It was a small two-story house. Built-in colonial style, probably a good sixty years ago, it was perfectly square, The most beautiful flowers grew in the window boxes on the window sills, and lush borders lined the paved walkway to an oak door with a cast-iron handle. It didn't seem like a psychiatric practice at all. But just above the mailbox hung a small sign: Dr. Gregory Chambers.

Maura opened the door and stepped inside. The waiting room was decorated in peaceful, calming colors. Large gum trees stood in every corner of the room, and between them, against the walls, were inviting leather chairs. All sorts of magazines were stacked on a huge mahogany table, and Sarah Brightman sang Schubert's "Ave Maria" in the background. Soft, relaxing music. So that the rich lunatics wouldn't get excited or even go crazy when they visited the doctor.

Estelle McMillan, the secretary, sat behind a pale yellow wall that protected the sane from the sick. Through a small glass window, all that could be seen was her dramatically upswept, autumn-leaf-colored hairdo.

The waiting room was empty. Maura gingerly rang the small metal bell next to the window. It rang brightly, and Estelle pushed the glass aside.

"Hello, Ms. Isles! How are you?"

None of your business! "Fine, Estelle. How are you?"

Estelle stood up. Her hair disappeared from view, but her face was now visible. She was at most a 5'1" tall.

"You look good, Ms. Isles. I saw you on the news yesterday. What a sick bastard, isn't he? What did he do to those poor girls!"

More than you think, Estelle. More than you think. "Yes, he's definitely disturbed." She stepped impatiently from one foot to the other.

Estelle put her wrinkled paw hands to her mouth and shook her head. A golden tear was stuck on each of her five-inch fingernails. "It's terrible. All these pretty kids. Yet he looks perfectly normal, like a nice, decent man. But you just can't see what's going on inside of people's heads". She leaned forward and whispered. "I hope you lock him away, Ms. Isles. Where he can't hurt any more girls."

"I'll do my best, Estelle. Is Dr. Chambers there?"

"Oh, yes, yes. He's expecting you. Please just go in." Embarrassed, Estelle hastily pressed the buzzer, and the sick woman was allowed to enter the healthy zone. The door to Dr. Chambers' consulting room down the hall stood open. Maura could see him hunched over the mahogany desk. He looked up with a smile when he heard her heels clicking softly on the tiles.

"Maura! It's good to see you. Come on in."

The consulting room was painted in a soft blue. Elegant chintz curtains with floral patterns were artfully draped over the arched windows. The closed, wooden shutters allowed sunlight to fall in golden streaks across the Berber carpet and comfortable blue leather chairs.

"Hello, Dr. Chambers. Well, this has turned out beautifully! I like it." Maura had stopped in the doorway.

"Thank you. We renovated about three months ago. It's been a while since you were last here, Maura."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. The job is eating me up."

There was a pause, then Chambers rose and came out from behind the large table. "Fine. Please, just come in," he said, closing the door behind her. "Sit down."

Dr. Chambers led her to one of the large wing chairs and sat across from her in the other. He leaned forward, arms resting on his knees, hands clasped together. He seemed very casual, almost too casual. Maura didn't know if he was like that with all his patients or if he treated her differently because they had known each other so long and so well. In any case, Greg Chambers had always made her feel like her problems were solvable. "I saw the hearing on the Boogeyman murders on the news last night. Congratulations, Maura."

"Thank you. But we still have a long way to go."

"Is he really the perpetrator?"

Maura crossed her legs nervously. "It looks that way. If Anna Prado's body in his trunk isn't enough evidence, what we found at his house last night probably clears up the last doubts."

"Really? Then I wish you the best of luck." He looked at her inquiringly with blue eyes. "I know it's a very trying case, what with the media frenzy and all." When he said 'With' and 'and all' he raised his voice questioningly, and she knew he wanted to give her a cue.

Maura nodded and looked down at her knees. It had been several months since she had last sat here. After all these years, it had been time to try out whether the therapy had helped, whether the bird had learned to fly, whether she could get along in the world on her own. Could she get over the memories that kept tugging at her? So, with many excuses, she had made fewer and fewer appointments, had been there only rarely, until she had finally let it go altogether in the spring. And now she had to scratch ruefully at his door.

