That was the truth of it, and it was both the most comforting and the most troubling thing about the whole case.

He had not solved a mystery or made a brilliant deduction or done any single thing that another decent officer wouldn’t have done.

All he had done was take a frightened child seriously — listen to her, believe her, and act on the believing right away instead of sending her home to be sure.

It was the lowest bar imaginable.

And he knew, from eleven years and from every training on these cases he’d ever sat through, how often that lowest bar is not cleared — how many children work up the courage Junia worked up and are met with an adult who decides they’re confused, or exaggerating, or coached, and hands them back.

Junia had bet her sister’s life on the chance that the man behind the counter would be the kind who listened.