“It’s not about the NYPD,” the lawyer said. “I’m calling about one of your father’s cases. His name came up as I was researching an old investigation that dates back to Wichita, Kansas.”

Ellie felt a chill run up her spine. Her father. The College Hill Strangler. Somehow she’d always known that eventually this phone call would come.

“Is this about William Summer?”

Rogan handed Ellie a venti latte from Starbucks as she replaced the handset. She hadn’t realized she’d been on the phone long enough for him to make a coffee run.

“You’re an angel on earth, Jeffrey James.”

“Figured you’d want your privacy.” Rogan had left his desk shortly after she uttered the name William Summer. “You want to talk?”

“That was a defense attorney. She wants to meet with me about the case.”

“He’s trying to appeal his conviction or something? Get the fuck out. He pleaded guilty on a mountain of evidence.”

There was an era in Wichita, Kansas, when children lived in the midst of a real-life bogeyman. Someone who appeared inside homes to kill women and children. He didn’t simply kill them, either. He controlled them. Positioned, posed, and staged them. He took his time with them. They were his entertainment as long as he could drag it out until the final moment when he ended their lives.

Children her age, in that place, were taught to check the phone lines intermittently to be sure no one had cut them. They knew how to turn the series of multiple locks installed on all entries to the house, including from the basement. Eventually, when the killings stopped, the College Hill Strangler became more regional folklore than a constant fear. But for Ellie, his shadow lingered.

The basement that used to be the space where she and her brother, Jess, could play Ping-Pong or produce their own impromptu talent shows became her father’s makeshift office away from the precinct. Long after the task force shut down, he continued to work the case, adding bigger whiteboards for his ever-expanding list of theories. Detective Jerry Hatcher was determined to find the killer who had eluded him for nearly a decade.

“No, it’s an attorney here in the city. A friend of hers hasn’t been heard from in more than a week. They found some blood spatter in the house where she was last seen, and it matched to one of the samples from the case.”

She waited a moment for him to digest the information that she had already processed. “Okay, but the bad guy confessed and is locked up for life. The rest of it’s noise.”

With almost anyone else, Ellie would have shut down the conversation. But maybe more than anyone—besides Jess—Rogan understood the balance she had tried to strike between putting up a good fight for her father’s legacy and forcing herself to accept the hard truth.