He knew he wasn’t the only one who was struggling. Jess had pulled the trigger tonight. No cop did that without going through hell. It didn’t matter who was on the other end of the bullet. Frost had never faced that split-second choice, or the consequences that came with it.

“Not really,” she replied.

“I know you had to do it, Jess. If you didn’t, Dr. Stein would have taken a knife in her chest. Lucy wasn’t Lucy.”

“I know that, too, but it doesn’t mean I’m not going to see the girl’s face when I close my eyes. She was an innocent kid, and she was a friend of yours. I’m sorry, Frost.”

It took a lot for Jess to say that, and they both knew it. Jess locked up her emotions behind her badge. She had only one philosophy on the job. You do what you have to do. You make the tough choices, because no one else will.

“You talk to the doctors?” she asked.

Frost nodded. “The outlook is good, but the surgery will take several more hours.”

“Keep me posted.”

“I will. Her parents are on the way. I’m waiting for them.”

“You want me to talk to them?” Jess asked.

“No, I’d like to do it.”

“Whatever you want.” She studied him up and down. “You look like you could use a doctor yourself. They should run a CT or an MRI on that thick head of yours.”

Frost smiled. “Yeah. Soon.”

Jess got up from the chair. She headed for the door, and his eyes followed her until she was gone. They’d said what they needed to say to each other. They’d had disagreements over the years, but they always made peace.

He lingered in the cafeteria. His headache was back, and he popped more Advil. He thought about Lucy, on the operating table, and he pictured the faces of the women in the photographs in Darren Newman’s storage locker. Victims. Lock it down, Jess would tell him, but he felt a wave of anger at the world. That was how he’d felt when Katie died, too.

“Frost?”

He looked up in surprise. Francesca Stein was in front of him. He hadn’t even heard her as she walked across the cafeteria floor.

“Dr. Stein,” he said, dropping into her formal name again. She wore the same clothes she’d worn all evening. She hadn’t been home. “I thought I asked an officer to take you back to your place.”

“You did. I needed to see you.”

He gestured at the chair that Jess had left pulled out, and Frankie sat down. She laced her long fingers together and looked uncomfortable. It was a strange look for a woman who always seemed in control of things around her.

He could read the trouble in her eyes.

“What’s bothering you, Frankie?”