"Are you working the case with someone?" He sounded like a father, concerned that she wasn't eating or sleeping enough.

"No. So far I'm working it on my own unless Small calls on someone else."

"Who's the lead investigator? Jane Rizzoli?"

"Yes. And her partner, Vince Korsak."

"I know Vince. Good detective. I worked with him on a quadruple homicide a few years ago. And I think I met Rizzoli once at a forensics conference in Orlando." Greg Chambers' black hair was mottled gray, a vibrant, glossy gray that accented his blue eyes and made him look better overall. Time had carved lines on his forehead and around his eyes in what was in itself a fairly average face, but even that suited him, and Maura estimated that he was more attractive now, in his late forties, than he had been in his twenties. Then she remembered her own wrinkles, which she had spotted in the mirror yesterday. It was just unfair: age suited men so much better than women. "You really worry me, Maura. I overheard you saying something was wrong last night. What's wrong?"

Maura crossed her legs the other way. Her mouth was dry. "Well. Actually, it's about the Boogeyman case."

"Do you need my advice as an expert?"

That's where the problem lay. Not only had he been her psychiatrist for ten years, Gregory Chambers was also a colleague. As a forensic psychologist, he regularly assisted the district attorney's office and the police in solving serious crimes. Over and again, he had testified for her office. He explained to the jury how this could have happened. The same qualities that made him so easy to talk to as a psychiatrist also made it easier to listen to him as an expert. With his friendly face, authoritative smile, and ample impressive credentials, Gregory Chambers was able to make the incomprehensible understandable to the layperson: grown men who assaulted innocent children because they had pedophilic tendencies; young men who shot their girlfriends with an AK47 because they were psychopaths; mothers who killed their children because they suffered from manic depression; teenagers who shot their classmates in cold blood because they had a borderline personality disorder.

His diagnoses were always right on target. He was highly respected by the police, as he was by his private patient base. In this successful practice, he charged $300 an hour. You had to be rich to afford to be crazy. Maura, fortunately, got a colleague's discount. He had never testified in any of her trials. That's when she watched out so there wouldn't be a conflict of interest in court. But they had attended conferences, tutorials, and seminars together, and Maura had often asked him privately for professional advice. Then he was a colleague as well as a friend, and on such occasions, she simply called him Greg. But today he was Dr. Chambers. "No. I'm not here for the case. If I was, I wouldn't have called you at nine o'clock at night." She smiled wanly.

"That's nice of you, but I don't mind at all. And by the way, others aren't so polite about it. Jack Lester called me at one in the morning." He winked conspiratorially. Jack Lester was also a prosecutor with the Major Crimes Unit. Maura couldn't stand him.

"Jack Lester is a pompous, arrogant jerk. You should have just hung up on him. I would have."

Chambers laughed. "I'll do that next time, and that's coming as sure as Dollars to doughnuts." But then he turned serious again. "If you don't need professional advice, then -" He left the sentence open.

Maura slid around in her chair. The seconds ticked by in her head. When she spoke, her voice was little more than a whisper. "You know why I came to you. Why I'm your ... patient."

Chambers nodded. "The nightmares? Are they back again?"

"No, unfortunately, it's worse this time." She looked around the room frantically, running both hands through her hair.

He looked at her with concern. "What is it then?"

"He's back," Maura whispered, her voice breaking. "But for real this time. In the flesh. It's William Bantling. The Boogeyman! It's him!"

Dr. Chambers shook his head as if he didn't understand what she was saying.

Maura nodded defiantly, and the tears she had been frantically holding back for so long streamed down her face. "Do you understand what I'm telling you? The Boogeyman is the man who raped me. He's the clown!"

Dr. Chambers was surprised. He took a deep breath and then said in a calm voice, "Why do you think that, Maura?" He was a psychiatrist, and it was his job to respond skillfully.

„His voice in court. I recognized his voice the moment he started yelling at Judge Katz." She sobbed, trying desperately to pull herself together.

He reached for the Kleenex on his desk and handed Maura the whole box. "Here. Grab a tissue." Then he leaned back in the wing chair and rubbed his chin. "Are you sure about this, Maura?"

"Yes. Absolutely. When you have a voice in your head for twelve years, you recognize it when you hear it again. Besides, I saw his scar, too."

"The one on his arm?"

