“It’s an idea I’ve had for years—examining the horror of murder by examining its impact on the victim’s family—I just never knew what to do with it. Sometimes I wouldn’t think about it for a while, but it would always come back, stronger than ever. I became obsessed with it—I had to do something with it. At first I thought it could be like a scholarly thing—maybe a sociology or psychology monograph. So I sent query letters out to a lot of the university presses, but I didn’t have the right academic degrees, so they had no interest in me. So I thought maybe a regular nonfiction book. But for a book you need an agent, which meant more query letters. And guess what? Zero interest. Like I’m twenty-one, twenty-two, who the hell am I? What have I written before? What are my credentials? Basically I’m just a kid. All I have is an idea. Then it finally dawns on me. Duh! This is not a book, this is television! From that point on, things started to fall into place. I saw it as a series of intimate interviews—‘reality television’ in the best sense of that term, which I realize has a pretty scuzzy sound these days, but it doesn’t have to be that way—not if it’s done with emotional truth!”

She stopped, as though suddenly affected by her own words, flashed an embarrassed smile, cleared her throat, and went on. “So anyway, I put it all together in the form of a detailed outline for my master’s thesis and submitted it to Dr. Wilson, my adviser. He told me it was a great idea, that it had real potential. He helped me put it in a commercial proposal format, made sure my legal bases were covered to give me some protection in the real world, and then he did something he said he never does: He passed it along to a production executive he knows personally at RAM-TV—a guy by the name of Rudy Getz. And Getz got back to us like a week later and said, ‘Okay, let’s do it.’ ”

“Just like that?” asked Gurney.

“I was surprised, too. But Getz said that’s the way RAM operates. I’m not going to question it. The fact that I can make this idea real, that I can explore this subject …” She shook her head, as if trying to ward off some volatile emotion.

Madeleine came to the table, sat down, and said what Gurney was thinking. “This is important to you, isn’t it? I mean, really important, beyond being a career booster.”

“Oh, God, yes!”

Madeleine smiled softly. “And the heart of the idea … the part that matters so much to you …?”