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Luisa forbade Tom to bring Sava
“And the backbone of a worm,” Alexa would say to her mother when Sava
“Neither did you,” her mother reminded her practically. Alexa’s father had died of a heart attack on the te
Alexa had made a vow when she left Charleston. No one was going to break her heart again. No one could find it. She had locked it away in a storage vault, except for her daughter. No man was ever going to get near her again and hurt her. There was a wall around Alexa a mile high, and the only one who had the key to the door was Sava
Alexa carefully pored over the files that Jack had on Luke Quentin, his rap sheet, and the list of victims they were trying to match him up with sent by other states. They had been watching him for months, and a cop in Ohio had tied him to one of the killings, not conclusively or enough to book him, but enough to cause concern. There was no evidence to prove it, but he had been in the right place at the right time, as he had on several occasions since. The murder in Ohio was the first one that had made them think Quentin was their man. But they didn’t have enough for an arrest. They had brought him in for questioning, and again on another case in Pe
Alexa looked over the files that had come in from other states since the arrest the night before. They were trying to cross-check Quentin with a dozen victims. The photographs of the girls who had been killed were heartbreaking, and looked unca
Luke Quentin had a clear affinity for a certain type, if it was him. And if he wasn’t, the killer liked a certain kind of woman, young, blond, beautiful, usually tall and lanky. Several of them had been models or beauty queens, the pride of their community, young girls on their way to happy lives and success, until they met him. He wasn’t picking up sleazy women in bars, or killing hookers. He was on a rampage, seeking out the All-American Girl Next Door, which had left a trail of heartbroken, shocked, outraged parents across several states. Jack and Charlie and the rest of the investigation team and task force were all convinced he was the killer they were looking for. Now they needed to prove it, and the dried blood and hair in the soles of his boots and in his carpet was a first step. It had been their first lucky break, but that was all it took. One misstep on the killer’s part, one infinitesimal forgotten detail, and sometimes the whole house of cards came down and got them their man.
It was hard to believe that one man could kill so many women, but it happened. There were sick people in the world. It was Jack’s job to find them, and Alexa’s to put them away. And she knew as she looked at the photographs that she was going to put Luke Quentin away, if he was the killer. If so, Alexa was going to be relentless and stop at nothing to convict him.
It would be small consolation to the families who had lost their daughters. She knew that in many cases they were astonishingly forgiving, and even spoke with the killers and said they forgave them. Alexa never understood it, although she had seen it often. She knew that if anything had happened to Sava