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“Agreed,” Jude said. “We need to speak to his secretary again. She noticed that Elijah had a standing meeting on the last Friday of every month that coincided with money missing from petty cash. She’ll be able to tell us when it started and when it ended, and whether or not there’s a different pattern for a different woman now. ”

The speaker shook with the sound of Elijah blowing his nose.

Belinda reached over to take his hand. She asked, “Do they know who took her?”

“Some Mexican, probably.”

“Fucking Mexicans,” Belinda said. “The whole town’s going to hell.”

“The whole fucking country.”

Emmy let out a long sigh. At least they still had their racism. She turned the volume off, asked Jude, “What now?”

“I want to reopen the Broken Angels case.”

Emmy gathered from the quick response that Jude had been thinking this for quite a while. For her part, Emmy needed a moment to adjust to the swift change in direction. She was as bad as Elijah, only looking at the things that were put directly in front of her.

She told Jude, “You want to see what Dad and I got wrong.”

Jude looked circumspect. “Let me ask you this. What was Gerald’s plan?”

“What do you mean?”

“The Misguided Angel podcast drops. The twelve-year-old rape kit down in Metter gets tested. Adam’s DNA is matched. He’s released from death row. What was Gerald’s plan?”

“To put Adam back in prison.”

“Right,” Jude said. “If you don’t know what to do, start at the beginning.”

Emmy was never going to get used to hearing this stranger quote her father. “Dad already asked Virgil to get all the old file boxes out of storage at the GBI field office. We were going to review everything at his place over the weekend.”

“Why do it at Virgil’s?”

“Dad didn’t want it getting out that we were reopening the case.”

“That ship has sailed,” Jude said. “Tell Virgil to bring every-thing to the station and we’ll go through the case together.”

“Absolutely not,” Emmy said. “Paisley Walker is our priority.”

“Sweetheart, we’ve almost hit the twenty-four-hour mark.

This isn’t a parent or acquaintance abduction.

Paisley didn’t run away. She’s not hiding somewhere.

A predator took her. We’re not in a sprint anymore.

This is a marathon. All we can do is hope to find the body so that Carol and Elijah can hopefully know some peace. ”

Emmy knew she was right, but she couldn’t completely give up hope. “I’m not directing resources away from a missing, endangered child.”

“I’m not asking you to,” Jude said. “Tell me what your DFR is saying. Who should we be talking to? Where should we be looking? What are we not doing?”

Emmy couldn’t answer. Her DFR was depleted. Nothing felt right.

“Everybody out in that squad room, every agency—hundreds of people—they’ll keep looking for Paisley.

Re-canvassing the neighborhoods, re-searching all the areas, interviewing teachers, other students, all the people in Paisley’s life.

Meanwhile, we’ll look at the Adam Huntsinger case, and we’ll tap the weak spots.

If there’s a break, it might lead us to Paisley. ”

Emmy shook her head, but right now, she couldn’t come up with a better way forward.

Giving in to Jude was a hell of a lot easier than she would’ve thought three hours ago.

“All right, I’ll drive with Virgil to his house and help get the boxes.

We can set up in the conference room inside the jail complex so we’re not in anybody’s way. ”

“No,” Jude said, because apparently, she was in charge again. “You’re so exhausted that you’re slurring your words. It’s six o’clock in the morning. Let’s all meet back here at ten. That’ll give you four hours to get some sleep, take a shower and change.”

“I don’t need you telling me what to do.”

“Yes, you do.” Jude stood up. “I’ll see you both back here at ten.”

Emmy was helpless to stop her from leaving. She looked up at Cole. His jaw was set. She reached over to turn on the lights, telling him, “You went real quiet back there.”

“She’s not wrong about tapping the old case for weak spots.”

“Is she right, though?” Emmy’s eyes blurred again. She had to give Jude one thing—her bones ached from weariness. But she still couldn’t leave. “Shut the door. Tell me what you’re not telling me.”

Cole closed the door and leaned his back against it. He stared her right in the eye. “I need to speak to my chief.”

Emmy tried to rally. “You’ve got her.”

Cole’s eyes shifted. He looked at the wall behind her. His nostrils flared. She watched tears pool into his eyes.

“Hey.” Emmy stood up, held his head between her hands so that he had to look at her. This wasn’t work talk. He needed his mother. Emmy caressed her hand to his cheek. “Talk to me, baby. I’m here.”