"Yes. Right above the wrist, when he pulled on Sarah Rubio's jacket in the courtroom." Now Maura looked directly at him. There were tears and despair in her eyes. "It's him. I know it is. But what am I going to do?"

Dr. Chambers took a moment to think. Maura used the pause to regain her composure. Then he finally spoke, "Well, if it really is him, that's good news, too. You know who he is, where he is. That's some kind of closure, finally. I'm sure the trial in New York will be a tough one, but -"

The prosecutor interrupted him. "There will be no trial in New York."

"Maura, after all, you've been through, for twelve years, you're not willing to testify against him? There's nothing for you to be ashamed of. There's no reason to keep hiding. You've handled enough unwilling witnesses in your professional career, after all, to know -"

Maura shook her head. "Oh, I'd be only too happy to testify. Without a second's hesitation. But there won't be a trial because the statute of limitations ran out, seven years ago. Do you understand now? He can't be convicted for raping me, for almost killing me, for ... ... dismembering me." She had her arms folded in front of her body, her hands around her elbows, and sat bent forward slightly as if to protect her abdomen. "No matter what he did to me, he can't be held accountable for it anymore."

Dr. Chambers was silent. Then he exhaled very slowly and deliberately. "Maura, are you sure about this? Have you talked to the New York authorities?"

"The investigators from back then who were on my case have quit or are dead. The case is now with the cold case unit. There's never been a suspect, never been an arrest."

"Then how do you know there's nothing that can be done?"

"I talked to the extradition office at the Queens District Attorney's Office, and one of the people there filled me in. I should have thought of the statute of limitations sooner, but I ... it never even occurred to me that when I finally found him, I couldn't do anything about him. Absolutely nothing." Tears ran down Maura's face again.

Silence fell again. For the first time in the ten years she had known him, Dr. Chambers was speechless. Finally, he said softly, "We're going to get you through this, Maura. Everything's going to be all right. What do you want to do now?"

"That right there is my problem. I don't know. What do I want? I want to see him stew. I want his head. Not just for my sake, but for the sake of the eleven women he killed. Not to mention the unknown number of other victims I'm sure there are. I'd like to strap him to the hot seat myself. Is that wrong?"

"No," Dr. Chambers said quietly. "It's not wrong. It's a feeling. A justified feeling."

"Of course, if I could, I'd send him to New York. I'd announce to everybody there that he was the scumbag who raped me, and then I'd make sure he was locked up there forever. I would have looked him in the face and said, 'You bastard! You didn't keep me down! Look forward to seeing your cellmates, because their asses are the only thing you're going to see for the next twenty years!'" She looked pleadingly at Dr. Chambers. "But I can't do that now. What I've been waiting for twelve eternities. Even that he has taken from me -"

"But there's still the case here, Maura. He's facing the maximum penalty for the women's murders, isn't he? And certainly, he's not going to walk out of the courthouse as a free man."

"I do, but that's what I'm struggling with. I know I can't and shouldn't represent the prosecution, but if I tell Small about it, there's a conflict of interest for our whole office, and the case has to be turned in! Then some rookie from Winchendon who comes chugging into town on his pick-up truck to try his hand at his first murder case gets it. And I have to watch from the sidelines as he botches the case for some harebrained reason and Bantling gets off!" You can be sure we're actively pursuing every lead, Maura. We hope to have the culprit soon. We appreciate your sustained cooperation.

"A solution will be found. Maybe get Tigler to take the case?"

"Small doesn't get to decide that. It's pure luck, and I'm not willing to take the chance. I just can't. You know how complex serial murders are. Especially when you have ten bodies, but no confession and no prosecution witnesses. And so far, we've only got him on one murder. He hasn't even been charged with the other nine. It's so easy to make a mistake. Way too easy."

"I hear you, Maura, but I worry a lot. I know you can do it. You're probably one of the strongest women I know. But no one, no matter how tough-minded and convinced they are, should have to go through a trial like this against the person who did such violence to them. I think the problem is that you can't let go."

"Maybe I don't want to until someone comes up with a solution that looks promising."

"How about you turn the case over to another member of your DA's office? What about Rose Harris? She's good, very good when it comes to DNA and expert testimony."

