SIX WEEKS LATER

The iron door swung behind them with a dull clank, hitting the automatic locks. Claire had been in this prison visitation room numerous times. She and Ben Stone had stared down notorious murderers across the narrow table. It was now Jack's turn to be at her side, his movements practiced as he rested his arms on the table. He had something Ben Stone lacked, a presence that more clearly depicted his thoughts. And yet he could bluff like no one she had ever met, his face becoming as blank and impartial as a statue of stone. His voice, one that could be so flirtatious, so command in the courtroom, so remarkable when it was lowered to a softened whisper, would turn to ice and send a shiver up her spine.

The man across from them was haggard in appearance, so pale that he might not have seen the sunlight in months, for he lived and worked by nightly hours. It was his shroud, his purpose for living, when he tormented his victims. He waited for twilight and took them in darkness, keeping them throughout the following day so that he might torment them. His eyes were green, a shade so pale that it seemed transparent in the weak sunlight shining through the bar-crossed window. He belonged in a cave rather than a simple room. There was something animalistic in those dreadful eyes, something so primal that it disarmed her.

He looked at her as she sat down, and the faintest hint of a smile touched his lips. His attorney, a bulk of a man dressed in a pressed gray suit, sat down beside him. "You don't have a hope in hell of a conviction, McCoy," he said. Claire wanted to look at him but couldn't. She could not remove her eyes from the perpetrator. He continued to stare at her, dauntingly, as if attempting to envision what she might look like laying on the cement floor.

"We have a mountain of evidence against your client. We have his victim's necklace in his apartment, the lock of hair from the other murder case. He never attempted to conceal his crimes. With all due respect, it's as if he wanted to get caught!" Jack turned to the man steadily appraising his assistant, repulsion surfacing in the depths of complacency as he viewed the man that had lured three girls to their brutal deaths. "I'm offering twenty-five to life," he said. "But I won't be heartbroken if you turn it down. What I really want is to strap him to a gurney and put a needle through his arm."

"If you are so confident of your evidence, why are you here?"

Claire returned his gaze coldly, refusing to let him see how shaken she was. The brilliant green eyes turned to her companion, with a look so penetrating that it even took Jack aback. A smile touched his lips. "Because," he said, "he wants to know where the other one is. The blonde. She was someone important, wasn't she? Someone your boss cares about. One of those girls from the upper West Side. Her daddy owns a big corporation. That's what they want, isn't it? They want to know what I did with her."

The sunlight filtering through the room could not lessen its intensity. Jack never flinched, but noted where the man's eyes strayed. Claire felt him perceptively tense at her side. He had suggested she not come with him, but she had refused. She had to see the man that haunted her nightmares, to look into his eyes and reassure herself that the system would work. It had to work. She was against the death penalty on principle, but as she stared across the small table in that cold room, at a man whose darkness was so all-consuming that it made her feel physically ill, she began to question her resolve.

"You want to know what she was doing in my part of town," he continued, his voice tantalizing, as though he were tempting a school child with a prize. "What would a pretty girl like that be doing in the lower end?"

"Harmon, I suggest you remain silent," his attorney said.

"Why? They know what I did. This is what they want, for me to tease them with the truth, like dogs after a scrap of meat." He smirked and looked from Jack to Claire once more, his gaze hardening. "What do you think of it?" he asked. "Does it scare you? It fascinates you, I can see. You want to know why I did it. How much do you want to know, Miss Kincaid? Does thinking about it, wondering what I did to them, excite you?"

Pushing his chair back from the table, Jack rose to his feet. This was Adam's idea, but five minutes was enough to persuade him it was not worth the reward. Harmon deserved to die, not spend the rest of his life in prison gloating over what he had done. "This meeting is over," he said. "You can tell your client he's lost his chance. I'll see him in court."

Claire gathered up her things and followed. She maintained utter calm despite the quickening of her heart, for she could feel him watching her as they approached the gate. They both turned as a voice called after them. "I won't mind seeing you in court, Miss Kincaid." He paused, ignoring the warning hand of his lawyer on his arm. "I like blondes," he confessed. "But I like brunettes more."

His laughter echoed down the passage after them. Jack said nothing as he signed out, tossing his visitor's clip on the presiding officer's desk. It was clear from his movements that he was furious. Claire remained silent as well. She could not erase the crime scene photos from her mind. The blood on the doorknob, where the girls had fought so hard to get free that they had torn up their fingers; the eerie little window overhead, letting in faint streams of light; the provocative posture of the dead body.

Harmon deserved whatever he got.