Again, Bellisario shrugged. Damn him. Ruby legitimately couldn’t tell if it was an honest slip, or if the man was very sly at luring her deeper and deeper.

“If it is, I want someone who won’t have to waste time brushing up on the details of Vallejo’s case file,” Bellisario said, “I need you. There is no one who knows that man better than you do, better or worse.”

He wasn’t wrong there, Ruby thought begrudgingly.

“I don’t have a partner, remember?” Ruby said, “the last one didn’t even make it through one case with me before filing for a transfer.”

Instantly, she regretted her snark, but Bellisario just smiled.

“Oh, I’ve already solved that problem,” he said.

Ruby was smart enough to keep her mouth shut this time. For all she knew, the director had hand-picked someone to condescend down to her because she lost her cool once with the man who killed a Federal Agent. There was no one else in the world that could fill his shoes.

“How soon?” she asked.

“Immediately,” Bellisario said, “like I said, two women, two days apart.”

That did not bode well for their potential timeline.

She remained silent, mulling. Doubt flickered in her for just a moment. Maybe the higher-ups were right. What if she wasn’t ready to come back and all she did was make a fool of herself? There would be no third chance.

Bellisario rose, tucking the file folder back into his bag.

“Who are you sticking me with?” Ruby asked.

“You’ll have to come find out,” he said.

He stood over her a moment, a distant sadness shifting across his face.

“Imagine if you could go back in time and stop Vallejo after his first kill, before the media came up with a catchy name, before he got confident and emboldened,” Bellisario said. “That's what this case is.”

Ruby nodded, swallowing past the lump in her throat. It didn’t matter that she knew Bellisario chose to play on her heartstrings like a violin. It still worked, obvious manipulation or not.

There was no time machine she could hop into and stop Vallejo before he started, but there were other killers out there. She couldn’t change the past, but she was in a position to stop criminals before they became just as infamous.

Bellisario waited patiently for her to come to an inevitable conclusion. She either accepted the job now or followed it obsessively from afar, camped in front of the TV watching the news unfold.

There was only one real option.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said.

CHAPTER THREE

Stepping into the Bureau always felt like home in a way. Ruby had a complicated relationship with it, just as she did with her hometown. There were always rules to follow, and expectations to meet. She was always told she had to get along with others.