Southern Lights Read Online Free PDF

because no statement had been made yet, but Alexa knew that almost immediately the media would be following the case. She was feeling uneasy when she left the courtroom. It was though he had run his hands over her, and she wanted to hit him. She was still feeling that way when she put her coat on in her office an hour later and went upstairs to another courtroom. Court was still in session, and a woman judge was on the bench, admonishing a man for having been delinquent in his child support for the last six months. She threatened to put him in jail, and he promised to pay promptly. It was the family law court, and half a dozen dramas were unfolding, as they always were.
    Alexa waited until court adjourned, and followed the judge into her chambers. She knocked and opened the door, as the judge was stepping out of her robes. She was wearing a black skirt and a red sweater, and she was an attractive woman in her early sixties. She smiled at Alexa immediately, and came to give her a hug.
    “Hi, sweetheart. What are you doing here?” Alexa didn’t know, but she had needed to come here after her unsettling afternoon watching Luke Quentin in court.
    “I just got a big case, and I went to the arraignment. The guy is so frightening, it freaked me out.”
    “What kind of case?” the judge asked with interest.
    “Serial killer, and rapist. He seems to prey on young women between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. We have nineteen murders we’re trying to link to him, and four almost for sure here in New York. I hope we’ll be able to nail him on the rest, but we don’t know yet.” As she listened, the judge winced. The sign on her desk said Muriel Hamilton. She was Alexa’s mother and the family court judge.
    “God, I’m glad I don’t get cases like that. It would make me sick. It’s bad enough watching guys who won’t support their children but go out and buy a new Porsche. I made one of them sell his to give back support to his ex-wife. Sometimes guys can be such jerks. But this sounds ugly.” And Muriel didn’t like it. Not at all.
    “Just looking at him, knowing what I do about him, the guy scares me to death,” Alexa admitted. She wouldn’t have said it to anyone but her mother. She didn’t usually have that kind of reaction, but Quentin’s arrogant, invasive glances at her had really gotten under her skin.
    “Be careful,” her mother warned her.
    “I’m not going to be alone with him, Mom.” Alexa smiled at her. She loved the fact that they could talk about work, among other things. Her mother had saved her life when she got back from Charleston. It had been her idea for Alexa to go to law school, and as usual she’d been right. “They bring him to court in cuffs and shackles,” she reassured her, but her mother still looked worried.
    “Sometimes guys like that have friends. As a prosecutor, you’re going to be the focus of all his anger, if you indict him and bring him to trial. If you do, as far as he’s concerned, you’re the reason he’s in jail. And the press will eat you alive on a case like this too.” They both knew she was right about that.
    “He doesn’t seem to mind being in jail. And the guy who lost the Porsche was probably pretty pissed at you too.” Once or twice her mother had had to have a deputy sheriff at the house for protection during a tough case. Her mother laughed at what Alexa had said. And then Alexa had an idea. “Do you want to come to dinner tomorrow night?”
    Her mother looked mildly embarrassed. “I can’t. I have a date.”
    “You and Savannah. I can’t keep up with either of you.”
    “No, and you don’t try. When was the last time you had a date?”
    “In the stone age. I think people were carrying clubs and wearing fur.” Alexa looked ruefully at her mother. Muriel always brought it up.
    “That’s not funny. You need to get out more, and at least have dinner with friends.” Alexa worked, went home to her daughter, and that was it. Her mother