the ignition and then slumped against the seat, looking pale.

“How does it feel?” Jack asked him as they drove downtown. “You got him.”

“Yeah,” Charlie said quietly. “Now we gotta prove it and make it stick.”

By the time they got downtown and into the station, Luke was looking cocky. There was blood all over his face and shirt, but even cuffed, he was strutting his stuff.

“So what are you guys doing? Looking for someone to pin a mugging on, or stealing an old lady’s purse?” Luke laughed in Charlie’s face.

“Book him,” Charlie said to Jack, and walked away. He knew he’d get credit for the collar. He’d been following him for way too long. It was just sheer luck Quentin wound up back in New York. Providence. Fate. Charlie was happy to have nailed him in the city where he worked. He had better connections here, and liked the DA they worked with. He was a tough old guy from Chicago, and more willing to prosecute than most. Joe McCarthy, the DA, didn’t care how full the jails were, he wasn’t willing to let suspects go. And if they proved everything Charlie hoped they would about Luke Quentin, it was going to be the trial of the year. He wondered who McCarthy was going to assign the case to. He hoped to hell it was someone good.

“So what’s the beef you trumped up for me?” Luke asked, laughing in Jack’s face, as a rookie shackled him and started to lead him away. “Shoplifting? Jaywalking?”

“Not exactly, Quentin,” Jack said coolly. “Rape, and murder one, actually. Four counts of each so far. Maybe you’d like to tell us something about it?” Jack asked, raising an eyebrow, as Luke laughed again and shook his head.

“Assholes. You know it won’t stick. What’s the matter? You got a bunch of murders you can’t solve, so you figured you’d do some one-stop shopping and pin them all on me?” Luke looked totally undisturbed, and almost amused, but his eyes were like steel, and an evil shade of blue.

Jack wasn’t fooled by the bravado. Luke was slick. They had evidence that he had committed two murders, and they were almost sure of two others. And if Jack’s guess was right, Luke Quentin had killed over a dozen women in two years, maybe more. They were waiting for a more conclusive DNA report on the dirt from his shoes that Charlie had gotten out of the shag carpet in Quentin’s hotel room. If the dirt was a match, as Charlie hoped it would be, Quentin had just been on the streets for the last time in his life.

“What a crock of shit,” Luke mumbled as he shuffled away. “You know you won’t make it stick. You’re just fishing. I have an alibi for every night. I hardly left my hotel room in the last two weeks. I’ve been sick.” Yeah, Jack thought to himself, very sick. They all were, guys like him, sociopaths who didn’t bat an eye after they killed their victims, dumped them somewhere, and then went out to lunch. Luke Quentin was handsome and looked as though he could be charming. He was the perfect type to spot some innocent young girl, and lure her to a secluded spot where he could rape her and then kill her. Jack had seen guys like him before, although if the stories were true about this one, he was one of the worst. Or the worst they’d had in a long time anyway. Jack knew there would be a lot of press on this, and every last detail had to be handled right, or Quentin would get a mistrial on some finicky detail. Charlie knew it too, which was why he had let Jack handle the booking, and after Luke was taken away to be searched and get his mug shot done, Jack called the DA himself.

“We got him,” Jack said proudly. “All our hunches paid off, and luck was on our side. That and Charlie McAvoy, who ran his ass off and caught him. If I’d had to run down all those alleys and hit all those fences, he’d have been halfway to Brooklyn before I got over the first one.” Jack was in good shape, but he was forty-nine years old, and he and the DA teased each other about their weight. They were the same age. The DA congratulated him for his good work, and told him he’d see him in the morning. He wanted to