Cole took a deep breath. Tensed the muscles in his neck. Emmy felt her exhaustion disappear. Every part of her brain came into focus while she waited for her son to find the courage to speak.

“The photo of the guy’s junk on Elijah Walker’s phone,” Cole said. “He didn’t steal it from the internet. It’s somebody in town. I recognized the moles.”

“All right.” It wasn’t a surprise to Emmy that her son had a sex life. He’d come out to her when he was fifteen. “And?”

“It’s … uhm …” He stopped again. “It’s Jack.”

Emmy laughed. She couldn’t help herself. “Are you shitting me? The dick pic on Elijah Walker’s phone is Jack Whitlock?”

“Jesus, Mom.” Cole pulled away from her. “It’s not funny.”

“No, of course it’s not.” Emmy felt horrible for laughing, but it made a certain kind of cruel sense that Jack had made a terrible thing worse.

The slimy asshole had put Emmy at the center of the production, repeatedly describing her as a “beautiful yet flawed” investigator.

He’d also single-handedly revived interest in Adam Huntsinger’s case, which had directly led to Adam’s release from death row, which in some ways had led to the murder of her father.

And on top of that, he’d broken her son’s heart.

“Baby, I’m sorry,” she said. “I know this is difficult to talk about, but I’ve gotta ask: is it possible maybe Jack posted a photo online and Elijah passed it off as his own?”

“That’s called cockfishing, and no.”

Emmy could’ve happily lived out the rest of her life without knowing that word.

Cole said, “Elijah is Jack’s insurance broker. We used to make fun of him because he’s such a prude.”

Emmy felt her throat constrict. She remembered that Elijah had mentioned Jack’s podcast in their earlier interview. At the time, she had passed it off as Six Degrees of North Falls, but now, she realized she’d missed it.

“I’m sorry.” Cole was shaking his head, like he couldn’t believe he’d been so stupid.

“You take care of my insurance. I don’t know how it works.

Jack always met Elijah on the last Friday of the month.

He said it was to talk about his policies.

I thought it was normal to meet with your broker like that. ”

He looked so devastated that Emmy wanted to wrap him in her arms like she had when he was a baby. Still, she had to ask, “Did you know Jack was taking money for sex?”

“No, but it makes sense. He always had a lot of cash.” Cole gave a dry laugh. “He never charged me.”

“You should’ve charged him. We both know he was punching above his weight.”

“Yeah.”

Emmy could tell it was too soon to joke.

The truth was, she’d been wary of the way Jack had pursued Cole.

He was a few years older and much more experienced, but Emmy had held her tongue because it wasn’t her place to tell her son who to date.

Now, she was painfully reminded of the way her entire family had managed her bad relationship with Jonah.

She said to Cole what she wished people had said to her.

“Jack is a terrible person. He tried to use you to get to me and Papa. He made you think that you were special, but the entire time, he was using you to make himself feel better about his shitty existence. You can do ten times better than him. He didn’t deserve you. ”

Cole nodded, but he still looked devastated.

Emmy fell back on the practical. “I’m going to show you how insurance works. It’s not complicated. You’re a grown man. I should’ve shown you sooner.”

“Okay.” Cole wiped his nose with his sleeve. Straightened his shoulders. “I went onto Jack’s TikTok to see where he was when Paisley disappeared. He’s been in Los Angeles since Sunday. He’s got a producer he’s pitching the podcast with.”

Emmy hadn’t even considered the possibility of a streamer picking up the podcast, but now she was genuinely alarmed.

Cole said, “He posted a video about how Paisley’s gonna be part two of the series. He’s on the red-eye back to Georgia. I’m sure he’s gonna stir up more shit when he gets here.”

Emmy made her head nod. “Okay.”

“Are you going to tell her?”

He meant Jude. “No, but I want you to check flights and confirm Jack was out of town just so we’re covering our bases, all right?”

“Yep.” Cole took another deep breath. “I’ll see you back here at ten.”

Emmy watched him open the door, walk down the hall.

Cole’s head was down. She didn’t know which was hurting him more, his heart or his pride.

For her part, Emmy regretted not beating Jack to death with his own pocket pussy when she’d had the chance.

The asshole had lovebombed Cole for six months without revealing that he was working on the podcast. He’d thought Cole would be eager to throw his own mother and grandfather under the bus.

He’d thought wrong.