“Call it a friendly suggestion.”

“Once again, I live to serve.”

Now Baima did roll his eyes. Kimberly took that as her cue to leave. Her supervisor had granted her permission to find a better way to cooperate with the state. Surely that included delivering Tommy Mark Evans.

Kimberly’s father had entered the Bureau after a brief stint with the Chicago PD. He’d been old-school FBI, in the days when G-men wore dark suits, obeyed all things Hoover, and lived by the mandate Never Embarrass the Bureau.

Truthfully, Kimberly had been too young to remember her father’s time in the field, but she liked to picture him in a somber black suit, his dark eyes unreadable as he stood across from some petty gangster, breaking the suspect’s alibi with a mere arch of his eyebrow.

After his workaholic ways imploded his marriage, Quincy had gotten into profiling, transferring to what was then called the Behavorial Science Unit at Quantico. In theory, he’d moved into the field of research in order to spend more time with his daughters. In reality, he had traveled more than ever, working over a hundred cases a year, each one more shockingly violent and twisted than the last.

He never talked about his work. Not when he’d been with a field office and certainly not once he started profiling. Instead, Kimberly had taken it upon herself to become immersed in her father’s world, sneaking into his study late at night, flipping through his homicide textbooks, glancing at manila folders filled with crime scene photographs, diagrams of blood spatter, reports from coroners’ offices filled with phrases like “petechial hemorrhages,” “defensive wounds,” and “postmortem mutilation.”

Kimberly had been an FBI agent for only four years, but in many ways she had been studying violent crime her whole life. First, under the mistaken impression that if she could understand her father’s work, then she could understand the man. Second, as a victim herself, trying to wade through the emotional morass that came with knowing her mother died a long, brutal death, fighting for her life inch by inch, as she crawled across the hardwood floors of her elegant Philadelphia town house.

Had Bethie died in a state of terror, feeling caught, helpless, trapped? Or had she felt outraged to have fought so hard and still lost the war? Or perhaps by then her pain had been so great, she’d been merely grateful. Mandy had died the year before. Maybe in those final moments, Bethie was thinking how nice it would be to see her daughter again.

Kimberly didn’t know. Kimberly would never know.

And in the hours after midnight, her thoughts often took her to dark places where other people, normal people, God willing, never had to go.

In the end, she and her father rarely spoke of their jobs, because it wasn’t their jobs they had in common. Kimberly worked for the post-9/11 Bureau, operating out of a beautiful office compound in the middle of a serenely landscaped industrial park. Average age was thirty-five. Females comprised a quarter of the workforce. Men thought nothing of wearing pastel shirts.

Instead, Kimberly and her father shared something deeper, more poignant. They understood what it was like to strive so hard to save a stranger’s life while living each day knowing they had failed the ones they loved.

Mostly, they understood the importance of always moving forward, because if you stood in one place too long, you risked getting crushed by the boulder weight of regret.

A little after eleven a.m., Kimberly headed to her car. She’d already checked the Georgia Navigator for latest traffic news, and according to the website, GA 400 was clear. Alpharetta lay just twenty-five miles north of the Atlanta Field Office, and Kimberly made good time.

This late in the season, football was done. Instead, Coach Urey was teaching gym class to a bunch of gawky ninth graders who were a mess of arms, legs, and interesting body piercings. When Kimberly finally found the gym, Urey didn’t need to see her creds to talk. Her mere presence was enough for him to take a much-needed break.

She warmed him up with the usual prattle-how was football season, what did he think of the new high school, seemed to be a great group of kids.

Urey, who was about as wide as he was tall, with the requisite buzz cut and beer gut, took it all in stride. Should’ve made it to state this year. Kids really had the heart. But it was a young team, made some mistakes. By gawd they’d get ’em next year.

They walked down a hallway as they spoke. Urey offered her water. She declined. His gaze fell to her stomach, and she could see him mentally wrestling-was the woman pregnant, not pregnant, were FBI agents even allowed to be pregnant. Finally, he did the sensible thing and said nothing at all.

“So I’m trying to track down one of your former players,” she started out casually as they turned a corner in the vast hallway of lockers. “Nothing alarming. I’m just cleaning up odds and ends from another case and have some property to return to him.”

“Property?”

“Class ring. It has the football emblem on it with his jersey number. That’s how I knew to come here.”

“Oh sure, the kids load up their rings with everything. Hell, if I’d had all those choices in my day…”

Kimberly nodded her head in sympathy, as Urey re-trod the same ground Mac had already walked down. Apparently, men did take their class rings seriously. War medals, and all that.

“Do you know his name?” Urey asked now. “Or tell me his jersey number. I can probably fill in the rest. Not that I spend too much time with these kids.”

“Ring owner graduated in oh-six,” Kimberly supplied. “If I understand the symbols correctly, he played quarterback. Jersey number eighty-six.”

Urey stopped walking. For one moment, under the fluorescent lights, his face appeared gray. Then he collected himself, squaring his shoulders resiliently.

“I’m sorry, Special Agent Quincy. If you’d phoned ahead, I coulda saved you a trip. Ring belonged to Tommy Mark Evans. Fine kid. One of the best QBs I ever had. Great arm, but also solid. Held up under pressure. He graduated magna cum laude and got himself a football scholarship to Penn State.”

“He’s out of town?” Kimberly asked in confusion. “Going to college in Pennsylvania?”

But Urey shook his head. “Not anymore. Tommy came home for Christmas last year. Guess he went for a drive. Nobody really knows. But apparently he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Took two bullets to the brain, tap, tap on the forehead. Parents still haven’t recovered. You just don’t expect a strong, handsome kid like that to suddenly wind up dead.”

BURGERMAN TOOK ME TO THE PARK.

Younger kids were on the swings, teeter-totter, merry-go-round. Some older kids, closer to my age, were flying around the beat-up court in a pickup game of hoops.

Burgerman nudged me. “Go ahead. Join ’em. It’s all right. Get some color on your face. Christ, you look like shit, you know?”

For a moment, I didn’t believe he really meant that I could go. He nudged me harder, nearly knocking me to the ground, so I took the hint and went. I joined the team with shirts. Going skins would’ve invited too many questions.

In the beginning, I held back. It felt strange to be on a playground, too be around other kids, to hear them laughing and dribbling and swearing a little when a boy missed a shot or took an elbow to the gut. I kept waiting for everyone to stop and stare. I wanted them to ask, What the hell happened to you? I wanted someone to say, Hey, buddy, wake up, it’s all been a bad dream, but it’s over now and life is good.

But no one said anything. They played basketball.