Detective Domanska

Quick Facts

Lead detective on Meghan Campbell’s missing-persons-turned-homicide case in Salt Lake City. First appears investigating a lone shoe on a dirt road (Chapter 19). Known for a tight, graying brunette bun—an outward sign of her no-nonsense focus. Key relationships: Meghan Campbell (victim), James Carson (primary suspect), Detective Kittleson (Idaho counterpart), April Carson (crucial but inaccessible witness).

Who They Are

At her core, Detective Domanska is the steady pulse of earthly justice in a story haunted by grief and the supernatural. She becomes Meghan’s posthumous advocate—“the Andrea” who fights for the life Meghan was denied—by trusting both her training and her instincts. While the dead press for retribution, Domanska builds a case that can hold in court, translating moral urgency into legal action.

Personality & Traits

Domanska’s strength lies in how her intuition fuels disciplined, procedural work. She senses what’s wrong, then proves it—and she doesn’t let bureaucracy, intimidation, or long odds slow her.

• Persistent and tenacious: She refuses to let the case drift into the cold stack, keeping it open on her desk, following every tip, and continuing the hunt even after James relocates to Idaho and tries to intimidate her through counsel (Chapter 28).
• Intuitive and perceptive: In her first interview with James, she reads the dissonance between his calm exterior and the rehearsed feel of his answers—“Maybe I’m wrong, but I got the feeling that he was expecting someone to show up and ask him those questions” (Chapter 28)—and lets that gut-check drive deeper inquiry.
• Methodical: She builds evidence brick by brick: forensics on Meghan’s phone, facial recognition on James’s photo, a photo lineup with the Gracie’s waitress, and the painstaking work of securing warrants (Chapter 25).
• Tough and unflappable: She stays cool with a potential serial killer and with his lawyer’s threats. Her only visible fury is professional—she lights into Detective Kittleson for prematurely releasing James’s car from impound, recognizing how badly that could compromise the case (Chapter 31).

Character Journey

Domanska’s development is the case itself: she begins as a competent, determined detective and ends the same—but with a hard-won, evidence-backed arrest. She enters on a hunch at a dirt road and leaves with a warrant grounded in forensic fact. The journey runs through precise steps: transforming a missing person into a murder victim by finding Meghan’s bones (Chapter 19), putting James on notice and reading his tells (Chapter 25), widening the lens when an Idaho tip links Skye’s death to Meghan’s (Chapter 28), and weathering inter-jurisdictional missteps without losing momentum. The final pivot arrives with Meghan’s fingerprint in James’s car, the concrete proof she needs to lock the case before he flees the state (Chapter 33). Through chaos and delay, Domanska doesn’t change—she endures, which is exactly what justice requires.

Key Relationships

• Meghan Campbell: Though they never meet in life, Domanska becomes Meghan’s tether to the living. Meghan watches her with growing respect and relief, seeing in Domanska the institutional answer to the story’s longing for Vengeance and Post-Mortem Justice. Domanska’s home life—glimpsed briefly—offers Meghan comfort: proof that the living can be safe, and that someone is fighting for her.
• James Carson: Their exchanges are a chess match. Domanska reads his charm as strategy and refuses to be disarmed by it. He mocks her as an “incompetent bitch wolf” (Chapter 25), but that contempt blinds him to her slow, meticulous encirclement; every calm question becomes a future affidavit.
• Detective Kittleson: Professional friction fuels the plot. Domanska is the sharper investigator, and when Kittleson releases James’s car from impound without looping her in, she unleashes a precise, procedural anger (Chapter 31). The conflict underscores how fragile justice can be when competency isn’t shared across jurisdictions.
• April Carson: Domanska tries to interview April, but James’s lawyer walls her off. April becomes the missing puzzle piece: vital, visible, and legally protected. That blockade highlights Domanska’s commitment to doing it right—she won’t sidestep due process, even when time is against her.

Defining Moments

Domanska’s case breaks open at four pressure points—each one widening the scope and sharpening the stakes.

• Finding Meghan’s remains (Chapter 19): Following a tip about a shoe, Domanska trusts her instincts and searches beyond the obvious, locating Meghan’s scattered bones. Why it matters: It recasts the case from missing person to homicide and personalizes Domanska’s resolve to bring Meghan home.
• Interviewing James at work (Chapter 25): She confronts him on his turf, registering his rehearsed calm and signaling that he’s no longer a name in a file. Why it matters: The encounter sets the cat-and-mouse dynamic and gives Domanska behavioral cues that shape her strategy.
• Connecting cases after the Idaho tip (Chapter 28): When Ken calls about Skye, Domanska recognizes the pattern. Why it matters: The investigation graduates from a single crime to a serial predation inquiry, justifying broader warrants and interagency coordination.
• Securing the arrest warrant (Chapter 33): Meghan’s fingerprint in James’s car delivers the physical proof that converts suspicion into probable cause. Why it matters: It crowns months of patient legwork and preempts James’s planned move out of state, turning urgency into legal action.
• Dressing down Kittleson (Chapter 31): Upon learning the impound was released early, she “ripped him a new one.” Why it matters: It dramatizes the stakes of procedural rigor—justice hinges not only on finding evidence, but on preserving it.

Symbolism

Domanska is the novel’s argument for the system done right—the human antidote to predation. In a world defined by Predation and Violence Against Women, she proves that diligence and due process can answer brutality without mirroring it. For Meghan—who died wishing she had “asked for Andrea”—Domanska becomes the real-world guardian that wish imagines: competence in service of the voiceless, order painstakingly reasserted over chaos.

Essential Quotes

As her gaze crossed my pathetic pile of bones, I cried out again. “Look, please look at me.” She stopped scanning and stood up. Stopped again, squinting her eyes a little. Then walked with purpose to where I lay prone across my own bones.
— Chapter 19

This moment fuses intuition and procedure: Domanska can’t hear Meghan, yet she “walks with purpose” to the exact spot. The scene signals that her instincts will carry her where evidence first cannot—and that she will convert those instincts into a formal case.

“There was a waitress at Gracie’s who remembers a man with Meghan that night. She gave us a pretty good description of him. What would happen if I put you in a lineup in front of her?”
— Chapter 25

Her question is a tactical squeeze—respectful on the surface, cornering underneath. Domanska leverages eyewitness memory to test James’s confidence, revealing how she uses basic tools (a lineup) to provoke revealing reactions and prepare stronger warrants.

I’d never seen Domanska lose her cool before. Not with the eggheaded waitress from Gracie’s. Not even with James Carson himself when she’d questioned him face to face. But when she heard that Detective Kittleson had released James Carson’s car out of impound—before even calling her back to report on the fingerprint he’d found—she ripped him a new one.
— Chapter 31

Her anger isn’t temper—it’s ethics. Domanska’s outburst underscores the fragility of evidence chains and the high cost of carelessness, especially when the stakes involve a serial predator.

Domanska paused. Finally she said, “He’s leaving the state in two weeks. We need to lock this down before then. I don’t want to deal with extradition.”
— Chapter 25

This line shows her strategic horizon: she’s tracking not just evidence, but logistics and jurisdiction. The clock isn’t dramatic flourish—it’s a legal reality she plans for, turning time pressure into decisive action.