After hanging out with Andy for the last couple days, Kara realized that he ran the office and the staff looked to him for guidance, not the chief. She wasn’t surprised. Andy instilled loyalty among his people.

“He was included in the memo—but I don’t care what he says, for the next four days at a minimum, no one is to ride alone. Agent Costa is going to debrief our office sometime today with more information about the killer, but we have to watch out for each other. And—just in case—keep the door locked when you’re alone.”

Now Abigail looked freaked, and maybe she should be, Kara thought.

They left the station. The first two principals they checked on were alive and well—one they woke up, and one was tending to his yard.

Andy explained to each what was going on and suggested that they not be alone for the rest of the day and night. The first was divorced and lived alone. Two other cops had spoken to him the night before, and he had already made plans to visit his daughter in Seattle. Andy got her contact information and his cell phone number.

The second, a vice principal at the elementary school, felt they were overreacting but finally—after thirty minutes of conversation and arguments—agreed that he would cancel his standing golf game that morning and stay home with his wife.

Andy was frustrated. “He didn’t take us seriously.”

“You did what you could,” Kara said.

“I’ll have patrol drive by every hour. It’s all I can do—I can’t force them to leave town or hire a bodyguard.”

He called in the order.

“Andy—you can’t take this personally.”

“Wouldn’t you? This is your town, too. You may not live here anymore, but your grandmother does. You have friends here. There are seven thousand people, take or leave, who live here full-time. They live in Liberty Lake because it’s safe. A good place to raise kids. A good place for recreation, to start a family, to be happy. And this person has stolen that security from us. From everyone. No one is going to feel safe again.”

Kara didn’t want to tell him she didn’t have many friends, and none here, other than her grandmother. And maybe Maddox. In fact, Andy was probably the closest thing she had to a friend and they’d just met.

And safety? It was relative and never a given.

“Andy, Liberty Lake has you. And they’ll have you when this is over. You’ll make them feel safe again.”

“I don’t know how you live and work in Los Angeles. So much violence and hate and anger. Senseless violence. I love my town, Kara. I don’t want it to change.”

It was a naive but sweet idea. Kara didn’t want to destroy Andy’s optimism, so she said, “Then help it stay the same.”

She saw people for who they were—the good, the bad, the very, very ugly. She didn’t see a lot of good, but so what? That was the way the world worked. Violence might seem senseless to someone who had a good soul, but she understood it. She knew why the people she went after hurt and killed people. For money, for power, for control. To make themselves feel superior.