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  Marsha didn’t reject his touch. She turned toward him. “It was our child, not just mine. And I could see how badly you wanted a child. I had no right to throw you out of our bed. I’ve been a monster.”

  Doug took a chance and embraced Marsha. She melted into his arms. After a while, she stopped crying and nestled against Doug. They stayed that way for an eternity.

  Then Marsha pulled back and looked at Doug. “Please take me to bed. I need you to make love to me, so I know you forgive me.”

  “There’s nothing to forgive,” Doug answered.

  Marsha stood up, took Doug’s hand, and led him toward their bedroom.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Carrie Anders found Patrol Officer Maggie Collins waiting in the hospital corridor.

  “I understand you were the first responder,” Anders said after the introductions had been made.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Bring me up to speed.”

  Collins took a notebook out of her back pocket and flipped to the relevant pages. “The victim’s name is Jessica Braxton. She’s Caucasian, twenty-two, single, and lives alone.”

  “Employed?”

  “Not steadily. Mostly low-paying jobs. She clerked at a convenience store, cooked at a McDonald’s. That sort of work.”

  “How is she doing?”

  “The doctor says her only physical injuries are a black eye and split lip.”

  “And her mental state?”

  “She was scared and nervous, but she’s holding it together.”

  “Will she make a good witness?”

  Collins frowned. “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Do you have reservations?”

  “Not really. I don’t know if this means anything, but she seemed more nervous than scared. I haven’t been on the force long, but I have interviewed two rape victims, and they were terrified. Of course, I saw them right after the rape and not two hours later, when they’d had some time to calm down.”

  “So, she didn’t call 911 right away?”

  “No. She says she was disoriented by the beating and the alcohol and very frightened.”

  “Did she contaminate the crime scene?” Anders asked.

  “No, and she did give us the panties. She says Ray threw them under the bed after wiping himself.”

  “Ray?”

  “The perpetrator.”

  “Okay. So, what about these panties?”

  “Miss Braxton told me that she didn’t discover them until she’d called 911. She was going to throw them out when she remembered seeing a crime show on TV in which semen on a pair of panties was used to convict a rapist.”

  “Where are the panties?” Anders asked.

  “They’re at the crime lab. They also found semen when they did the vaginal swab for the rape kit.”

  “Okay,” Anders said. “You did a great job. I’ll talk to you again if it’s necessary. Who’s in with her now?”

  “No one. The doctor and a nurse left a few minutes ago.”

  When Anders walked into the hospital room, Jessica Braxton’s eyes went wide.

  Anders flashed her shield. “Hi, I’m Carrie Anders. I’m a detective with the Portland Police Bureau.”

  Braxton stared at Anders’s badge for a moment; then she relaxed. “I’m sorry. I’m just scared.”

  “You have every right to be,” Anders said. Anders pointed at a metal chair that was sitting against the wall. “Mind if I sit down?” she asked. “I’ve been on my feet all day.”

  “No, please.”

  “Thanks,” Anders said as she pulled the chair next to the bed. “So, how are they treating you?”

  “Good. Everyone has been very nice to me.”

  “That’s great. Do you mind if I ask you some questions about what happened so I can start hunting down the person who did this to you?”

  Braxton looked down at her covers. “I don’t like talking about it,” she said quietly.

  “I don’t blame you. I’ve never met a woman yet who’s been raped who enjoyed reliving the experience, but I can’t find this bastard if I don’t have your information. So, can we talk? I’ll try to make it quick.”

  Braxton thought for a moment before nodding. “Go ahead.”

  “I think the easiest way to do this is for you to tell me what happened like you were telling a story. Start at the beginning.”

  “There’s a club I like to go to, the Blue Unicorn, and I went there last night.”

  “Were you by yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, go on.”

  “I went out back in the alley to smoke, and this guy came out.”

  “Did this guy have a name?”

  “Ray. At least that’s what he said it was.”

  “Did he tell you his last name?”

  “He might have, but I don’t remember if he did.” Braxton blushed. “I was drinking and … If I did something illegal, can I get in trouble?”

  “Does this have to do with drugs?”

  Braxton nodded.

  “Not from me.”

  “Okay, well, I did snort some coke in the ladies’ room. Between the two, I was a little high.”

  “Can you describe Ray?”

  “He was handsome. He had blond hair, blue eyes, and an athlete’s build. He was muscular and over six feet tall.”

  “Okay, so you’re talking.”

  “Yeah, and after a while, he suggested we go to my apartment. I live alone on the second floor of a duplex not far from the club.”

  “Is that where it happened?” Anders asked.

  Braxton swallowed and nodded. “As soon as we were inside, he hit me in the stomach and dragged me into the bedroom. Then he hit me again, threw me on the bed, and covered my mouth. He said he’d kill me if I screamed, and he asked me if I understood. I nodded and he ripped off my panties and…” Braxton licked her lips and took a breath.

  “Did he penetrate you? That’s important in a rape case. We can’t convict if he didn’t.”

  Braxton nodded. “He did.”

