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“No, I didn’t,” he said quietly.
“It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.” He wondered if she regretted it too, but he didn’t ask her.
“They both suffered for my stupidity and weakness,” he said honestly. “There’s nothing right about it.” And Luisa was the wi
“Maybe it will do you good to have her here now.” And then she added with a wicked grin, “If Luisa doesn’t make life too miserable for you. She’s not happy to have the girl here.” Tom laughed at what she said.
“No, she isn’t. And she’s making life miserable for Sava
“She looks as though she can handle it. How is she with Daisy?” She was curious about her. Seeing her had whetted her appetite for more information.
“Very sweet. Daisy loves her.” His mother nodded.
“Bring her to see me again. She ought to learn more about her own history. There’s more to her life than those two women lawyers in New York. She should know about our family too.” It was a huge sign of acceptance that she wanted to share that with Sava
“I liked her too. Maybe she can tell me all about the United Daughters of the Confederacy next time, and the generals in her family.”
“That’s just what she wants to do,” he said, as he gave Sava
He moved back into his bedroom that night, with Luisa. She was still furious with him, but it was his bedroom too, and his house. He had no intention of sleeping on the couch in his study forever, because his daughter had come to visit. He took Daisy and Sava
When he got into bed when they returned, Luisa turned her back on him, but she hadn’t moved into one of the guest bedrooms, which he had thought she might do. She wasn’t speaking to him, but he had reclaimed his territory, and his life. He felt like a man again, for the first time in ten years. Luisa no longer had him on the run, and she no longer owned him. He wanted to let out a shout of victory, but instead he just turned over and went to sleep.
Chapter 11
The week after Sava
Pe
And throughout, his public defender was insisting they were wrong, in the face of evidence, victims, DNA matches, and three psych reports now that confirmed he was a sociopath. Alexa almost felt sorry for her, she was completely under his spell, and could have been yet another victim if they met when he was outside. He was a textbook sociopath, and every time he saw Alexa, which wasn’t often, and too frequently for her, he undressed her with his eyes, just to let her know he could, and to let her know that she had no power and he did. He was a terrifying man, and smooth as silk. This was a case Alexa wanted to win, more than any case she’d had before.
They were interrogating him again that afternoon, about the latest Pe
They asked him about the victim, about whom he claimed to know nothing, and showed him a photograph of her. She had apparently been approached on a dark street near her apartment, coming home late from the library of the medical school. Like the others, she had been raped and “snuffed” out, strangled during sex. Her body had been found in a shallow grave in a park. She hadn’t been found for four months, and the body had deteriorated badly by then. And Luke had been in town when it happened. Luke shrugged when he looked at the picture of the girl when she was alive, and tossed it back on the desk. His eyes hooked Alexa’s, and he paused for a long moment when he looked at her. She could have been wrong, but she had the feeling this time that he was silently saying “Watch out, that could be you…or your kid.” Her eyes didn’t waver, nor did his. This was becoming a personal vendetta between them now. She was not going to be bested by him, or fooled.