Maura took a look in her pocket mirror and gave herself a few pep talks, then got up and headed over to the courthouse for a case that was scheduled for hearing next Friday. She needed to get a handle on her emotions if she was going to move on. Dr. Chambers was right, she would probably see and hear things every day that triggered painful memories of June 30th, twelve years ago. It had already begun, and each time it was like a punch in the pit of her stomach. The worst nightmares were back. What would happen if she had another nervous breakdown? Rubber room or more psychotherapy?

She had to pull herself together. Keep her feelings, her sensations under control. She had to brace herself, couldn't lose track. Don't let him break you again. Don't let him win!

After court, Maura drove to the BPD to Neilson's office to take another look at Anna Prado's body. She wanted to see the puncture marks and where the IV had been. Anna Prado would be buried on Monday, and the family was going to hold the wake on Saturday and Sunday, so now was the last opportunity before the body was picked up by the undertakers.

Korsak was right. Neilson was enjoying his job way too much. He bounced and jerked around the autopsy room, excitedly showing Maura the puncture marks on the body's buttocks and the lacerated veins on her ankle and left arm, then the crook of her arm where the IV had been located from which the Mivacurium chloride had dripped into her bloodstream and paralyzed Anna Prado's muscles before she died.

In photographs taken during autopsies of the other nine victims, Neilson had located suspicious areas in at least four of the bodies that also suggested punctures. Results of tests for Haloperidol so far have been positive in six of the victims. Those for Mivacurium chloride took a few more days.

The bereaved loved ones took comfort in the idea that the soul would find "peace" in the afterlife. Maybe that was a coping strategy people used to escape the cold reality of death; Maura had strong doubts about that, anyway. She simply couldn't imagine that people found peace when they died. And certainly not when they had died too soon and violently, cruelly deprived of their lives, without any warning. These souls found no peace. They would always wonder why they had to leave, while the thief who had stolen their lives continued to walk the earth, kissing his mother and embracing his family. Today Anna Prado had her appointment at the funeral home to be made up for the final party. But still, she lay naked, patched up with black thread, on the cold metal table with dried blood in her hair and eyelashes tore out. The color of life was gone from her face. Maura couldn't stop thinking how terribly sad she looked. Sad and horrified. She certainly wouldn't find peace.

Maura skipped lunch, instead of getting an iced coffee at Dunkin' Donuts. Then she barricaded herself in the office and opened the folder with the six newspaper articles she had printed out last night. She needed to know exactly what had happened in each case. She couldn't rely on the press alone. She approached it in chronological order, reached for the phone, and called the Chicago Police Department.

"Chicago P.D., Archives, Rhonda Michaels speaking."

"Hello, Ms. Michaels. I'm an employee of the Massachusetts District Attorney's Office and I needed your help. It's about information regarding a rape that occurred years ago and was handled by your department. Unfortunately, I have limited information -"

"File number?" Ms. Michaels interrupted her gruffly, wearily. She was probably searching hundreds of documents and files out of cabinets every day, and clearly, she had no desire to engage in conversation.

"I'm afraid I don't know. Regrettably, the only information I have comes from a newspaper report from eleven years ago."

"Do you have the name of the suspect?"

"No. It appears from the article that there was no suspect. That's the problem. I really need to know more about this because it might be related to a case I'm working on."

"Hmm. No name of a suspect? Do you have the victim's name? I might be able to find something with that."

"No. It wasn't in the paper."

"I don't think I can help you then." There was a brief silence.

"Do you know the date, maybe? The address? The name of the investigator? Or anything else?"

"Yes, I have a date and an address," Maura said, almost relieved, before passing the data through to Chicago. "No apartment number. All it says is that the Chicago Police Department is conducting the investigation."

"Good, maybe that's enough. Hold on. I'll have to enter that and then see what comes up. It may take a while." Exactly twelve minutes later, she was back on the phone. Suddenly she sounded nicer. "I've got it. Three pages. The victim's name was Wilma Barrett, twenty-nine. Assault and rape in a first-floor apartment, apartment 1A, it says. Is that the thing you're looking for?"

"Yeah, that's got to be it. Can you tell me what happened next? Was the crime ever solved?"

