Chapter 10
The call came at four a.m.
Harper jerked awake at the first ring, her hand already reaching for the phone on the nightstand.
Years of FBI work had trained her body to go from deep sleep to full alertness in seconds.
Across the cabin in the armchair where he’d insisted on keeping watch, Silas was already on his feet, weapon in hand before Harper could blink.
“Sinclair,” Harper answered, her voice rough with sleep she’d barely gotten.
“We’ve got another body.” Captain Holloway’s voice was grim, weighted with the exhaustion they were all feeling. “Downtown parking garage, Third and Superior. You need to see this one.”
Harper’s blood ran cold. Her free hand gripped the edge of the mattress. “How long?”
“Security guard found her twenty minutes ago. Called it in immediately. ME’s estimating time of death around midnight, give or take an hour.”
Midnight. Just hours after they’d found the note taped to her door.
While Harper had been standing on her porch reading those words—she’s screaming right now as I write this—the killer had been keeping his promise.
He’d been making good on his threat while she’d been drinking tea and trying to convince herself to sleep.
“We’re on our way,” Harper said, already swinging her legs out of bed.
She was dressed in under two minutes—jeans, FBI windbreaker, boots laced tight.
Silas was ready even faster, both of them moving with the practiced efficiency of people who’d rushed to too many crime scenes in the dead of night.
They didn’t speak. What was there to say?
Another woman was dead because Harper had tried to trap a killer and failed.
The drive downtown took fifteen minutes through streets still dark and mostly empty. A few delivery trucks, a street sweeper, the occasional taxi carrying someone home from a late shift. Normal people living normal lives while monsters walked among them.
Harper kept seeing the note in her mind. Kept hearing those words echoing: Every cut is your fault, Harper.
“It’s not,” Silas said quietly, breaking the silence.
“What?”
“Your fault. Whatever you’re thinking right now, whatever guilt spiral you’re starting—it’s not your fault.”
“You don’t know what I’m thinking.” How many times was she going to tell him that? At this point, he seemed to know her better than most.
“Yeah, I do.” Silas kept his eyes on the road, hands steady on the wheel. “Because I’ve been there. Because I know what it feels like to carry responsibility for deaths that aren’t yours to carry.”
Harper didn’t respond. Couldn’t. Because he was right and she hated it.
The parking garage was lit up like a crime scene—which it was, but the sheer number of emergency vehicles made it look like a disaster zone.
Red and blue lights strobed across concrete pillars and painted lines.
Harper counted four squad cars, two ambulances, the medical examiner’s van, Holloway’s unmarked sedan, and what looked like half of Blackridge PD’s night shift.
They parked at the perimeter and headed toward the center of activity—third floor, northwest corner, as far from the elevators and stairwells as possible.
Harper could see the crime scene tape from two floors down, could see Morris standing guard at the outer perimeter, his young face pale and drawn even in the harsh fluorescent light.
“Harper,” Morris said quietly as they approached. His voice was tight, his expression haunted. “It’s bad.”
“How bad?”
“Worse than the others. A lot worse.” Morris swallowed hard. “Captain said to warn you before you went in.”
Harper ducked under the tape, Silas right behind her. Her boots echoed on the concrete floor. The smell hit her first—blood and something else, something chemical. Bleach, maybe. The killer cleaning up after himself.
And then she saw.
Jennifer Cross—though Harper didn’t know her name yet, wouldn’t know it until the ME ran prints and dental records—was positioned against a concrete support pillar in the corner.
Twenty-six years old, paralegal, brunette, petite, pretty.
She looked so much like Harper that for one disorienting second, Harper felt like she was looking at herself.
But it was the brutality that made Harper’s breath catch in her throat.
The previous victims had been killed with clinical precision. The symbols carved carefully post-mortem, the positioning deliberate but not violent. The killer had treated them almost reverently, like they were art projects rather than human beings.
This was different. This was rage.
Jennifer’s body was covered in symbols—the same interlocking circles and geometric patterns from the Nevada case, but deeper.
Angrier. Cut with such force that the blade had scored the concrete pillar behind her in places.
Her face was turned toward the parking garage entrance, positioned so she’d be the first thing anyone saw when they came up the stairs.
