Danielle Steel - Southern Lights - A Novel

“No, and you don’t try. When was the last time you had a date?”

“In the stone age. I think people were carrying clubs and wearing fur.” Alexa looked ruefully at her mother. Muriel always brought it up.

“That’s not funny. You need to get out more, and at least have dinner with friends.” Alexa worked, went home to her daughter, and that was it. Her mother worried about her.

“I’m not going to have time to go out for a while now. I have to prepare this case.”

“You always have some excuse,” Muriel chided her. “I hate your having cases like this. Why don’t you get a decent job?” her mother teased. “Like tax law or estate planning, or animal rights or something. I don’t love the idea of you prosecuting serial killers.”

“I’ll be fine,” Alexa said. She didn’t need to ask who her mother’s date was. She knew. She and Judge Schwartzman had been dating for years, since Alexa was in college. Her mother hadn’t gone out much before that. She was too busy with her own work, and raising her daughter. Now she and Stanley Schwartzman went to dinner and movies, and sneaked away for the occasional weekend. Alexa knew that he usually spent the night on Saturdays. Neither of them wanted to get married, and the arrangement had worked for years. He was a lovely man, five years older than her mother and approaching retirement, but he was lively and in good shape. He had two daughters and a son older than Alexa, and sometimes they all got together over the holidays.

Her mother put her coat on, and they walked out of the courthouse together. It was just starting to snow, and they shared a cab uptown. Alexa dropped her mother off and went farther uptown to her apartment. She was looking forward to seeing Savannah at the end of a long day and was disappointed when she wasn’t home. For a minute, a chill ran up her spine, thinking of men like Luke Quentin loose in the world, and Savannah was still so innocent at her age. It was a horrifying thought. But she turned the lights on and chased it from her mind. She looked around the room then and realized that in the fall, that was how it was going to be, a dark, empty house when she got home. She wasn’t looking forward to it, to say the least. And then, as Alexa stood there thinking about it glumly, Savannah called and said she’d be home soon. She didn’t want her mother to worry, and she said she was bringing friends. It reminded Alexa that things were still okay. Luke Quentin was in jail where he belonged. And Savannah was still part of her life every day. Alexa heaved a small sigh of relief, sat down on the couch, and turned on the TV. And there it was, the story of Luke Quentin on the evening news. And a still shot of Alexa leaving the courtroom after the arraignment. She hadn’t even seen the photographer who took it. The report said she was a senior assistant DA with a history of convictions in major cases. All Alexa could think of as she looked at the shot on TV was that her hair looked a mess. It was no wonder she hadn’t had a date in over a year, she thought, and laughed out loud as she switched channels and saw the same photograph again. The media circus had begun.

Chapter 3

As Alexa sat alone in a small dark room watching through a wall that was a two-way mirror, Luke Quentin was led into a larger room on the other side. Jack Jones and Charlie McAvoy were waiting for him, sitting at a long table. The other arresting officer, Bill Neeley, was there too, and two other cops Alexa had seen but didn’t know by name. The full investigation team was present, as well as some people from the task force who would work with them later, but for now these were the primary cops involved. It was Monday morning, and everyone looked fresh after the weekend.

As he had been at the arraignment, Quentin was led in, in shackles and handcuffs, and he looked calm and in control. The deputy sheriff with him took off the cuffs as soon as he sat down, and Luke looked at the men on the other side of the table.

“Anyone got a smoke?” he asked with a lazy smile. It was no longer allowed in the investigation rooms, but Jack figured it might be a helpful tool to put Quentin at ease. He nodded and slid him a pack of cigarettes and a book of matches. Quentin flicked a match with his thumbnail and lit up. Alexa could hear clearly everything that was said, and she sat in the darkness, watchful and tense. She wanted the interrogation to go well. Quentin took a long drag of the cigarette, exhaled a billow of lazy smoke, and then turned to precisely the spot where Alexa sat, as though he sensed her, and could feel her, and knew without question she was there. Through the darkened one-way glass, his ice-colored eyes met hers, and he smiled a small wicked smile, meant just for her. He knew almost certainly that she was there. The word that came to mind for Alexa was “insolent.” She wasn’t sure if he meant the look to be a caress or a slap, but it felt like both to her. She straightened in her seat, and without thinking, she reached for her own cigarettes. There was no one there to see it. She smoked occasionally and watched Quentin intently as she did.

“Tell us where you’ve been for the last two years,” Jack asked him without expression. “What cities, what states.” They knew exactly where he had been for the last six months, and Jack wanted to see if the suspect would tell them the truth. He did. He rattled off a list of towns and cities, in all the states they knew. “What have you been doing there?”

“Working. Visiting guys I knew in the joint. I’m not on parole. I can do what I want,” he said cockily. Jack nodded assent. They knew he had taken jobs as a laborer, unloading freight, and in one of the farm states, he had picked crops for a few weeks. His size was in his favor and always got him a job. It wasn’t in the favor of his victims and had cost them their lives. They knew that as well. Quentin looked arrogant, but there was no threat of violence in his demeanor, and he had had no history of it in prison or before that they knew of. Luke was said to be a peace-loving man, but would meet the challenge if attacked. He had been stabbed once, when trying to break up a fight between two rival gangs, but he had had no known gang associations and kept to himself.

Quentin was known to be a jogger in prison. He ran track, and jogged daily in the yard. And he had continued running once he got out. They had watched him in parks several times, and it was often where the victims were found, but they still couldn’t tie him to them. There were no witnesses to the crimes. The fact that he had run in the same park didn’t mean that they had died at his hands. There hadn’t been a single drop of sperm in any of the women, which meant that he had used a condom or had a disability of some kind, which maybe led him to rape. He was brilliant at what he did, if it was him.

Quentin was arrogant, but not a braggart. He waited for their questions and offered nothing else. He met their eyes, and from time to time glanced at the window where Alexa watched with a serious expression. Without realizing it, she had smoked half a dozen cigarettes by then.

“You know I didn’t do it,” Quentin said after a while, looking straight at Jack and laughing at him. His eyes had drifted past Charlie, dismissing him with a glance. “You guys just need someone to pin it on, to make you look good. You’re playing to the press.”

Jack decided to dispense with the amenities, as he met Quentin’s eyes. There was nothing there, neither guilt nor fear, nor even concern. The only thing he saw there was contempt. Luke was laughing at them, and thought they were fools. He hadn’t even broken a sweat, which suspects often did. The lights were hot. All the cops in the room were perspiring profusely, while Quentin looked cool. But they were wearing street clothes and bulletproof vests, he was in a thin jumpsuit, and totally at ease.