MONDAY MORNING Detective Abby Hart filled her coffee cup as soon as the pot finished, then settled in at her desk and turned on the computer. She yawned, covering her mouth with the back of her hand, still a little foggy without caffeine. She’d participated in a beach volleyball tournament over the weekend. It’d been hard and tested her conditioning, but she and her beach partner had triumphed and taken home the trophy.

As she stretched and grimaced at the sore muscles that screamed, she was glad the office was quiet; she was first in and anticipating a court appearance later in the week. A reminder about her scheduled meeting with DA Drew in an hour popped up on her calendar. Homicide cases could take years to get to trial. When they did, she needed her head to be right back in the midst of the investigation as if it were fresh. She had several cases pending in various stages of the court process. The one Drew wanted to discuss was a gang shooting that occurred nearly a year ago. It was due to go to jury selection soon, so she planned to review all the pertinent details. A sharp pang of sadness sliced through her as she scanned the summary. She’d consulted on the gang shooting with her first partner in homicide, her mentor, Asa Foster. He was retired at the time, but still a great resource. His death a few months ago still stung.

Shoving the sadness aside, she looked at the rest of her to-do list. She also wanted to review her most pressing open homicide case, spending her day after the meeting with the DA going over the Adonna Joiner homicide details. She heard footsteps but didn’t look up because it was bound to be just another office mate or her partner, Bill.

“Abby.”

The sharp, clear voice demanded her attention. Lieutenant Jacoby strode toward her desk. Something was in the works. The LT wasn’t usually in until later. He dropped a manila envelope in front of her. “Glad you’re here early. Just got this regarding the Joiner case.”

Abby reached for the envelope. “I planned on pulling that file and calling the lab for an update.”

The brutal rape and murder of a ten-year-old girl was a study in firsts: the first case she and her new partner, Bill Roper, had caught on their first on-call shift. Together they’d hit it hard for forty-eight hours and gotten nowhere. Then frustration set in. For the months since, it was their priority case. Evidence had been collected from the victim’s body, but there was no hit in CODIS, the national offender database. Abby and Bill had knocked on doors and collected voluntary DNA swabs from several persons of interest, only to be stymied by a backlog at the lab. She often called Clayton and Althea Joiner, the victim’s parents, to touch base. In fact, she planned to pay them a visit tomorrow.

She looked at the envelope and realized that it was from the forensics lab. Her head snapped back and she stared at the lieutenant. “They got a match?” She undid the clasp and pulled the contents out, tense now and wide-awake.

“They did.” He pointed. “Halfway down. They got a match from one of the samples we took to exclude.”

Abby read the finding and was up out of her chair. “Unbelievable. It’s Curtis. I had a feeling.”

Javon Curtis, a single man, a loner living two doors away from the victim in a house he’d inherited from his mother, had been Abby’s number one suspect. He had no prior record and cooperated completely, even willingly providing the buccal swab that just implicated him, but her gut had told her something was off about the man.

“As soon as Bill gets in, go pick him up and bring him in for an interview. Hopefully he’ll open up.”

The adrenaline evaporated like smoke. “I have a meeting scheduled —”

“DA Drew is in the loop on this. Knowing you, you’ll have a confession before noon.” Jacoby gave her a half salute and left the office.

Abby looked at the clock. Bill should be in any minute. She couldn’t sit back down. She did a happy dance all the way to the file cabinet to pull the Joiner file.

“Hallelujah!” she said to the empty office. “I knew it was him. I just wish we could have proved it two months ago.”

She wanted to call the young victim’s father. He’d been waiting to hear that his daughter’s killer had been identified, and Abby knew better than anyone what that kind of wait was like. But she decided it would make more sense to have the suspect in custody first and, as the LT had hopefully implied, have a confession. The killing of Adonna Joiner had been horrific, and the close-knit neighborhood she’d lived in was volatile.

Abby sat at her desk with the file and remembered that the suspect, Javon Curtis, had stood next to the grieving parents at many of the numerous press conferences while they pleaded for any witnesses to come forward. What a Judas. She and Bill were the only ones who suspected him, but there was no evidence. When Curtis claimed to have been out of town at the time the murder occurred and provided his buccal swab for testing in order to exclude, she’d wondered then if her instincts had betrayed her.

He snowed everyone with his easy compliance —tried to throw us off. Abby’s annoyance was tempered by the knowledge that he couldn’t fool the science of an exact match. But match notwithstanding, she wanted a confession. Abby hated relying solely on DNA in court. As strong as a DNA match like this was, she wanted an admission and, if possible, a little contrition. She rarely got the contrition; usually criminals only felt bad about getting caught. But a case where someone actually expressed remorse always made her feel a little better.

Abby had kept tabs on Curtis and a finger on the pulse of the neighborhood in the months since the murder. There had been understandable anger over the lab situation. But the Joiners were patient, churchgoing people. They had faith they’d get their answers, and Abby was overjoyed that it appeared their faith would be rewarded today.

Bill walked in, and Abby hit him with the news before he could fill up his coffee mug.

It was just before 9 a.m. when they arrived in the quiet neighborhood and knocked on the front door of the suspect’s residence. The only precaution they’d taken was having a black-and-white cruise the alley to be certain the man didn’t flee. But neither Abby nor Bill expected the suspect would give them any trouble.

He didn’t. Javon Curtis invited them inside his house and then quietly accepted being handcuffed after they informed him that DNA identified him as at least a rapist and at most a killer.

Then everything went sideways.

Abby stepped out of the house onto the porch, Bill and Javon behind her. Bill pulled the door closed, and Abby turned to take the first step down. She snatched her weapon from its holster as training kicked in.

There was a man on the lawn pointing a gun at them.

From the corner of her eye she saw Javon try to bolt left. Bill grabbed at him while conflicting emotions swirled through Abby’s insides like a debris-filled tornado. The man with the gun was her victim’s father, Clayton Joiner.

“Put the gun down now!” she ordered, reflexively shifting left to shield Bill and Javon.

Joiner ignored her, also stepping to the left. “He murdered my baby!”

“Please, Clayton.” Abby’s gun was up and on target. A thousand questions begging —most of all: How did Clayton know?

“He’ll be charged; he’ll pay. Put the gun down.”

Something like a sob and a groan escaped his lips. He raised his gun and fired.

So did Abby.