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“I’m aware,” Cal replied, keeping his voice gentle. “And, no, he’s not walking free. He will face prison time.”
“Good.”
Silence stretched between them then, each second pulsating with tension. He finally couldn’t take it anymore and sighed.
“Ellie...” he began, but found himself at a loss for words, unsure how to comfort her when he wasn’t even sure what he was feeling himself.
“I don’t think there’s anything else to say. Goodbye, Cal.” She hung up.
Cal listened to the dial tone a moment more before slowly placing the handset back in its cradle. He ran a hand through his already disheveled hair, struggling to focus on the mound of paperwork before him. He was well aware that his decision to defend Jaxon Thorne hadn’t endeared him to Ellie at all. But he also knew that he couldn’t have lived with himself if he’d allowed Jax to become another faceless victim of a system that was all too quick to condemn.
His gaze strayed back to the Shadow Stalker case files open in front of him. They still held secrets, riddles, unanswered questions that would probably haunt him for the rest of his life.
But one name caught his eye, and he reached for the folder, flipping it open.
Hope Summers.
Ellie’s oldest sister, who disappeared twenty years ago. She was the whole reason Alexis and Ellie had come to California and been swept up in the Shadow Stalker case. It was assumed she’d been a Stalker victim, but Hank Firestone had kept trophies, and none of them had belonged to Hope.
Cal traced his fingers over the blurry picture of Hope. She had dark hair, unlike the other two Summers women, who were both blond, but her eyes were identical to Ellie’s. She’d been eighteen when she vanished. Ellie had been only six. Alexis, eight. Did they even remember her? He knew he didn’t remember much from when he was that young. And yet they had left their lives behind in Chicago to come here and search for her.
A lightbulb went off inside his mind. He pulled her file free from the others and turned to his computer.
This was it. He couldn’t change his job for Ellie, but he could put it to work for her. He was a damn good researcher.
He would find Hope.
And then, maybe Ellie would forgive him.
* * *
