there somewhere. She decided that she wouldn’t be tossing any of that material.
She sat down at Garland’s desk, imagining how many times he must have settled into the comfy leather chair to muddle through a case in his head. Suddenly she felt an unexpected rush of emotion.
Since the funeral, she’d largely blocked thoughts of Garland out of her mind. It was just too painful. Her birth father was a serial killer who’d disappeared after murdering her mother when she was six. Her adoptive father and mother had been killed by that same serial killer father just a few years ago. And now, the closest she had to a paternal figure was gone too, again at the hands of someone she was supposed to have been able to trust.
She pushed away thoughts of how he left the world and tried to focus on how he’d lived in it. A profile in the newspaper had calculated that Garland Moses was responsible for catching at least 1,200 murderers in his career, including over a hundred serial and spree killers. And those were just the ones in the public record.
But his life wasn’t defined exclusively by the cases he solved. Jessie was more inclined to remember other, less celebrated moments. Her thoughts drifted to breakfasts with him at the Nickel Diner—the origin of the voice password to unlock the door—just blocks from the Central Police Station where they both worked.
She recalled how Garland was the one person who seemed capable of making Hannah smile, no matter how foul a mood she was in. The man projected an image of being standoffish and curt. But both sisters had learned it was a front to hide his surprisingly gooey insides. Jessie summoned up memories of the myriad times when he’d bucked her up, expressing confidence in her abilities even when she doubted them.
Feeling tears well up in her eyes, Jessie reached for a tissue in the box on the desk. As she dabbed at them, she noticed something that had escaped her attention the last time she was here. It was a small, metal paperweight in the shape of a coffee mug. On it was a tiny inscription. She picked it up and turned it over in the light to better read the little letters. The words were familiar to her but not ones she would have expected to find on the desk of a man as seemingly unspiritual as Garland Moses. It read:
Whoever kills one life kills the world entire, and whoever saves one life saves the world entire.
Jessie stared at it for a long time. Though he’d never said it out loud, it was clear that, in his own grumbly, unassuming way, this had been his maxim. He’d lived it, even if he never spoke it. She wondered what he’d think of her deleting Captain Decker’s voice message. Would he shake his head in gentle disappointment? What would Ryan say if he could speak right now?
Before she knew what she was doing, Jessie had picked up her phone and dialed Decker’s number.
CHAPTER FIVE
Jessie could tell people were surprised to see her.
As she walked through the station bullpen toward Decker’s office, she thought she caught a few dirty looks too. She pretended not to notice.
When she’d left the department, she’d been formally cleared of having posted racist Facebook comments. Evidence showed that her account, rarely used, had been hacked. But some of her former co-workers clearly still had their doubts. She suspected that was the reason for the nasty glances. But most people just looked shocked to see her three days after she’d officially parted ways with the LAPD.
She knocked on Decker’s door, which was slightly ajar, and waited for a response. Despite her better judgment, she glanced over at the Homicide Special Section unit’s work area. It was currently empty, which suggested everyone was out working a case. Her old desk was bare. Facing it was Ryan’s, which was still covered in papers, as if he’d just left them there to take a coffee break and would be back at any moment.
“Come in,” called out a familiar voice.
She stepped into the office and closed the door behind her. There were two people in the room. Captain Roy Decker stood up behind his desk. He looked somehow appreciably older than when she’d seen him on Friday—tall and skinny, his sunken chest seeming to collapse in on itself. He was sixty but the deep creases in his face made him look closer to seventy. Atop his