court is in session!" barked the bailiff. "The Honorable Judge Irving J. Katz presiding! Sit down and be quiet, please."

Judge Katz looked around his chambers silently with a look of disdain. For minutes, nervous silence filled the air, with only a rustle of paper or a muffled cough heard here and there. Finally clearing his throat, he began, "We are gathered here in the case of The State of Massachusetts vs. William Rupert Bantling. Attorneys present, please identify yourselves for the record."

Very formal. Maura and Rubio both stood up.

"Maura Isles for the State of Massachusetts."

"Sarah Rubio for the defendant."

The judge continued. "The charge is murder. You appear here for your initial hearing, Mr. Bantling, as required by Massachusetts law, to determine whether probable cause exists and, therefore, whether the warrant based on the charges against you is lawful. If probable cause is found, you will be remanded to the Suffolk County Jail without bail pending trial. Now that that's settled, Madame Clerk, please hand me the arrest report so I can read it."

Judge Katz was brisk, speaking clearly and carefully emphasizing every word. On TV, he would come across great. On any other day, he would have dispatched at least ten defendants in the same amount of time. Now, while he pretended to read the arrest report, the courtroom rustled and whispered. Cameras whirred and courtroom sketchers drew.

"Quiet, please!" the bailiff yelped, and everyone's silence fell.

After five minutes of strained frowning, Judge Katz looked up from the three-page transcript. In a voice dripping with contempt, he declared aloud, "I have read the arrest report. And I hereby find that probable cause exists upon which William Rupert Bantling is to be tried for the murder of Ms. Anna Prado. No bail is set. The defendant remains in the custody of the Department of Corrections." He paused dramatically and leaned down toward the defendant. "Mr. Bantling, the court can only hope -"

Suddenly, Sarah Rubio rose. "Your Honor, if I may interject. I hate to interrupt, but I'm afraid that the court is about to come to a conclusion without having heard the defendant's side. Your Honor, my client is a member of the community in good standing. He has no criminal record. He has lived in Boston for six years and has put down roots here. This is his place of employment and his home. He agrees, pending resolution of the matter, to turn in his passport to the court, to be electronically handcuffed, and to be placed under house arrest so that he can be available to prepare his defense. We respectfully ask the court to take these factors into consideration and set bail."

Now Maura rose as well, but she immediately realized that wasn't necessary.

Judge Katz' bald head turned red, and he shot icy glances in Sarah Rubio's direction. She had spoiled his so-far flawless performance. "Ms. Rubio, your client is the suspect in a series of horrific, violent murders. He's been picked up in the middle of Boston with a desecrated body in his trunk. He's not a tourist who enjoyed the nightlife in South Boston a little too intensely, Ms. Rubio. I'm not afraid of him fleeing, Counselor, I'm afraid of him murdering. He is clearly a danger to society. No bail will be set. He will be available to you from his cell." Judge Katz looked at Sarah Rubio as if he had just realized she was female. In a low voice, he added: "And it is quite possible that one day you will still be grateful to me for this. " Then he leaned forward again and continued his closing remarks. "Well, Mr. Bantling, I can only hope for your sake that you are not guilty of the terrible crime with which you are charged. If you -"

All at once Bantling stood up, he jerked away from his table, and his chair fell crashing against the wooden railing behind him. Upset, he yelled at Judge Katz, "This is ridiculous! Your honor, I didn't do anything. Nothing! I had never seen that woman in my life. This whole thing is bullshit!"

Maura looked at Bantling, and everything began to spin in her head. He turned to Sarah Rubio now, grabbed her by the elbow with a cuffed hand, and yelled, "Do something. Do something. I'm not guilty. I'm not going to jail!"

Maura's mouth went dry. She stared at Bantling, unable to move, while three prison guards ran to his table to push him back into his chair. Maura saw the journalists jumping up, cameras panned as the scene was broadcast live on television. But she heard nothing, only Bantling's voice screaming over and over, "Do something! You have to do something!"

Maura stared at the hand he was gripping Rubio's jacket with, at the S-shaped scar, on the left, just above his wrist. She knew that voice. Like lightning, the realization of who William Rupert Bantling was struck her in that terrifying moment in the middle of the courtroom.

Maura began to tremble all over her body. Before her eyes, Bantling was dragged from the dock to the exit, still screaming for Rubio to do something. Maura stared after him long after he had disappeared, not even hearing Judge Katz call her name from the bench.

Then she felt two strong hands on her shoulders. It was Detective Jane Rizzoli, who had stood up and was now gently shaking her. She looked at the detective uncomprehendingly, saw her mouth forming her name. She still heard nothing, the courtroom sounded like a vacuum, and she felt like she was going to faint.

"Maura? Maura? Are you all right? The judge is calling you."

Slowly, the sounds began to reach her again. Rushing, thundering like waves in the surf. "Yes, yes. I'm all right," she murmured, "I just got a little scared."

