After learning that Sadie had been murdered, Lila left the office and walked north, pulled by some need to be near the place where Gavin had thrown the women into the river. She was now his lone survivor. She walked until she found herself in the middle of the Stone Arch Bridge, a structure that looked like it belonged in the Middle Ages, its graceful limestone arches leapfrogging across the river. Originally built for trains, it now supported bicyclists, joggers, and pedestrians.

Lila leaned against the steel rail and gazed up the river at St. Anthony Falls. Beneath her, the river’s coppery foam carried a tree branch past the spot where it had once carried the bodies of Eleanora Abrams, Virginia Mercotti, and Chloe Ludlow. Sadie Vauk would have made that same journey had she not been such a good swimmer.

Sadie’s father had told Niki that swimming laps helped Sadie deal with what Gavin Spencer had done to her. That’s why she had gone to the fitness center, to clear her head of those poisonous memories. They’d found her in the parking lot, one bullet in her head and one in her chest. The night-shift detective identified Sadie by her driver’s license but hadn’t made the connection to Niki’s case until morning.

Niki had brought surveillance footage to show Andi. It showed Sadie leaving the gym and walking to the parking lot. A light-colored SUV pulled up. The view was grainy and the car was near the end of the lot, but they could see Sadie stop as if someone in the SUV was talking to her. Then she walked up to the car and pointed north.

“Probably asking directions?” Niki had said.

Two muzzle flashes sent bullets ripping into Sadie. Then Lila watched Sadie fall to the ground as the car drove away.

“We’re ninety percent sure it’s an SUV, smaller, white or silver,” Niki had said. “It’s just too grainy to get a lock on the make or see the driver. But we all know who’s responsible.”

“But can we prove it?” Andi had asked.

Niki dropped her head in defeat. “No.”

As Lila stood on the Stone Arch Bridge, she ran through their few remaining moves. Andi would go to the hearing and argue that Sadie’s statements be allowed to go before a jury under a good-faith catchall of inherent reliability, but that argument would fail. With no proof that Gavin helped to plan Sadie’s death, they couldn’t use the lineup or anything she had said without violating Gavin’s constitutional right to confrontation. Andi’s final line of defense remained a dismissal without prejudice. They could refile the charges in the future if they found new evidence, but to go to trial now meant an acquittal and double jeopardy.

Lila looked out over the river, searching for a strategy that might bend fate, but no matter how she moved the pieces, it always ended with the white king tipped on its side. Lila had gone to law school to stop men like Gavin Spencer and to protect women like Sadie Vauk. She had failed, and now Gavin was about to walk free.