Kate felt a cold thread tighten at the base of her spine.
Marcus made a low sound, almost a growl.“That’s him.”
Sullivan didn’t look away from the screen.“He walked toward the building.Never came back the same way.We’re tracking all possible exit routes now.”
They watched the figure advance—steady, purposeful, anonymous.
The moment before murder.
A silence settled over them, thick and electric.
“We’re behind him,” Kate said softly.“But not by much.”
CHAPTER TEN
The precinct felt like it had been cranked ten decibels past sane.Phones going off in stuttering rounds, someone swearing at a jammed copier, the clatter of boots and metal chair legs and half-shouted conversations bouncing down every corridor.An officer dropped a box of tacks; someone else told him where he could put it.The air was sour with too-strong coffee and yesterday’s takeout.
Kate sat in the middle of this minor apocalypse at her borrowed desk, the three drawings arranged in a tight row before her, in their evidence bags, like suspects.She rubbed her temples.Heraldry specialist from Yale.Any minute now,she told herself for the fifth time.
She leaned closer to the knight illustration, tracing the illumination with her eyes.
Then she froze.
Bottom left corner.Barely visible unless you were looking for the grain of the paper texture.
A tiny black bird with black beak.
“…You’ve got to be kidding me.”
She snatched up the satirical feast drawing—the tipsy gentleman at the table, the older woman poised to strike.Bottom left, same spot: the bird again.Tiny, smug, unmistakable.A rook?A raven?A crow?And what was in its beak?
She grabbed the tablets piece.Bottom left— not there.
“How did I miss this?” Kate hissed under her breath.“ A signature, a mark, a calling card—and I just—”
Her irritation spiked hot behind her ribs.Calming herself, she took photos of each, and zoomed in.The surface of each bird was smooth, lacking the brushmarks of the main artworks.Printed on, maybe?
That could explain why there was no crow on the drawing, which was on sketch paper.Maybe it wouldn’t have been thick enough to withstand the printing process.Especially if, as she suspected, a laser printer had been used.
“But the stone tablets are also an introduction to the whole sequence,” she murmured to herself.“A reminder that it all starts with the 5thCommandment.The paintings lead on from the drawing… as the killings lead on from the Commandment?”
Across the room, completely oblivious, Marcus paced like a man trying to wear a groove into the precinct linoleum.
“I mean, think about it,” he said, gesturing with a half-eaten protein bar.“If Garrett’s building doesn’t use the same maintenance contractor, then why the hell would he wear the same overalls?He knows we’ve seen him in them.That’s basic counter-surveillance.Is he taking a risk?Or is it symbolic?Maybe the color matters.Except—hell—black and white footage.We don’t know if theyarethe same color.Could be orange.Could be blue.Could be—”
“Marcus.”
He didn’t hear her.
“—and the fit is terrible,” he continued, pacing.“Way too small.Why would he choose a pair that doesn’t fit?A choice, or he just doesn’t give a shit?They make him look bigger… it’s the old, tight t-shirt trick.But he doesn’twantto be looked at, does he?He’s not in a bar trying to hook up.So why—”
“Marcus!”
He stopped mid-stride.
Kate held up a hand, gripping the drawings with the other.“You have to work that out for yourself,” she snapped—sharper than she’d intended, but she didn’t retract it.“I am currently drowning in—” she waved the papers, “—tiny black birds and heraldic insanity, and my phone is refusing to ring, and I do not have the bandwidth for your existential jumpsuit crisis.”
Marcus blinked.“Right.Okay.”
