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Jude smiled, but she regretted telling the story.

The families who had lost children to Freddy Henley were a close-knit group.

They spoke to each other almost daily. There were Facebook pages and private chat groups, and they met at the Pinnacles once a year to hold a memorial service.

Lara would probably pass on Jude’s private information in a well-meaning sort of way.

Then someone would tell someone else and a month from now Jude would have a Dateline producer knocking on her door asking about her childhood loss.

She shushed out a long breath as she returned to her empty office.

Instead of going to her desk, she stood at the window and looked down at the traffic on Turk Street, which ran behind the building.

The cars and vendors and people straggling through the last few minutes of morning of rush hour.

The distant wail of sirens from the Tenderloin.

The pigeons taking up perch on the parking deck across the way.

Jude had seen the sun peering up over the Golden Gate Bridge when she’d driven in.

Now, it bathed the wall across from her desk in a warm light.

She traced her finger along the dark rectangle where a picture frame used to be.

There were twelve ghostly shadows from the twelve photographs of young women aged fourteen to seventeen.

You could’ve tracked the time periods by their hair styles and make-up, and the cultural transition between teenagers yearning to look older and the sudden desperation to appear young.

Freddy Henley hadn’t been the only case Jude had worked, but it was the case that had defined her career.

Now that her career was over, she found herself asking the same question that Lara Talbot had asked herself: who was she without the struggle to bring all of Freddy Henley’s victims home to their families?

Jude would leave the question for another day.

This afternoon, she was expected to give a speech at her retirement party.

Then she was supposed to have a dinner where, judging by the multiple other retirement dinners Jude had attended, they would give her a Special Agent in Charge of DGAF T-shirt and a coffee mug that read Time to Give it Arrest!

The thought was so depressing that she was tempted to sneak out the back door right now.

Instead, she sat down at her desk and woke up her computer.

She wasn’t going to leave her inbox full.

There were scores of farewells. Jude went through them all, giving her private email to the people she didn’t want to lose touch with and being very diplomatic with the people she hoped never to see again.

She was about to check on Raheem back in the conference room when her desk phone rang.

She picked up the receiver. “Archer.”

“So, is it going to be pottery classes or bird watching?” Chaz Hollister asked.

Jude gave an audible sigh. Her boss was in his mid thirties, blind to the fact that he was on the precipice of a cliff that everyone eventually toppled over. “I thought I’d try macramé.”

“I have no idea what that is.” He laughed with the ease of a man who’d never questioned his own intelligence. “Seriously, Quantico would love to have you.”

“Noted.” Jude took off her reading glasses.

She didn’t want to go back to teaching. Nor did she want to do consulting work, private investigations, security, or any of the other options available to retired agents.

“You’ll have Raheem’s after-action on the Talbot briefing by noon. He’s wrapping up with the family now.”

“Good,” Chaz said. “But that’s not why I was calling. I heard HBO’s doing another documentary about the Pinnacles Killer. They know you’re the one who broke it wide open.”

Jude tilted down the receiver so he wouldn’t hear her curse. Then she remembered her paperwork had already been processed. “Sweetheart, they don’t know shit about fuck.”

Chaz laughed good-naturedly. “I get why you wouldn’t go on camera before, but Freddy Henley’s dead. He’s not gonna see you on TV. Now that you found the last one—”

“Darlene Talbot.”

“Right,” Chaz said. “But what I’m saying is, it could be good for the agency. Celebrate our wins.”

“Twelve young women are dead, and it took us over two decades to bring them home. That’s not a win.” Jude saw a bulletin flash on her computer. The bright green banner indicated a confirmed child abduction. She reached for the mouse, but she hesitated when she saw the origin of the notice.

FBI: ATLANTA – GEORGIA BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION: North Falls, Georgia (Clifton County; SW) Missing minor female 14 yo – possible stranger abduction

“Look at it another way,” Chaz said. “It could help you launch your second act. You’d be rolling in the Bens on the speaking circuit. Strutting onto the stage in your leather jacket and your badass swagger.”

“You don’t have to swagger if it’s true.

” Jude slipped on her glasses. She clicked open the notice.

Scrolled through the details. Paisley Walker.

Blonde hair. Blue eyes. 5’2” 110 pounds.

Last seen wearing a long-sleeved Taylor Swift Eras Tour blue hoodie with black leggings and white Skechers sneakers with pink laces.

Left the family home by bike. Disappeared between the hours of seven and seven thirty.

Jude looked at the time. San Francisco was three hours behind Georgia.

The girl had been missing for five hours.

Hopefully the Atlanta bureau already had boots on the ground.

North Falls was a small community in the south-western part of the state.

They didn’t have the resources for this kind of investigation.

Chaz continued, “From what I’ve heard, if you sign up with a speaker’s agency—”

Jude turned the receiver away from her ear as she clicked on a link to the local newspaper. The front page of the North Falls Herald filled the top half of the monitor.

PAISLEY WALKER STILL MISSING

COP KILLER IN CUSTODY

Her heart felt like a fist pounding inside of her chest. She had to open her mouth to breathe.

The photograph below the headline wasn’t of the missing girl, but of a sheriff’s deputy.

The woman was leaning over the body of an elderly man.

Blood had sprayed into her face. There was something haunting about her expression.

She looked utterly alone. Jude read the caption—

Despite witnessing the murder of her father, Chief Deputy Emmy Lou Clifton is still leading the search for Paisley Walker …

“Jude?” Chaz said.

She took off her glasses. Her hand was shaking. “What did you say?”

“I asked if there’s anything I can help you with.”

“Yes.” Jude studied the photo again. “Who’s our guy in Atlanta?”