But Detective Rod Smalls should have known better. His daughter listened about as well as he did when it came to prioritizing her safety over others.

Nina had raced through the legs of his deputy, zigzagged through a stream of personnel, and entered the crime scene at her father’s heels.

There were blood and bullet holes everywhere, but no body. No known killer, no obvious victims. Just a big messy scene.

If her father had been surprised to see her there, he didn’t show it. His eyes were roving the carpets and walls, pinpointing bullet holes and casings.

“Every crime scene tells a story,” he told her, his voice eerily soft in the already quiet room. “But unlike a story you read in books or watch on TV, you usually only have one real chance to get it right. The scene isn’t the same the second or third time… You must see it all. Every last detail. And don’t let anyone tell you that law enforcement is all analytics and methodical working. It’s an art, really. And just like storytellers, we often have to connect the dots using intuition, and sometimes our imagination, as our guide.”

It was funny how Detective Nina Smalls—now thirty-nine years old and her father long buried in the ground—couldn’t remember what she ate for breakfast yesterday, but she could remember her father’s words. She fell in love with policework before the age of eight, but that fateful date with her father at the crime scene… It was the most memorable birthday she ever had. And it solidified her love of policework and her fate to follow in her father’s shoes.

Now she sat at a table in an interrogation room, trying to connect the dots of what she knew about Georgia Britt, former nurse and yoga extraordinaire.

“It was an accident,” Georgia said, face resting in her palms.

“An accident,” Detective Smalls parroted back to her. It was another tactic she learned from her father, and one often used by therapists to demonstrate they are listening to clients and want them to further clarify or explore their own words. Strangely, Detective Smalls had found her psychology training to be more useful than most of the law enforcement exercises from the academy.

“I never meant to… I would never hurt someone on purpose,” Georgia said.

“And by someone… are we talking about Brian Massey?” Detective Smalls pressed.

Georgia shrunk down farther in her chair, suddenly looking less like a tall, athletic, fitness guru, and more like a lost little girl.

“Yes. I’d been out of nursing school for less than a year when it happened. I was so happy, so excited… well, not that any of that matters. I fucked up, okay?”

“You fucked up?”