"There are some questions I do need answers to," Casey declared.

"And there are some I'll answer," Lipton replied curtly. "Others I won't. I'm not your usual client, my dear. I am your teacher. You are my pupil. Don't expect to enjoy the usual prerogatives you have with a sniveling criminal. I am neither sniveling nor a criminal."

"Why did you try to escape?" she asked, refusing to be baited.

"I wasn't trying to escape," he told her sternly. "I was there that day. I saw her body. It was horrible. I wanted to get away from everything… I loved her."

"She was your…"

"We were lovers," he said with a cryptic smile.

Was he suggesting that he was a prize Casey had wanted as well? She felt vaguely disturbed. When she was a student, she had certainly admired him, but many of her classmates had felt the same way. He was considered one of the preeminent authorities on criminal law. His book The Letter of the Law had been such a smashing success that he traveled the country giving seminars.

And in the last fifteen years, there were very few attorneys who had ambitions of becoming trial lawyers who hadn't been exposed to either one of his seminars or his book. Essentially, it was a practical guide to winning. After a preamble that described the nobility of criminal defense work, the book went on to describe the most effective tactics for winning a case. Its disregard of moral considerations was stunning and had made the book every bit as controversial as it was popular. Like many great ideas it was simple, and therein lay its brilliance. So there she had been, a young law student awed not only by the notoriety but also by the overwhelming intellect and charisma of the man.

Lipton's strange, almost knowing smile struck a nerve with Casey, but it quickly disappeared and he got back to business.

"I was upset," he continued, his words almost lifeless. "Anyone would have been. I wanted to get away. I had no idea anyone saw me leaving her apartment."