"How do you expect me to pass it on without causing a scandal? Especially now that the fun is really starting? Everyone knows how much I've put into this, shit, I've been working on it for a year! I've looked at every single bloated, decomposed body, met every family member, seen every autopsy photo, read every lab report, issued just about every court order, I live in this case. How am I suddenly going to explain to my boss and the media: I quit. Unless I was terminally ill, everyone who knows me knows I would never voluntarily give up the case. And even then, probably not. Of course, all the questions about why and how and what will come, because they're inevitable. The press will dig, dig, dig until they find something, anything. Someone is bound to dig up the rape and with it my bias, which I have kept quiet. And that's where the idiot from Winchendon comes in again: and I have to watch him indict my rapist, my serial killer, and watch him screw everything up and Bantling go free. Only then do I get to watch it on TV, because then I don't have a job anymore because I've been disbarred from the DA's office. Dr. Chambers, tell me what to do, and I'll do it. But only if I get a guarantee that he will be convicted; that he will pay for what he did. And I know no human being can give that to me. But if the case has to be messed up, I want it to be me who's to blame. And nobody else."

"What do you mean, Maura?" She sensed he was being very careful with the phrasing of his question. "I'll ask you again, what do you want to do?"

Maura was silent for a long time. Her words sounded deliberate, determined as if an idea had just occurred to her, which she was now formulating, and the sound of which pleased her. "I must file charges of murder or manslaughter within twenty-one days. Either way, all the witnesses must line up and give their statements, the reports must be collected, the evidence sifted -" She paused, and now her voice became even firmer. "I think it's too late to change the pitcher now. I have to finish the inning myself. At least until the charges are in. After that, I can always bring someone in, maybe Rose Harris. If all goes well, I'll discreetly hand over the reins to her; blame some mysterious illness once I know she can do it on her own."

"And what about the conflict of interest of the whole prosecution?"

"Bantling was so busy in the courtroom trying to save his neck that he didn't even recognize me. It's a better joke considering what he did to me. Yesterday he didn't even glance my way," Maura said quietly. "He's probably raped so many women he's lost track. And God knows I don't look like the defenseless student I was back then." Maura smiled bitterly and tucked her hair behind her ear. "Only I know what he did. And if it ever comes out, I can always say I wasn't sure. I wouldn't have known. He can't be convicted in New York anymore anyway, so I'm not sacrificing anything by saying I couldn't identify him. There's no more case in New York." She sounded convinced now.

"Maura, this is not a game. Quite apart from the obvious ethical questions this raises, do you really think you can emotionally handle going to trial against this man? To listen over and over again to what he has done to these women? And knowing what he did to you in the process? Reliving it every day, every time you unearth one more sordid detail, one more photograph?" Dr. Chambers shook his head.

"I know what he did to those women. I've seen it enough times. And, yes, it's going to be hard, and I don't know how I'm going to do it, but at least I know it's going to be done well. And I know where he is, every single minute of the day."

"And what about your admissions? You're withholding a conflict of interest from the court."

"Only I know there is. And no one can prove that I know it. I'd have to admit that I knew it in the first place. But I can live very well with denying it." Maura hesitated for a moment: why hadn't she thought of that before? "Am I putting you in an awkward position, Dr. Chambers?"

As a doctor, he was obligated to report to the police if a patient threatened to commit a crime. But Maura's concealment was merely a violation of the ethical canons a lawyer had to adhere to, and thus subject to doctor-patient confidentiality like everything else discussed in the session. A crime it was not. "No, Maura. It's not like what you're trying to do is criminal. Everything we discuss in this room is confidential, of course. But personally, I'm not sure I agree with your plan, either from a therapeutic or a colleague's point of view."

Maura pondered his words. "I need to get back to feeling like I'm in control of my life. Isn't that what you used to tell me, Dr. Chambers?"

"Yes, I've said that."

"And now the time has come. Now I'm in the driver's seat. Not some tired detectives from New York City, nor some idiot from Winchendon. Nor the clown. Nor the Boogeyman." She waited a moment, then picked up her purse and stood up. The tears had dried, and now anger had replaced the despair in her voice. "I. I have everything in my hands. I have the power. And I won't let that bastard take it from me again." Then she turned, waved goodbye to Estelle, left the tranquility of the fancy blue and yellow office behind her, and stepped out into the street.