"You don't look well," Jane said with a deep frown. "You're as white as a sheet."

By now, the judge was as red as a poker. His whole show was ruined. Ruined! "Ms. Isles, would you have the goodness to return to your duties as a prosecutor now? Because this court has had to endure more than enough for today!"

"Yes, your honor. My apologies." She turned to the bench.

"Thank you. I asked you if there was anything to add on the part of the State of Massachusetts, otherwise, we can close the session for today."

"No, I don't have anything to add, Your Honor," she said absently, her eyes fixed back on the empty chair in the dock next to Sarah Rubio. Rubio looked at Maura strangely. So did the clerk and the bailiff.

"Fine. Then this hearing is hereby closed." Judge Katz took one last look around, then stormed off the bench, letting the door to his hallway slam loudly.

A cluster of reporters ran to the railing, demanding comments and sticking microphones in Maura's face. Maura gathered her papers and pushed past them, not listening to their questions. She had to get out, out of the courtroom, out of the building, just get out of here, escape somewhere.

Maura hurried down the hall to the elevators, instead of waiting for the elevator, she pushed past the languid chattering rows of defendants, victims, and lawyers on the crowded escalator, taking two steps at a time with each step. Without waiting for Jane Rizzoli, who called after her from above, she hurried through the lobby and out to the courthouse glass doors into the hot sun.

But she had nowhere to run. The nightmare had begun anew.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Maura marched hurriedly across the street to her office in the building on the other side of the street, followed by a cluster of reporters who struggled to keep up. With her hand raised, she fended off all questions, no comment, leaving the press begging at the security check in the lobby as she ran in giant leaps up the stairs.

She ran to the ladies' room and took a quick look under the stall doors to make sure she was alone. Then she dropped the briefcase on the tiles and said goodbye to her breakfast.

She leaned her forehead against the cool, cough-juice-pink tiled wall until everything stopped revolving around her. Hunched over the sink and splashed gallons of water on her face and neck. Her head felt as if it weighed a hundredweight, and she had to muster all her strength to lift it and stand upright again. Against the ugly piggy-pink background, she stared at her image from the mirrored wall.

She saw a pale, frightened woman. Maura had aged far too quickly in the last twelve years. When she wasn't wearing her hair up or in a ponytail, it was always falling in her face. She constantly had a hand in her hair and tucked it behind her ear. It was one of several nervous habits she had picked up over the years.

Maura tucked her hair behind her ear, leaned forward, and studied her reflection. She saw the deep worry lines on her forehead and the ever-growing crow's feet that spread around her hazel eyes like cracks in a plate. Dark shadows underneath, half-heartedly covered with tinted cream, proved she still suffered from nightmares and exhausting insomnia that followed them. Her luscious lips had grown serious and almost narrow, and small wrinkles were beginning to appear around the edges. She thought the term laugh lines was a bad joke. Her charcoal gray pantsuit was chic but conservative; she almost never wore skirts, except in the trial itself. Nothing about her person attracted attention.

Maura knew: it was his voice. She had recognized it immediately. After twelve long years, she still heard it in her nightmares, the same husky, throaty baritone with the hint of a British accent.

Maura was sure she wasn't imagining it. The sound cut through her brain like a serrated knife, and an inner siren had howled in her head that she would have loved to point at him and scream out loud, "That's him! That's the man! Help! Stop him!"

But she hadn't moved. Hadn't been able to move, as she had then. She had been paralyzed as if the scene in the courtroom was playing out on a TV screen. At least at home on the couch, you could yell at the actors: Do something, don't just stand there! Even if they didn't hear it, the scene went on and the next doe-eyed victim was slaughtered by the maniac with the cleaver.

At the sound of that voice, every single hair on her body had stood on end, she had gotten goosebumps, and at the same moment, she had known it was him. Twelve years had passed, but part of her had always suspected that one day she would hear that voice again, and all this time she had been waiting for it. The zigzag scar on his left wrist had been just the latest confirmation.

He, however, didn't seem to recognize her. After all, he had done to her, taken from her, it was almost comical how he didn't dignify her with a glance, ignored her presence in the courtroom. She had probably changed completely since then, since that eternity, was a faint shadow of her former self. The woman in the mirror tried to hold back the tears. Sometimes she didn't recognize herself anymore.

Even if years had passed since that terrible night, in her case, time hadn't healed the wounds, nor made the memory fade. Every minute, every second, every detail, every word of those hours was still present in her mind. Even though outwardly at least, she had moved forward with her life, there were things she couldn't overcome, no matter how hard she tried; and even today, just getting through the day was sometimes a real feat. Back then, that night, her old life had ended, she had lost everything that meant security and protection. It wasn't so much the physical scars, those had faded. But there was the constant fear. Maura hated having to live with it. She couldn't just move on with her life, leave the past behind. It was as if she was stuck in neutral, afraid of the past on the one hand and the future on the other. She knew that was exactly what was destroying her relationships, but there was nothing she could do about it; she was still carrying around the same heavy baggage she should have dropped off at that overpriced psychiatrist's office in New York years ago.

