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 Savannah, she would never forgive the person who did it. She couldn’t. The very thought of it made her tremble.

Jack went to the arraignment early with her at three-thirty. She had read all the pertinent files by then, and knew Quentin’s history. She watched as they brought him into the courtroom in shackles and an orange jumpsuit. He was wearing jail-issue light canvas shoes, since his own boots had been taken as evidence for forensic, to analyze what was on them.

Alexa watched him move across the courtroom. He was a big man, powerful, but graceful. He moved with an arrogance that struck her the moment she saw him. And she didn’t know why she thought it, but there was something subtly sexual about him. She could see why girls were attracted to him, or would be lured away to a quiet place to talk. He didn’t look ominous, he looked sexy, handsome and appealing, until you looked into his eyes and saw how cold they were. They were the eyes of a man who would stop at nothing. As a prosecutor, Alexa had seen eyes like that before. He chatted easily with the public defender who had been assigned to him, a woman. And Alexa saw him laughing. It didn’t seem to bother him at all that he was there, accused of four counts each of rape and murder. Murder in the first degree, premeditated, with intent to kill. They were throwing the book at him, and at the sentencing, if he was convicted, she was going to ask the judge to give him consecutive sentences. He was going to be in prison for the next hundred years at least, if Alexa had anything to do with it, and she hoped she would.