The rain-slick streets of Chicago whispered of secrets, the kind only the dead could tell. Special Agent Claire Rowen knew those whispers well—she’d been chasing them for three years, following the trail of a phantom who turned crime scenes into grim poetry. Every victim was found in a tableau of twisted beauty, each kill a calculated message that only she seemed to understand.

The Bureau called them a monster. Claire wasn’t so sure anymore. Somewhere between the hunt and the sleepless nights, their letters had started to feel less like taunts and more like confessions. In each one, they bared pieces of a soul that didn’t match the headlines—someone lonely, brilliant, and strangely tender. She told herself it was just strategy, a way to get inside their mind. But when she caught herself waiting for the next letter with her heartbeat in her throat, she knew she was already inside theirs.

Now, the city was holding its breath, the killer was watching her more closely than ever, and Claire had to face a truth she couldn’t put in a case file: the closer she got to catching them, the harder it was to want them caught.