"Wait, let me check. No. It wasn't. No arrest. The investigating detective's name was Brena, Dean Brena. Maybe he's still around. But we have thousands of officers in our department. I don't know all of them, and it's been a while. Would you like me to refer you to the Sex Crimes Unit?"

"Not yet, thanks. I'll have to look at the police report first to see if the case is even related to mine here. Can you email it to me?"

"No problem. It'll probably take a few minutes. Will you tell me your email address?"

Maura gave it to her, and then she opened her email account.

She was glad that they had already reached the age of e-mail and that she didn't have to rely on anything necessarily like a fax. The secretary's office, where the machine was located next to Cara's desk, consisted of ten workstations, each shielded from the other by a partition. It was located right in the middle of the Major Crimes Unit. From there, short hallways led to the window offices where the prosecutors worked, and a long hallway led to the guarded security lock and elevators.

There, Maura always felt like a fat teenager showing up uninvited in jeans and anorak at a pool party. She knew she had no business being here. Every time she received a fax, the conversations and laughter that could always be heard in the hallway died away after she was spotted at the fax machine. Suspicious silence then always descended over the open-plan office.

In the DA's office, just as in other companies and businesses, Maura assumed, there was a tacit social separation between employees. Administrative colleagues mingled with administrative colleagues, lawyers mingled with lawyers, secretaries mingled with assistants.

And Maura had three factors against her at once. As deputy attorney general, she was a member of the board and therefore of the administration, and as a prosecutor, of course, she was a lawyer. On top of that, she was Cara's boss, and even if Cara drove every normal person to drunkenness, she was still part of the secretariat, and her colleagues placed themselves protectively in front of her. So when Maura entered the writing pool, she was in enemy territory, and conversations fell silent.

Now Maura sat at her desk, and all she had to do was keep updating her email account without fear of dropping dead because of the looks on the secretaries' faces.

At 7 p.m., she had talked to the archives of all six police departments and received an email from each of them.

It was as if she was reading the account of her own rape in six variations. The method of burglary was always the same: always first floor apartments, always in the middle of the night when the woman was already asleep. The crime sequence was also the same: The victims were bound and gagged and then abused by the muscular stranger, who wore a latex mask, a clown face with protruding red nylon hair, and a huge red grin, or an alien face with black eyes and glaring mouth. His weapon was always a serrated knife with which he threatened and abused the unfortunate. The instruments of torture differed from case to case, but each time he left scars. The girls spoke of beer bottles with which they were raped, metal wires, hairbrushes. Each woman had been physically maimed; had suffered severe vaginal and uterine injuries. Breasts had been disfigured with the serrated blade, but never had the perpetrator left even a trace of himself. No semen, no hair, no fiber, no fingerprints, not the slightest biological evidence. He left the crime scene completely clean.

But it wasn't only these concrete parallels between the crimes that convinced Maura that this was Bantling, but also the intimate knowledge of each woman's life that the rapist had at his disposal.

Private details that he used like a weapon, which in turn were a form of torture. Favorite restaurants, perfumes, soap brands. Dress size and designer, work hours, and names of friends. From the UCLA student, he knew every grade, from the Hollywood waitress the exact total of credit card bills for the last three months. Birthdays, anniversaries, nicknames. It was Bantling, there was no doubt about it. Not anymore. None of the cases had ever been solved, they hadn't even been connected. There had been no arrests, no leads, no suspects. Until now.

But did that matter now? She thought back to the conversation with Bob Schurr of the Queens County District Attorney's Office two days ago. Even if charges could be pressed, which was highly unlikely given the lack of biological evidence, and if the victims agreed to testify, would the statute of limitations allow it? The Chicago rape had been eleven years ago. Maura was not surprised to find out through Lexus/Nexus that Illinois statutes had a ten-year time limit. As with herself, there was no longer a case here that could go to trial, no matter how you did it.

But the last rape in California had occurred on March 23, which was only a good six years ago. Some states had changed statutes in recent years, and the statute of limitations had been extended for certain sex offenses. Even though California was definitely one of the most liberal states, maybe there was still a chance. She pulled up the California government website, where the California Code was viewable and searched for the statutes. When she found the answer, she felt like crying.

