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ceiling that faintly reflected the distant neon of the Lucky Lady
Casino. Occasionally, he reached for his glass of Pepto-Bismol and milk, a mixture
that he had grown accustomed to over the last few years. The radio in his room
played softly. A classical station that often soothed him to sleep.
    Tonight, however, sleep was elusive. Every time he
closed his eyes, the image of Cherry Brown was right there in all its gory
detail ... superimposed over those of
his family.
    He’d spent three days in Shreveport, business that had
kept him out of town longer than anticipated. He had spoken to Laura Thursday
night, late, to let her know that he would be home Friday afternoon. She had
been testier than usual. They had argued and she had refused to let him speak
to Billy and Lisa—already in bed, she had lied, though he could hear them
playing in the background.
    Something in the way she had behaved had caused caution
and suspicion to niggle at him long after he’d hung up the phone. Something
wasn’t right. Not that it ever was right between them, but that particular
conversation had set his every instinct on edge. He hadn’t become a kick-ass
A.D.A. without being able to sniff out the undercurrents of brewing trouble,
and Laura’s nervous, evasive attitude had reeked of it.
    He’d canceled his meetings for the next day and taken
a late flight, arriving in New Orleans after midnight. In the airport, he had
bought Lisa a doll and Billy a T-shirt.
    He had arrived home to an empty house. Standing there
with sweat running down his temples, the fear that she had left him at last,
taking his children, rushed like acid through his blood.
    At four in the morning, he had fallen into bed, exhausted
from pacing the floor all night, repeatedly calling her cell phone and getting
no response.
    At six-thirty the doorbell had rung. He’d known, the
moment he looked into the detectives’ faces, why they were there.
    He’d held it together in the car, even walking down
the long corridor to the morgue. Avoidance, again. There was always a chance
that the bodies a jogger had discovered were not those of his family. Laura
wasn’t a prostitute. No reason that the serial killer who was slaughtering prostitutes
would suddenly turn on a housewife and kids. They didn’t fit the victim
profile.
    He’d held it together until the medical examiner,
Janice, Mallory’s wife, had pulled the sheet back to reveal Billy’s face.
    After that, it had all been a blur. Like he was
fighting his way out of a nightmare that wouldn’t end. First Billy, his throat
cut from ear to ear, then Lisa, her blond pigtails soaked in blood. Then Laura.
He’d identified her by the birthmark on her right hip, and, of course, the
wedding ring on her finger.
    Like the prostitutes who had been killed, they never
found Laura’s head.
    He couldn’t recall much of the following months. They
were spent in a fog of tranquilizers and antidepressants. Downers to make him
sleep without dreaming, uppers that allowed him to stumble through the day. He’d
finally unraveled before a judge and jury and half the New Orleans press corp.
It hadn’t been pretty. Jerry Costos had tackled him to the floor, and he’d been
wheeled out of the courtroom strapped to a stretcher by men in white coats. So
much for promising careers.
    He’d withdrawn from life—family, friends—holed up in
his empty house full of memories, surrounded by photographs of his children.
Six months after his breakdown, he’d been forced to move out of the house and
file for bankruptcy. Only one thing had kept him from putting a bullet in his
head. Anger and the need for revenge. It raged in him.
    He had become a short fuse on a keg of dynamite, one
fizzle and spark away from complete detonation. He was certain that Tyron
Johnson had been his family’s killer and was convinced that their murders had
not been connected with those of the hookers. The son of a bitch had actually
sent flowers to the funerals, attached