It didn't take Nick three seconds to come up with the name of the killer: Steven Ferris.

"Yeah," Nick said. "He was one of mine."

"Well, somebody just saved the taxpayers some money. We'll be toasting the shooter over at Brownie's tonight."

"Have one for me, Sarge," Nick said. "And thanks."

Nick hung up the phone, stuck a pad into his back pocket and started for the elevators, synapses clicking, trying to set up the scene in his head. One of the most notorious pedophiles and child murderers in area history had been assassinated on the jailhouse steps. How do you play that? It was bound to go out on the front page. He remembered the reaction to his stories three years ago, the fear in the neighborhoods. Schoolgirls swept off the street and killed on their way home. People would remember. Nick was going to have to put Robert Walker aside, shift him into that corner in his head where he had been festering for all these months. Nick had just begun to believe that he could control him, keep him back in that dark spot. But now Walker was out walking the streets and the memory was loose.

He stopped at the assistant city editor's desk on the way out.

"I'm going over to the scene. It's a shooting, but my source says that no guards or cops were hurt," Nick said. "It might have been a prisoner. I'll call you guys when I find out something definite."

"No cop-shooting?" the editor said, letting a tinge of disappointment slip into the question.

"No."

"No jailbreak?" The guy was hoping at least for plan B.

"No."

"Trigger-happy officer?"

Nick was walking away.

"I'll call you guys when I find out something factual." He thought he was being nice. OK. Maybe he did emphasize the word factual.

He went directly to the editorial research room around the corner and got the attention of Lori Simons, who was experienced enough not to flinch when reporters called her office the morgue or the library instead of the research center.