Six years from the date of the crime. She was five months late.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Jane spent the weekend interviewing William Bantling's current and former bosses, co-workers, neighbors, and girlfriends. She tried to figure out who Bantling was and why no one had noticed that he ticked differently than his peers, that he was a ferocious beast. A wolf who lived among sheep worked, played, and occasionally made one disappear. And no one, not even the shepherd, had ever noticed the paws, the big ears, or the fangs.

Although most of the witnesses had already been questioned within the first forty-eight hours after the body was found, Jane followed up with another questioning after a few days. She liked to give witnesses some time after their initial testimony to let things settle. Usually, something came later that they hadn't thought of at first, but which in retrospect seemed suspicious, or at least somehow strange.

I remembered, Detective Rizzoli, that my nice neighbor Bill used to drag a rolled-up rug back and forth between the house and his car at 3 a.m. Might that mean something?

Then in a few weeks, Jane would pay them another visit. If you stirred up the silt often enough, you sometimes found gold, she had experienced.

Bantling was born on August 6th in Cambridge, England, his mother Alice a housewife, his father Frank a carpenter. William Rupert had moved to New York when he was twenty-three and had graduated with twenty-eight from the Fashion Institute of Technology with a degree in interior design. He had first worked as an assistant in several small firms in the New York area before moving to Chicago at thirty, where he took a job as a furniture designer for a tiny firm. Eight months later the store was out of business, but that same December he found a job as sales manager at Indo Expressions, a furniture store in a suburb of L. A. He stayed in California for five years until he moved to Boston at thirty-five and started working at Tommy Tan.

Current neighbors all said essentially the same thing: He seemed quite nice, but they hardly knew him. He was described by his colleagues as a hardworking, hard-nosed businessman. Charming to customers, deadly as a scorpion in negotiations behind closed doors. He didn't have many friends, any at all to be exact, just a few acquaintances who all testified to not really being close friends with him. But this phenomenon was not new to Jane. As soon as someone learned that their best friend was a serial killer, they were usually reluctant to admit to having anything to do with the guy, much less to being thick friends with him. She guessed it was kind of a social stigma. But if one believed what neighbors, colleagues, and business associates invariably described, Bantling was indeed a loner.

The one exception was Tommy Tan, Bantling's boss for six years. Jane had spoken to Tan twice. Shocked was the wrong word for how Tan took the news that his pick of the bunch was a suspect in a series of murders. Utterly stunned was more like it. During questioning, Tan broke down crying, fortunately not in Jane's arms but in Hector's, one of his assistants, and the next time on the shoulder of Juan, the other assistant. Except for thinking that Bantling was arrogant, a trait Tan found "strong and exciting," he had only praise for "Bill." He had been his best shopper and had found "magical hidden jewels" all over the world. For which, of course, they paid a tip in the Third World to sell them for thousands of dollars in the sophisticated capitalist world. Tan had become a rich man. No wonder he was so attached to Bantling.

Jane had asked directly, but Tan denied any sexual relationship between him and Bantling. He swore that Bantling was straight. He went on to claim that Bill always had a girl on his arm when he roamed the clubs of Boston at night. Always strikingly pretty girls. And apparently, he preferred blondes. At this, Tan burst into tears again, throwing himself at Juan's pink Versace shirt, and Jane declared the questioning over.

There was no Mrs. Bantlings, no future ones, no former ones, and apparently no little Bantlings running around anywhere. He had had girlfriends, quite a few in fact, and the task force was still researching their addresses. But no relationship had lasted more than a date or two with him, and for good reason. Of the six or seven who had been questioned so far, they had learned quite a bit. Bantling was definitely a special case as far as his sexual preferences were concerned. Whips, chains, bondage, sadomasochistic toys, digital cams. Most of the girls had been quickly put off, and that despite the fact that they were certainly no innocents themselves and, Jane suspected, used to all sorts of idiosyncrasies in bed. But they all agreed about Bill Bantling: he was like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. A real gentleman in an expensive restaurant. A real asshole in bed. Three of the women were also on the DVD s Eddie Bowman and Chris Masterson found in Bantling's bedroom. When one of them had complained about Bantling's sexual preferences, he'd got mad and kicked her out without driving her home or even calling her a cab. He had even thrown one of them out the door stark naked and crying, in the middle of the manicured lawn in the front yard. She had had to ring the neighbor's doorbell, who gave her something to wear and let her use the phone.

