Southern Lights by Danielle Steel

thrilled to hear the news.
    “Do you really think you can make this stick?” the other woman asked her. Alexa knew her and liked her, although she was still very green.
    “Yes, I do,” Alexa said firmly.
    “You don’t have a lot to go on.” That much was true.
    “I have four dead women, and a previously convicted felon, a repeat offender, with blood and hair of the victims on his shoes. It didn’t get there while he had lunch at McDonald’s. He claims he may have jogged through it in the park. He didn’t jog through four different crime scenes. We’re going with it. Let me know if he wants to plead.”
    “I don’t think he will,” the public defender said, sounding unhappy. She was not looking forward to this case. The killing of four young women would have public opinion heavily against him, and from what she had seen so far, her client was anything but remorseful, and extremely sure of himself. A jury was going to hate him the minute he walked in. All she could do was her best, but they both knew there was a good chance she was going to lose. And Quentin had no desire whatsoever to plead guilty to the charges. He had nothing but time on his hands, and a lot to lose. If he was convicted, he was going to spend the rest of his life in prison. He wasn’t about to hand that to them. He was going to make them work to convict. “Thanks for keeping me up to date,” she told Alexa, and they both hung up and went back to work.
    As always, Alexa was impeccably prepared for the grand jury hearing the next day. It was held at the courthouse in Manhattan where her office was. Jack picked her up at home that morning, and drove her downtown in an unmarked police car. The hearing was closed to the public, and everything about it was kept in the utmost secrecy. Only she, representing the DA’s office; Jack, as the head of the investigation; the defendant and his attorney; and the grand jurors would be there. The hearing would determine if there was enough evidence for an indictment for the matter to be bound over for trial. Alexa knew that eighteen of the twenty-three members of the grand jury would be there—two more than they needed to indict. And at least twelve would have to vote for the indictment, and obviously she hoped they would. She and Jack didn’t say much on the way downtown; it was early. Quentin would be brought to the courtroom with four guards, in case he tried to escape. The public defender would meet him there. She had had the right to file a motion to block the grand jury from convening, but she hadn’t done it. There was too much evidence against her client to make a motion plausible.
    Jack and Alexa hurried up the courthouse steps and into the grand jury room, just as Quentin was escorted in through a separate entrance. They had both been there many times before, with good results. It was rare, almost unheard of, for Alexa’s indictments to be dismissed. And her paperwork and motions were all in order. She wanted no procedural mistakes on this case.
    They took their places at the counsel table assigned to the DA’s office, while the public defender sat down at the table across the aisle and Luke Quentin was brought into the room. Alexa was surprised to see that he was wearing a suit. She had no idea where the public defender had gotten it for him, but he looked good. She wondered if maybe it was his own. It seemed unlikely. He glanced across the aisle at Alexa then, and this time he didn’t smile. His eyes bored into her and through her, like white-hot power drills that drove right through her head. There was pure hatred in his eyes, and then he turned away. She could all too easily imagine that same look in his eyes as he raped and killed some young girl. She had no doubts whatsoever about the case.
    The grand jurors convened quickly and heard the evidence from Alexa’s side. There were no witnesses to refute it. They were the only people in the room. Jack supplied enough evidence to support