  “Did he use a condom?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, what happened next?”

  “When he was done, he wiped himself on my panties and threw them on the floor. Then he threatened to kill me if I told on him. Then he hit me again and left.”

  “You’ve done great, Jessica. I’m going to leave you now. Ray may have done something very stupid. I understand he left semen on your panties and they found more when they did the vaginal swab. That means we’ve got DNA, and that should give us a great chance of getting this bastard.”

  PART THREE

  DNA

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Vanessa Cole, Multnomah County’s Chief Criminal Deputy, was a slender, fifty-two-year-old black woman with sharp features and fierce brown eyes. She’d grown up in a wealthy area of Portland’s West Hills and gone to Stanford for college and law school. Cole was known for her smarts and high ethical standards, and stood out from the moment she joined the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office, moving quickly from trying misdemeanors to trying felonies to handling murder cases and then death penalty murder cases.

  Vanessa had always been anal. She almost never missed a school assignment from elementary school through law school, and a rare B had caused endless soul-searching. Her office reflected her obsession with order. The case files on her blotter were arranged in neatly squared stacks, and her computer monitor sat in the exact center of her desk.

  Carrie Anders knew how much Vanessa detested chaos, and that was why she dreaded explaining the results of the lab tests in Jessica Braxton’s case.

  “Have you got a moment?” Anders asked from the doorway to the prosecutor’s office.

  Cole looked up from the memo she’d been reading and motioned the detective in. As she took a seat, Anders tried to think of the best way to explain what had happened. She decided to be blunt.

  “We’ve got a problem in one of Rex’s cases.”

&nbs
p; “Which one?”

  “Hastings.”

  Cole’s brow furrowed. “That case was open and shut. What’s the problem?”

  “A bad one. A woman named Jessica Braxton was raped last week by a guy who said his name was Ray. She met Ray at the Blue Unicorn nightclub. Does that name ring a bell?”

  It took Cole only a few seconds to make the connection. “Isn’t that where Hastings’s victim, Randi Stark, says she was when she saw the man who attacked her behind that gas station?”

  Anders nodded. “It’s a club she said she went to a lot. Now, get this: Braxton described the rapist she met at the Blue Unicorn as a handsome blond who was over six feet tall and very muscular.”

  Cole frowned. “That could be a description of Blaine Hastings. But he’s in jail. So, what’s the problem?”

  “That is the problem. Braxton says she and Ray went back to her apartment and that’s where he raped her. According to Braxton, Ray penetrated her without a condom, ejaculated inside her, wiped himself with her panties, and left after throwing the panties on the floor. That meant that the lab had plenty of semen to test for DNA.”

  Anders looked directly at Cole. “Ray’s DNA and Blaine Hastings’s DNA match.”

  “What do you mean ‘match’?”

  “They’re identical.”

  “That’s impossible!”

  “The lab retested Ray’s DNA as soon as the computer made the match between Ray’s DNA and Hastings’s DNA. When they got the same result, they sent a sample of the semen in the Braxton case to a private lab, and that lab got the same result.”

  “Fuck!” exclaimed Cole, who never swore. “It’s got to be a mistake.”

  “It’s not.

  “Can two people have the same DNA?” asked Cole, who already knew the answer but hoped that she was wrong.

  Anders nodded. “If they’re identical twins. But Hastings doesn’t have an identical twin. He’s an only child. And no, he and his evil twin were not separated at birth. I went to the hospital where he was born with a search warrant. Gloria Hastings gave birth to one child and only one.”

  “What explanation do the lab techs have?”

  “The only thing they can think of is that someone screwed up Hastings’s DNA test.”

  “What’s the implication if that’s true?”

  “One possibility is that Randi met Ray at the Blue Unicorn and had sex with him. Then she went to the frat party and accused Blaine of rape.”

  Vanessa shook her head. “That still doesn’t explain why the two DNA samples match.”

  “Correct.”

  “So, we’re back to square one.”

  “More like one to the nth degree.”

  “Have you told Rex yet?”

  “No.”

  “Then let’s go break the news.”

  “He’s not going to like it,” Anders said.

  * * *

  Vanessa led the way down the hall to Rex’s office. He looked up when the women walked in and started to smile. But the smile faded when he saw the looks on their faces.

  “That’s not possible,” Kellerman said when Anders finished explaining the DNA match.

  “Everyone I talked to agrees with you,” Anders said, “but the samples match.”

  Kellerman shook his head. “It’s a trick, a scam. Have you checked the visitor logs? Did this Braxton woman visit Hastings? Could they have fucked in the jail?”

  “Hastings’s only visitors were his new lawyer, Les Kreuger, and his parents.”

  “There’s got to be an explanation.”

  “The crime lab is working on it. They’ve hired Paul Baylor at Oregon Forensics to run tests on the semen in the two cases.”

  “Does Kreuger know about this?”

  “I’ve got to tell him, Rex.”

  Kellerman looked lost. “He’ll try to get Hastings out of jail. He’ll move for a new trial.”