Now that you mention it, Detective Rizzoli. Maybe my neighbor Bill was a little strange after all.

Bantling had no family in the United States; his parents had died in a traffic accident near London a few years ago. Task force members contacted friends and relatives in England, but no one seemed to remember the quiet, sullen boy. They found no school friends or other buddies. Just no one.

On Saturday night, Jane and Korsak roamed the clubs where the girls from the "Wall" had last been seen: Crobar, Liquid, Roomy, Bar Room, Level, Amnesia, Clevelander. They once again questioned all the bartenders and service staff, this time they had color photos with them. Bantling, they already knew, was well-known in the club scene. And several waitresses recognized him as a regular. They said he was always dead smart and had a different pretty young blonde with him every time. But no, unfortunately, they couldn't connect him to any of the victims, and none knew for sure if he had been at the club on the night in question.

Bantling fit the description that Elizabeth Ambrose, the BPD profiler, had put together for the Boogeyman while they were still looking for the killer: white male, twenty-five to fifty-five years old, loner, probably average to good looking, intelligent, successful professionally, stressful job. Of course, this profile also applied to a lot of other men Jane knew. But the pieces were starting to fit together, and the case was becoming more and more conclusive as they found out more. There was a neat stack of circumstantial evidence that read like a good book. His friends described Bantling as a sexual deviant, an arrogant, aggressive narcissist who couldn't handle rejection. He had sadistic violent tendencies and preferred blond women.

He regularly visited the clubs from which the victims disappeared. The Haldol from his bath could be detected in the blood of at least six of the victims. As a hobby, taxidermist he stuffed dead animals and worked with slick knives and scalpels, including the possible murder weapon. And human blood had been found in his shed, most likely that of Anna Prado, and Anna Prado's mutilated body had been in his trunk.

What had led the handsome, wealthy, successful man to such aberrations could only be guessed at best. But Jane didn't need to know that to bring the case to trial. The reasons didn't matter as long as the defense didn't try to plead insanity. Because the murders were so horrific, the jury might get the idea that no human being who wasn't completely sane was capable of such a thing. And if the defendant's medical history then came up, the prosecution would have a real problem. Jane's task, then, was not only to produce evidence that Bantling had committed the murders but also to gather facts that suggested that Bantling knew exactly what he was doing at all times. That he understood the consequences of his actions and could distinguish between right and wrong. That he had tortured and killed the eleven women not because he was insane, but because he was evil.

Now, at 10 p.m. on Sunday night, Jane sat back in her chair in the dark conference room looking at the photos on the "wall." She was trying to find all the facts she needed to finish the book. Since Tuesday, nearly seventy witnesses had been questioned, three searches had been made, 174 boxes of evidence had been seized, and hundreds of working hours had gone into the investigation.

It was necessary to know where to look.

Again Jane looked at the aerial photographs, the blue stickers marking where the girls had been found. Why had Bantling picked these places? What did they mean?

Jane rubbed her temples and glanced at her cell phone. She would have liked to call Maura, but she didn't. She hadn't heard from the lawyer since Wednesday night. Maura hadn't responded to her messages, and since Jane didn't want to be intrusive, she had stopped leaving any. Clearly, Maura was going through something at the moment that she didn't want the detective to be a part of. And obviously, Jane had been completely on the wrong track as far as they were both concerned. Jane was adult enough to handle it. But she was afraid that this crisis would affect the case, and that, she was sure, neither of them wanted that. Jane had to somehow manage to bring their relationship back to an amicable, professional level.

Jane suspected that Maura Isles was hiding something from her; that evening at her house, Jane had sensed it quite clearly. Holding the lawyer in her arms, Jane knew that something was going terribly wrong in her life, and the Italian had wanted to help her. Maura had been so vulnerable, so scared, completely defenseless, and the detective was sure she didn't want to show that side to anyone. And for that reason, Jane suspected, Maura now found it difficult to face her again.

What was Maura so afraid of, in court, in her home? Was it Bantling? Did this case have a special, a different meaning for the lawyer for some reason?

Jane had seen Maura before in difficult, complex, cruel cases. The blonde had always been controlled, had always been in control. But not this time, she was more than scared and nervous.

What was so special about this case for her?

And why was Maura so important to her?