After I got my master’s in writing, I took a 911 job because I thought it would be a good job to do while writing on the side. It was. (It also paid four times what teaching did, and I was deep in student-loan debt.) The job allowed me to hear and participate in the most emotional moments of many people’s lives, an honor I never saw coming, an honor every writer could learn from. I learned from that job that fear sounds the same in all languages, but so does love. My deep thanks go to all three 911 ComCens I worked in over the years. Thank you, my old co-workers, you nutty kids! Whichever people you think I based these characters on, you’re wrong, but I love you for thinking so stubbornly that you’re right (a mark of a true dispatcher, a stubbornness I will myself continue to enjoy until my dying day). Thanks, always, to the good men and women in police enforcement and the fire/medical profession, the ones actively working to make our world safer in all its glorious diversity. Thanks to my amazing agent, Susanna Einstein, without whom I would never have had the chance to tell this story (and thanks for her help in revision after revision after yet another revision. You knew what it needed to be). And to Stephanie Kelly, thank you with all my heart for understanding this story and bringing out the very best in it. You made these characters sing. To everyone at Dutton—thank you! What a team! I’m honored to work with every one of you. To Sharon Monroe and Jasmin Canty, thank you for amazing sensitivity reads. To my friends and family, thank you. You’re my heart.