She couldn’t wait to get back, to plan for the baby, to put the trauma of Los Angeles behind her. “City of Angels,” she muttered sarcastically, then looked at the window again, wondering about the spirit that she could swear had been there.

According to Bentz, Corrine’s attack was recorded on the camera that was found on the Merry Anne just before it had sunk. No doubt she would be in prison for the rest of her life.

In the two days since then, details about the deranged woman had emerged in the newspapers. Olivia glanced over at the L.A. Times on her night stand, which had published an updated piece today.

Apparently Corrine had faked an injury to get a desk job at Parker Center—a way to gather information about new cases and about former LAPD Detective Rick Bentz. There was now evidence linking O’Donnell to the murders of Shana McIntyre, Lorraine Newell, Fortuna Esperanzo, and Sherry Petrocelli.

“O’Donnell wrought a trail of death and anguish,” the article stated, “which included the kidnapping of a New Orleans woman who is married to O’Donnell’s former lover, New Orleans Police Detective Rick Bentz.”

Poor Hayes, Olivia thought. He’d been duped. He’d repeatedly told Bentz that he’d been a fool not to have seen the signs and that he was swearing off women for the rest of his life.

“Won’t last long,” Bentz had predicted.

Montoya had already returned to New Orleans to be with his wife and the Los Angeles Police Department was returning to a routine without the agitation of Rick Bentz. Though Fernando Valdez and Yolanda Salazar seemed to have been duped, rather than participants in Corrine’s grand plan, the LAPD was taking another look at them as well as Jane Hollister.

As for the Twenty-one killer, Bledsoe, with the help of two female detectives as decoys and a lot of searching Internet chat rooms, had run a sting operation and caught someone who fit the profile—Donovan Caldwell, older brother of someone the LAPD had thought might have killed his sisters. It looked like he was their guy. The speculation was that the return of Bentz to L.A. had set him off and that he loved all the attention he was getting.

Corrine had been adamant that she hadn’t been a part of his vicious attacks against twins, so the LAPD was treating the case as if it had nothing to do with the string of murders perpetrated by Corrine O’Donnell, one of their own.

Still, Corrine’s killing spree was more than another black eye on the department.