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It had started to drizzle. Bree hurried down the hill and past the garden, noticing Arthur standing in the door to the greenhouse, watching her go. Crossing the lawn toward the hedge, she fought the urge to look back and study the windows of the house to see if Theresa May Alcott was still watching her. But then it began to rain in earnest, and she ran to the hedge and found a way through onto the road. To her relief, her rental car was still there on the opposite shoulder, undisturbed.

After getting inside, starting the car, and cranking up the heat, Bree got out her phone, checked the forty-two-minute-long recording, and found much of it audible thanks to the little microphone necklace. Then she checked the time of the next flight to DC. Three hours.

After confirming a seat, she got out a notebook and started scribbling down her impressions, details she wanted to remember about her visit to the Alcott estate, certain things the billionaire had said to her, and questions she wanted answered. She would check it all against the recording later.

TMA is smooth, Bree wrote. Polished. Pleasant, but hard to read. How old is she?

Why did it feel a little creepy when I left? Like I was being watched?

Who is Arthur?

If the Paladin on her phone is the company Alex is dealing with, what is TMA’s connection? Seems so random. Is it important?

Who was she talking to at the company? Who is Emma? Or do I have it wrong? Was she talking to Emma Paladin?

Sitting there as the rain beat down on the car roof, Bree did a series of internet searches on her phone based on the notes and questions she’d just written down. Within fifteen minutes, she found articles and filings that changed her view of Theresa May Alcott and her decision to hire Bree to investigate Frances Duchaine.

She put the rental car in gear and headed toward the Cleveland Airport, thinking, Paladin may matter in this. But who is Emma?

CHAPTER 69

Potomac, Maryland

WE SPENT SEVEN HOURS in total at the Kane family crime scene, watching as FBI forensic techs swarmed through the house, finding the four deadly slugs embedded in the floors and identifying where and how the killer had hacked the security system using override wires that were still in place.

We also helped canvass the neighborhood, which did us little good. The Kanes’ house sat on seven wooded acres. So did the other nine houses in the area.

It was the kind of neighborhood where people valued isolation. Several of the neighbors had not yet met the Kanes, who’d moved in two years before.

Mahoney went to the Kanes’ business to interview employees. Sampson and I took another course, trying to make some connection between the Kanes and the four other families executed in cold blood since the attacks began.

Using John’s computer in the squad room at DC Metro PD, we tried common-word searches among the files, including schools attended, employment records, current and prior residences, ethnicities, religions, socioeconomic standards, even extended family trees. Then we mapped the killings, looking for overlapping travel routes the killer might have taken to and from the attacks.

But other than proximity to the Beltway—the band of freeways that loop the nation’s capital—the attack sites appeared unrelated. Try as we might, we could not find the pattern, the motive, or the logic behind the killings. If there was a commonality among the victims, we weren’t seeing it, and neither were our computers.

“Maybe that’s the point,” I said around six that evening.

“What is?”

“The randomness of the targets, the cold-bloodedness of the executions, the meticulousness of the killer,” I said.

“Designed to throw us,” Sampson said. “So we’ll focus on his behavior instead?”

“That’s right, though I’m too burned out at the moment to see how, and I have to get to National. Bree texted that she’s coming in at seven.”

“Then I’m on my way home too,” Sampson said. “Willow and I are getting fried clams and French fries for dinner.”

“Still running in the morning?”

“Every day.” Sampson laughed and rubbed his lean belly. He headed outside to grab an Uber. I went to the garage and got the Jeep.

My cell phone rang as I exited the parking garage. I hit Answer on the Cherokee’s navigation screen, turned into traffic, and said, “This is Alex Cross.”

“Dr. Cross, it’s Ryan Malcomb. How are you?”

“Stuck in traffic. You?”

“In possession of interesting ore, fresh from the mines.”

“Already?”

“Frankly, you were lucky, Dr. Cross. As Steve may have told you, we had that first data loaded already. Your new request was merely a matter of changing filters.”