  “I expect so,” Vanessa said. “You better brush up on DNA because bad things will happen if we can’t figure out how two people can have the same DNA.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Tyler Harrison III watched Frank Nylander walk toward the elevator before closing the door to his office. Nylander had come to New York assuming that Leonard Voss’s case would be settled by the end of their meeting. That hadn’t happened, and both lawyers were upset by the intransigence of Nylander’s client.

  Harrison walked over to his window. Twenty stories below, the traffic crawled along Park Avenue. As he watched it, Harrison thought about how he was going to break the bad news to Marvin Turnbull. A few minutes later, he returned to his desk and dialed Turnbull’s private number at Norcross Pharmaceutical.

  The CEO picked up after one ring. “What happened?” Turnbull asked.

  “Voss rejected the offer.”

  “You’re kidding! It was more than generous.”

  “Voss sees this as a matter of principle. He’s on a crusade.”

  “Is there any way we can keep the case from going to trial? The publicity could be disastrous.”

  “I’ll take another shot at a settlement,” Harrison said, “but Nylander told me both Voss and his wife are dead set on—and I quote—‘exposing Norcross.’ He didn’t seem any happier about having to take the case to trial than I am.”

  “Fucking fanatics,” Turnbull mumbled. There was silence for a moment. Then Turnbull said, “Okay, take another shot at settling. It looks like that’s all we can do.”

  * * *

  Marvin Turnbull hung up on Harrison. Then he took out a disposable cell phone and dialed a number in Portland, Oregon.

  “Yes,” Ivar Gorski answered.

  “We’ve hit a snag, and I may need you to implement plan B, so be prepared.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Robin was in her office when Vanessa Cole phoned.

  “Are you representing Randi Stark in her civil suit against Blaine Hastings?” Cole asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Les Kreuger is Blaine Hastings’s new attorney. He filed a motion for a new trial and release on bail, and Judge Redding is hearing it this afternoon. You should be there.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ll let it be a surprise.”

  “Should I bring Randi?”

  “No.”

  “Why the heads up?”

  “You’ll find out.”

  * * *

  Judge Redding’s courtroom was packed, and Robin guessed that someone in Blaine Hastings’s camp had tipped off the press. Robin found a seat just as Les Kreuger called Paul Baylor, a slender, bookish African American, as his first witness. Kreuger was a bear of a man with a florid complexion and gray-streaked black hair. He had trained for the opera in his youth and used his deep voice for dramatic emphasis.

  “Mr. Baylor, are you self-employed?” Kreuger asked.

  “I am.”

  “What is your business?”

  “I own Oregon Forensic Investigations.”

  “What do you do there?”

  “I provide forensic expertise to individuals and institutions.”

  “With regard to criminal investigations, do you work for the prosecution and defense?”

  “I do.”

  “What are your credentials?”

  “I have a degree in forensic science and criminal justice from Michigan State University, and I worked at the Oregon State Crime Lab for ten years before leaving to open my own business.”

  “Can you tell the Court a little about DNA?”

  Baylor turned to Judge Redding. “DNA is shorthand for deoxyribonucleic acid, a chemical entity that is found in all living things. With regard to human beings, DNA is an instruction manual that helps us carry out all the necessary life processes.

  “DNA is also genetic material that we inherit half from our mother and half from our father. In addition to being life’s instruction manual, DNA is capable of copying itself so that new cells in the body have identical content.”

  “Is DNA consistent through
out a person’s body?” Kreuger asked.

  “Yes.”

  “So, a sample taken from a person’s hair, blood, skin, or semen will give the same result upon DNA testing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mr. Baylor, will two human beings ever have the same DNA?”

  “No. The only exception we know of is identical twins. So, other than identical twins, no two human beings should have the same DNA.”

  “Let’s move on to the subject of this hearing. A short time ago, were you contacted by the Oregon State Crime Lab and asked to conduct DNA testing on samples of semen obtained in two rape cases involving two different individuals?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did they contact you?” Kreuger asked.

  “There is a database for DNA in which samples from an unknown individual can be compared to DNA from known individuals to see if they match. If semen from a rapist is found on his victim, a lab can determine the structure of the DNA in the semen and compare it to the DNA from people whose DNA is in the database.”

  “Did the State Crime Lab have semen from an unknown person known only as Ray who was accused of rape?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were they puzzled by the results when they fed their information into the DNA database?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “I was told that the DNA was a match for a man known as Blaine Hastings Jr.”

  “Why was that a problem?”

  “Mr. Hastings was incarcerated at the time of the rape. The lab wanted me to conduct an independent test because they knew this result was impossible.”

  “What was the result of your test?”

  “It was the same as the crime lab. Ray’s DNA and Mr. Hastings’s DNA are identical.”

  “How do you explain that?” Kreuger asked.

  “There is a theoretical possibility that there are two humans who are not identical twins with identical DNA, but the odds are so astronomical that it is not a possibility in the real world. Therefore, the only explanation I can think of is that there were errors in the DNA tests conducted on one or both samples.”