"Better make sure it's all there." She looked up to find Detective Pakula.

"Thanks for being here," she told him. He nodded, and she knew Pakula well enough to leave it at that, not to make a big deal of it.

"I found a witness who might be willing to testify against Richey."

"Might?"

"He needs some convincing. Doesn't wanna open his mouth if there's a chance he'll walk."

"He won't be walking," Grace said, finally shoving the last of the money into the bag. She knew where Pakula was going with this, and she didn't want to hear it.

"You know that and I know that. And that's what I'm trying to tell him." Pakula looked around, making sure no one was within earshot. "Our credibility's not riding too high right now with that asshole Barnett on every fucking talk show claiming the OPD framed him."

"Let him talk. Sooner or later he's going to screw up, and when he does I'll be there to nail his ass. Only next time it'll be for good."

"You and me both."

Grace knew the Barnett appeal had been eating at Pakula as much as it had been at her. In the last several months she had gone over and over the case against Barnett, hoping there was something, anything they might use. Five years ago, she had put her heart and soul into prosecuting Barnett, convinced that it was, indeed, Jared Barnett who had coerced seventeen-year-old Rebecca Moore into his pickup that cold afternoon in the dead of winter, probably promising her a warm ride home from school. But instead he drove her to a remote place where he raped and stabbed her repeatedly before shooting her through the jaw, shattering her teeth.

There were others. Four women, killed in the same manner, all within two years. Grace and Pakula were still convinced that Jared Barnett was the killer in each case. But other than circumstantial evidence, Rebecca's case was the only one they could actually connect to Barnett.