PROLOGUE
Patricia Holmes glanced at the clock on her desk. It was nearly ten thirty, later than she'd planned to work, but tomorrow marked a milestone she wanted to get right. Her tenth official client as an independent life coach would arrive at nine in the morning, and she was determined to make the session count. Something about the number ten just felt very official…very promising.
She scrolled through her notes on the laptop, reviewing the intake form the client had submitted. This client was a woman in her early fifties, recently laid off from a pharmaceutical company, unsure about what came next. Patricia understood that uncertainty better than most people would guess. Six months ago, she'd been in a similar position, though the layoff had been her own choice. Twenty years in corporate human resources had left her drained and disconnected from the work she'd once loved. The decision to leave had been terrifying, but it had also been necessary.
The Second Act Success program had changed everything. Patricia had enrolled three months after leaving her job, drawn by the promise of guidance in building a coaching practice from the ground up. The twelve-week curriculum had covered everything from business planning to marketing strategies, but more importantly, it had connected her with other professionals making similar transitions. The community aspect had been unexpected and invaluable.
She opened a folder on her desktop labeled "Session Templates" and pulled up the framework she'd developed during the program. The structure felt solid, a good starting point for helping clients identify their strengths and explore new directions. Patricia had always been good at seeing potential inothers, even when they couldn't see it themselves. That skill had served her well in HR, but it had also been limited by corporate constraints. Now she could use it freely, helping people on their own terms rather than the company's.
Her printer hummed as it spit out the worksheets she'd prepared for tomorrow's session. While she waited, Patricia reached for the envelope sitting at the corner of her desk. It had arrived in today's mail, a thank-you note from another program graduate who'd launched her own consulting business last month. Patricia had been one of her early supporters, offering advice during the rough patches and celebrating the wins.
She needed her letter opener to get into the envelope properly; this was one she didn’t want to accidentally tear or crease. The gift had been special, presented to her at the program's graduation ceremony along with a certificate and a standing ovation from her cohort. The opener itself was elegant, with her name engraved on the handle and the program's logo etched into the blade.
Patricia turned back to her desk and reached for the cup where she kept various office supplies. As she did, the light from her desk lamp cast her shadow across the wall to her right. But there was something wrong with the shadow's shape. It looked broader than it should, as if something were standing directly behind her chair.
Patricia started to turn, her brain still processing what her eyes had seen. But she was stopped when pain exploded across the back of her skull. The room tilted sideways as she tried to catch herself on the desk, but her hands wouldn't cooperate. Everything was moving too fast and too slow at the same time.
She hit the floor hard, her cheek pressing against the cool hardwood. The printer was still humming somewhere above her, still producing those worksheets for tomorrow's session. Patriciatried to focus on the sound, tried to use it as an anchor, but the darkness was closing in from all sides.
The last thing she saw before her vision failed completely was a pair of shoes. Black leather, freshly polished, standing just inches from her face. They looked expensive, the kind someone would wear to make an impression at an important meeting.
Then even that small detail faded, and Patricia Holmes saw nothing at all.
CHAPTER ONE
Kate sat at the kitchen table with her laptop open, scrolling through a case file from the Portland field office while Michael stacked wooden blocks on the floor beside her chair. The morning sun streamed through the window above the sink, warming the tile countertop and casting a pleasant glow across the room. She'd made coffee an hour ago, and the mug sat half-empty next to her.
Michael was building something that might have been a tower or possibly a bridge. At three years old, his architectural intentions weren't always clear, but he worked with intense focus, his tongue poking out slightly between his lips the way it always did when he concentrated. Kate glanced down at him every few minutes, making sure he hadn't wandered off or decided to taste the blocks instead of stacking them. Seeing him at work in such a way was a reminder that in another year, there would be decisions about preschool that she and Allen would have to make.
But that was a worry for another time. Currently, the case file on her screen detailed a series of bank frauds across three states. The Portland field office had requested her input on potential suspect profiles, specifically whether the pattern suggested organized crime involvement or a smaller operation. Kate had been working through the financial records for the past two days, noting inconsistencies and connections that the original investigators might have missed. It was the kind of work she'd come to appreciate over the past six months, challenging enough to stay interesting but contained enough that she could do it from home.
The transition to remote consulting had been easier than she'd expected—which was a great surprise, since she’d beenplanning on it for nearly a full year now. After everything that had happened with Diana Vance, after Allen's surgery and the long recovery that followed, Kate had made peace with stepping back from active fieldwork. She still consulted for the FBI, still used the skills she'd developed over three decades, but she did it on her own terms now. Twenty hours a week maximum, handling cases she could work from her laptop, and no more late-night stakeouts or chasing suspects through dark buildings. So far, it seemed perfect.
Allen had returned to work on a limited basis several weeks ago, easing back into his consulting practice with limited hours. The bullet wound from the encounter with Diana had healed well, though he still felt occasional discomfort when he moved certain ways. They'd both learned to live with the reminders of that night, knowing that the physical and psychological scars would probably never completely fade. But they were here, together, and that was what mattered.
Kate saved her notes on the fraud case and closed that file, opening another folder on her desktop. This one was labeled "Project Notes" and contained a collection of documents she'd been working on during her downtime—her memoirs. The idea had started as a joke during coffee with DeMarco a few months back, but the more Kate thought about it, the more it made sense. Three decades of FBI work, over two hundred cases with one of the best success rates in FBI history, and countless stories that deserved to be preserved. She'd started putting together outlines, organizing cases by theme and chronology, jotting down memories while they were still fresh.
The writing itself was harder than she'd anticipated. Kate could analyze a crime scene or interview a suspect with confidence, but translating those experiences into narrative form required different skills. She'd been taking it slowly, working on the project in small chunks, building the structurebefore worrying too much about the actual prose. For now, she had rough timelines and case summaries, notes about partners she'd worked with, and lessons she'd learned. The real writing would come later.
On the floor, Michael knocked over his tower with a satisfied crash, then immediately started rebuilding. Kate smiled and returned her attention to the laptop, pulling up her email to check for any new messages from the Portland office. Instead, she found two texts from DeMarco that had come in over the past hour.
The first was a question about whether Kate had time next week to review a cold case from Baltimore. The second simply read: "Call me when you get a chance?"
Kate had been texting back and forth with DeMarco several times a week ever since DeMarco’s promotion three months ago. DeMarco was now Supervisory Special Agent in Charge of the Criminal Investigative Division, a position that came with significantly more responsibility and considerably less fieldwork. They'd joked about them both being desk-bound now, though DeMarco's desk came with a much larger office and a team of agents to supervise.
Some of their texts were work-related, questions about cases, or requests for Kate's input on investigations. But just as often, they texted about nothing in particular, sharing updates about their lives or complaining about bureaucratic headaches. Kate valued the friendship they'd built over the years, the easy communication that didn't require constant maintenance. And now that neither of them was constantly in the field, their relationship had taken on a much deeper edge of friendship.
She picked up her phone and called DeMarco directly. The line rang twice before connecting.
"Hey, Kate," DeMarco answered. "Thanks for calling back."
"Of course. What's up?"
"Nothing urgent, honestly. What are you up to?"
"Right now, I’m watching Michael rebuild a tower he just knocked down. I think we're on version three or four at this point."
DeMarco laughed. "Persistence. That's a good quality."
