"You're looking at a murderer, Doctor," George Hampton whispered, his grip on Martin's wrist tight and unyielding as he looked up from his hospital bed with pale, frightened eyes. "Tomorrow morning, you're going to cut open a man who did the worst thing imaginable, and you're going to try to save his life, try to fix his heart. I've been trying to do that for eleven years, and the best I can tell you is... good luck."

Martin McCauley wondered briefly if his patient was exhibiting some bizarre and, until now, unsuspected form of dementia. He pried the pudgy man's fingers loose and took a step away.

"It's late," Martin said. "I think the medications may be--"

"I need to confess," George said, seized by a sudden fit of desperation. "Please, Doctor. You're the only one I trust."

Martin was startled, he couldn't deny it. George appeared lucid -- his words heartfelt. But even if what he was saying were true, it didn't matter. Martin had sworn an oath: Above all things, do no harm. Even if he knew that the man before him had committed a dozen of the most heinous crimes in history, he was duty bound to do everything in his power to save the man's life. Judgment of any sort was not his to give.

"I don't know what it is you're talking about," Martin said softly, in his most reassuring voice, "and I think we should probably keep it that way. Patient-doctor confidentiality is not without limit, particularly with things like this. Let's just chalk it up to the meds... and maybe a bad dream you were having."

"No," George said, tears forming in his eyes as a cloud passed and moonlight fell upon him from the nearby window of his hospital room. The curtains rustled in the evening breeze.

"I can call a priest if you really need someone to talk to like that, but, honestly, George, we've been over the procedure a dozen times. A quadruple bypass is tricky, particularly for someone who's as overweight as you are, with such high cholesterol levels and overall lack of daily exercise, but I've seen worse; I've never lost a patient during one of these, and I don't intend to start tomorrow."

"Eleven years," George whispered, closing his eyes. "Eleven years tomorrow since I ran her down and left her for dead."

Martin drew a sharp breath. Somehow, he kept himself together and pulled up a chair. "Tell me what happened," he said.

Two hours later, Martin leaned against the driver's side door of his nice, safe, little Volvo, waiting for the woman he had called right after leaving his patient's room. From this steep, isolated hill overlooking Los Angeles, Martin smoked his first cigarette in twenty years. He'd quit the day his daughter, Amy, was born.

On the night of her ninth birthday she had crossed a street alone, somehow breaking from her small group of friends, and had been run down, her body crushed, by a drunk driver. It had happened as she was leaving a yogurt shop downtown where they'd held her party, since it was a weeknight and many of her friends from the ballet academy lived near the place.

She would have been nineteen right now, if she had lived. Twenty, tomorrow.

Eleven years since her death... and her killer was George Hampton.

The crush of tires on gravel alerted Martin to the approach of the sleek black Jaguar. Though he had never wanted to drive anything flashy himself -- too much like wearing a target for car thieves -- his oldest son, Robert, was into cars big-time. Robert had been floored at the sight of the 2002 S-Type V-8 sedan when it first pulled into their driveway, and had hardly stopped talking about it since.

The car pulled around and a driver got out, a huge man in a black designer suit. He nodded to Martin, then opened the passenger door and held out his hand to the most sought after woman in the world according to Business Magazine.

"Hello, Lily," Martin said to the ravishing, raven-haired woman who approached with deep sympathy in her eyes, the moonlight bathing her gray, double-breasted silk pantsuit. Martin had never seen a more beautiful woman than Lily Pierce... with the exception, of course, of his wife.

She held out her hands and he took them in his own, squeezing them gently. Lily's driver went for a walk, assuring their privacy.

"Thank you for coming," Martin said.

"You're one of the most decent men I've ever known," Lily said. "You're also a friend. I'm worried about you."

Martin released her hands. He reached into his pocket and took out a small silver locket adorned with an opal that sparkled in even the palest light. The moment the locket was in his hand, memories of his firstborn, his baby girl, came rushing back to him. He thought of her first words, her laugh, the way she moved onstage, as graceful as an angel, her love of her craft giving her wings. He had, by all accounts, the perfect life. He was a successful and highly respected heart surgeon, he was happily married, he had plenty of good friends, and he was raising four healthy, well-adjusted children with a woman he loved. He was a compassionate man who believed in the sanctity of life above all else.

And tonight, he was contemplating murder.

"You still have it," Lily said.

He nodded.

"I remember the night you first came to me," Lily said. "You told me you'd never met a motivational speaker who'd inspired you to do anything except pity the people who'd put money in their pockets. Then you asked for my help."

"Vienna," Martin said. "The first time I heard you talk. The conference that changed my life."

"Has it?"

Nodding, he clutched the locket to his chest. When Amy died, he'd been in no position to give in to the grief, despair, and rage that rose up inside him over the incident. He had to be strong for his family. He threw himself fully into his work, and life slowly returned to almost normal. Almost.

But since the day he'd buried his child, there had been a very small, but undeniable black hole of anger and loss inside Martin, a maelstrom he first tried to deny, then attempted to deal with through religion and therapy. Nothing had helped -- until he met Lily Pierce. Though her New Life Foundation was already enormously popular overseas, Lily took a personal interest in Martin. She helped him find a measure of peace over the loss by acknowledging his darkest feelings over the incident and working through them to see that what he really needed was to fill the hole left in his heart.

To help him focus on that goal, Lily had given him a keepsake, a locket identical to the one buried with his daughter. As long as he kept it close, as he did now, he could feel the spirit of his lost little girl, he could draw on her strength and, he firmly believed, he could one day summon the strength needed to forgive his daughter's killer, whoever that person might be. What he'd wanted more than anything was to finally disperse that shred of darkness in what Lily had described as his otherwise "bright, shining, perfect soul," that waiting abyss that wanted vengeance and couldn't have cared less about compassion and mercy.

Be pure in purpose and perfect in execution. Lily's words.

"I looked into his eyes, and forgiveness was the last thing on my mind," Martin said. "It was one thing to forgive someone I thought I'd never meet... an abstract concept. Another to be face-to-face with the s.o.b. All the old demons came at me at once, torturing me with what Amy might look like today if she had lived, the life she might have had, all her dreams...."

"I understand," Lily said, placing her hand on his arm, steadying him as they moved close to the edge of the hill and looked down at the sparkling lights of the city.

"I know what I should do," Martin said, trembling with anger. "I should call in another surgeon and later on try to launch legal proceedings, bring Amy's killer to justice. But it's not that easy, and I can't talk to my wife about this. I can't tell anyone what I'm feeling...."

"You can tell me," Lily said, her deep, understanding voice filling him with comfort, with the strength he feared he lacked.

"I could do it," he said, whirling on her, tears streaming down his face. "I could kill him on the table tomorrow morning and no one would ever know I'd done it on purpose. I'm skilled enough to pull it off; I'm that good."

"I know," Lily said. "You're practically perfect."

"An eye for an eye, Old Testament retribution," Martin said. "Or I can forgive this man and finally let it go."

"But would you?" Lily asked. "And if you couldn't, do you really think there's any chance at all this man will repeat what he's told you to anyone else once his life is no longer in danger?"

He rubbed the locket over his heart. His handsome face was marred only by the dark emotions it revealed. He was forty-seven, but he knew he could have passed for ten years younger. Tall, broad-shouldered, with dark hair only lightly peppered with gray. Movie star good looks.

Amy would have been beautiful.

"I can't tell you what to do," Lily said. "All I can do is reassure you about one thing: No matter what choice you make -- I will be there for you."

He collapsed into her arms, sobbing with rage and grief.

That night, he didn't sleep. He only stared at the ceiling.