Welcome to my next story! If you're new here, it would help to read Perceptions, Wreckage and Salvation first.

I own nothing and nobody that you recognise from the show.

Prologue

March 1997

I hated the man, perhaps more than I had ever hated anyone.

Well, maybe not more than anyone. After all, I had always hated Edward Burns but he was dead and therefore, in some way, no longer counted.

So, yes, I hated this man more than I had ever hated anyone.

Especially now.

He hadn't changed. He hadn't changed in four years any more than he had in the previous eight. He still wore the same supercilious smile he had perfected the first day I had ever laid eyes on him at his first arraignment and he still rose from the table and extended his hand as though we were old friends or colleagues. The very gesture made me feel sick, as though I could ever consider him anything more than what he was.

A cold-blooded killer.

A dangerous man.

A threat.

"Ben...what a lovely surprise," he said in that same, laconic drawl that I had so often heard in my dreams. "As you can imagine, I don't get many visitors. You find out who your real friends are when you end up in a place like this." I ignored both his gesture and greeting and simply sat down opposite him, hoping and praying that I could get through this meeting without doing or saying something that I would live to regret. "You're looking well," he continued as though there was no animosity between us. "Being back at the DA's office obviously agrees with you far more than academia ever did."

I felt a shiver run through me at his words, at the notion that he had kept any kind of tabs on my life or career but then, that was why I was here after all, to put a stop to any thought he might possess of trying to slime his way into my world.

"How is your lovely wife? I saw her on television again the other day speaking at a rally. She really is quite beautiful. You're a very lucky man..."

"You listen to me," I leaned forward, keeping my voice low so as not to draw the attention of the guard outside, my blood pounding in my head with every word. "You stay away from her."

His face broke into a wide smile, full of innocence. "Ben...what a strange request. Didn't you notice the security on your way in? The bars on the windows? The locks on the doors? The dogs in the yard? I'm in prison. How could I be anywhere near her?"

He looked so smug, so sure of himself that it was all I could do to restrain myself from reaching across the table, grabbing him by his shirt and...well...I hadn't got that far in my mind. I wasn't a violent person, not really, but for him I could make an exception.

Him and Edward Burns.

I had never had my chance with Burns but I was on edge enough to know that I could be sorely tempted with this little creep.

"I'm not joking around here," I said as calmly as I could. "You stay away from her. You don't call her, you don't write to her..."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he blinked. "You can check my list of approved numbers and addresses..."

"Don't worry I will and if I find out that you're behind this..."

"You'll do what? Make sure I have a little accident in here? No..." he shook his head, almost as if to rebuke himself. "That's not really your style, is it Ben? You play it too straight, too down the middle, too safe...you're too much of a...boy scout...to risk doing something like that."

Continuing the conversation was pointless. He knew where I stood, even if he was choosing to play the innocent with me. I got to my feet and glared down at him. "You might think that you're clever, but I know you. I'm warning you now. Stay away from my family."

"I wouldn't dream of coming near your family," he said, as I turned for the door. "Teenage baseball players don't really interest me. Teenage artists...not really my thing either and infants, well..."

I kept walking, despite my heart pounding at the things that he seemed to know.

Peter...Pamela...Kate...

"Beautiful, passionate wives though..."

I stopped and turned back to face him, hating the mirthful look in his eyes, the playful smile around the corners of his mouth, in fact, hating everything about him.

"But I wouldn't," he shook his head almost sorrowfully. "I mean, poor Evelyn. She's already been through so much...hasn't she?"

The cold air hit me when I finally got back outside, making my head spin and my stomach contract. I had sat across from so many strange, evil, deluded, crazy people in the course of my career but there was something about that man...something about Philip Swann, that affected me more than any of the others ever had.

As I jammed my key into the ignition and pulled out of the parking lot at a speed far quicker than I had intended, I knew that I was going to have to tell her everything.