And yet Beckett had spent a lifetime reading the eyes of condemned men. Gavin’s never carried the flat, predatory glaze of a killer. They carried the shattered, hollow look of a man ruined by a tragedy he couldn’t comprehend.

After a long silence, Beckett picked up his desk phone.

“Bring the child in,” he ordered. “Skip the glass partition. Put them in the secure contact room. And give them privacy.”

Three hours later, an unmarked white state vehicle pulled into the prison’s razor-wire lot. A social worker stepped out into the biting wind, holding the hand of an eight-year-old girl.

Chloe Cole walked through the echoing maximum-security corridors without shedding a tear. Her spine was straight, her solemn green eyes fixed forward.

Hardened inmates who caught sight of the small figure through their cell grates fell into an unnatural silence as she passed.