After a nervous breakdown and two years of intensive therapy, she had to face the fact she had been afraid of all along: self-determination was an illusion. It simply didn't exist. She had lost control of her life that night, and then it had taken her two years to realize that she had probably never had it. Life was just a freak of fate, and that was also the explanation for why some people got hit by a bus on the way back from a funeral and others won the lottery twice. The only way to try to avoid the bus was to avoid dark alleys.

She thought of how Michael had always referred to that night as the incident. Michael, her characterless boyfriend who had finally gotten engaged to his skinny, redheaded secretary. After Maura had broken down, he had promised to give her the time and space she needed to get back on her feet. He had wanted to wait forever, if only it helped her get through it. But apparently forever was a very long time, and so the very next week he had taken the little redhead out to dinner at Tavern on the Green in Central Park. Six months later, they had been married. Maura hadn't heard from him since. A few years after that, she had read about their divorce in a small article in the Wall Street Journal; the little redhead had since become a voluptuous blonde and had sued Michael for all of his now considerable fortune.

But the worst part of the last twelve years was the not knowing. That she didn't know who her rapist, was, or where he was. Fear was her constant companion, and it could never be shaken off. Was he on the same subway? In the pub? On the bench? Was he on the escalator or in line at the supermarket? Was he her doctor, her accountant, her boyfriend? I'll always be around you, Maura. Watching you. Waiting.

She hadn't been able to escape that thought in New York, so after two years she'd decided she wasn't going to try any longer. She took the bar exam in Massachusetts and actually moved back to Boston. The anonymity helped her sleep better at night if she slept at all. Maybe, she thought, a career as a prosecutor would give her back some control, in this crazy world of senselessness, chaos, and madness. Maybe she could do something like that for the powerless, for those who had just lost their illusions.

Images of that night flashed through her mind, flashed as if in strobe light. But now he had a face. And with the face, a name. She had to stay calm and think about what to do. Should she tell Jerry Small, the senior prosecutor, everything? Should she call the old investigators in New York, Sears, and Harrison? Should she tell the task force about it? No one in Boston, except her therapist, knew her past, knew about the incident.

Proceed as you would in any other case. She took a deep breath. The first thing she had to do was find out if Bantling had a record anywhere, and inquire in New York about 'extradition regulations.' She would consult the police report on her case at the time. Bantling hadn't been released on bail; he would sit in high-security custody until a date was set in fourteen days at the earliest for what was called the Arthur Hearing. At that hearing, the judge would examine witnesses to determine whether "the evidence was clear and the suspicion was reasonable" that Bantling had committed the murder.

If the answer to that question was yes, however, the judge would again deny release on bail, and Bantling, no matter when the trial took place, had to sit in pretrial detention. So for now, he was guaranteed not to get out.

She had to think thoroughly and logically. Had to take her time. She couldn't let him slip through her fingers. If she was ever taken to task for not being honest in court, in the investigation, she could always say that she wasn't sure at first if it was really him ...

The door to the ladies' room was ripped open.

It was Cara, of all people, accompanied by another secretary. She carried a pink glittery cosmetic bag in one hand and a can of hairspray in the other.

"Hello, Cara." Maura smoothed out her jacket and picked up her briefcase. "I'm back from court, as you can see, but I have a lot to do. Please keep the calls away from me. Especially the ones from the press." Maura realized her voice was shaking. She tucked her hair behind her ear and headed for the door. Then she turned again and added, "Oh, Cara, please call the defense attorney in the Jamie Tucker case and try to get the hearing overturned. Now, with the Bantling thing, I need at least two more weeks. I think the date was next Wednesday." Pure indignation was reflected on Cara's face. "Is there a problem?" asked Maura.

"No. Fine. "Affectedly, Cara sauntered over to the sinks, her hand angled, and gave her friend a look that said, 'What is this cocky bitch thinking?'

Maura left the restrooms and headed down the hall to her office. It was only 11 a.m. and she was exhausted. The first thing she would do would be to call Juan at the DA's investigative service and ask him to research Bantling's complete past, especially the one in New York. Maybe she could get a computer printout of Bantling's civilian life from Jane Rizzoli this afternoon, after that, she would know where Bantling had lived, worked, paid taxes, or registered a car in the last ten years. Jane had probably requested that long ago, and Maura could just go to her at the task force and get a copy. After that, she would knock off early to regain her wits and simply make the phone calls to New York from home. All she needed was her purse and the Boogeyman files sitting on her desk.

An unmistakable smell of greasy fast food hung in the hallway outside her office. When she opened the door, she knew her escape plan had been thwarted.

With their backs to her, Jane Rizzoli and Vince Korsak sat in front of her desk. At their feet was a new box of files.