And carved into her torso in letters two inches high, deep enough that Harper could see bone: YOUR FAULT HARPER.
No punctuation. No apology. Just three words cut into dead flesh.
Harper’s vision swam. The garage tilted sideways. She felt Silas’s hand on her elbow, grounding her, keeping her upright.
“Breathe,” he said quietly, his voice steady in her ear.
Harper forced air into her lungs. Made herself step back from the edge, from the panic threatening to swallow her whole. She could fall apart later. Right now, she had a job to do.
She took a few deep breaths, then made herself look at the scene with professional detachment, cataloguing details the way she’d been trained at Quantico.
Victim positioned against pillar, arms at sides, legs extended.
No defensive wounds visible on hands or forearms. Clothing mostly intact—blouse, slacks, one shoe missing.
No obvious signs of sexual assault, though the ME would confirm.
Symbols carved post-mortem based on the limited bleeding—the heart had already stopped pumping when he started cutting—thank God.
Time of death approximately midnight based on liver temperature and the progression of rigor mortis in the smaller muscle groups.
And the message. Always the message now.
Dr. Reynolds, the medical examiner, looked up from where she was carefully documenting the wounds with her camera. Always thorough, professional, and unflappable.
Until now. Even she looked shaken.
“Agent Sinclair. Detective Kane.” Dr. Reynolds stood, pulling off her latex gloves with a sharp snap. “I need to be honest with you. In twenty years of doing this job, I’ve never seen this level of post-mortem mutilation.”
“What can you tell us?” Harper’s voice sounded strange to her own ears—too calm, too professional, when inside she was screaming.
“Female, mid-twenties, cause of death appears to be exsanguination from a single deep incision to the carotid artery. Same mechanism as the previous three victims.” Dr. Reynolds gestured to the body without looking at it directly.
“But the post-mortem work is significantly more extensive. He spent considerably longer with this victim. Much longer.”
“How long?” Silas asked.
Dr. Reynolds consulted her notes. “Based on the depth and precision of the carving, the number of symbols, the complexity of the message—even working post-mortem when he didn’t have to worry about the victim’s pain or screaming—I’d estimate two to three hours minimum. Possibly longer.”
Two to three hours. While Harper had been at the cabin, pacing and drinking tea and trying to convince herself that the note was just psychological warfare, the killer had been here. Taking his time. Making his point. Carving his message into a dead woman’s body with the patience of a craftsman.
“The message,” Silas said, his voice tight. “That’s new.”
“Not just new. It’s explicitly personal.” Dr. Reynolds looked at Harper with something that might have been pity. “He’s not talking to law enforcement generally. He’s talking directly to you, Agent Sinclair.”
“I can see that,” Harper said tightly.
Captain Holloway approached from the outer perimeter, his weathered face haggard in the harsh fluorescent light. He looked like he’d aged ten years in the past six days. “Security footage?”
Morris consulted his tablet. “Cameras in this section were disabled. Cut cables, very professional job. He knew exactly where to cut to kill the feed without triggering an alert. But we’ve got footage from the main entrance showing a figure entering at 11:47 p.m. Male, approximately six feet, medium build, wearing a dark hoodie that obscures his face.
He kept his head down, knew where the cameras were. ”
“When did he leave?” Harper asked.
“3:12 a.m.”
Harper did the math. “Three hours and twenty-five minutes. Time to kill her, time to carve all the symbols, time to position the body perfectly, time to carve the message.”
“He wasn’t rushed,” Silas observed, his detective’s eye scanning the scene. “He knew he had time. Plenty of time.”
“Because he knew exactly where we were,” Harper said, the realization hitting her like ice water. “He left us that note at the cabin. He knew we’d find it, knew we’d call it in, knew we’d be occupied with forensics and reports and planning. He gave himself a clear window to work.”
Holloway’s jaw tightened. “He’s been watching you closely. Knows your patterns, your responses, your standard procedures.”
Harper forced herself to look at Jennifer’s face again.
She was young—younger than Harper by at least five years.
Pretty, with delicate features and dark hair that curled slightly at the ends.
She’d had her whole life ahead of her. Career, maybe marriage someday, maybe kids.
All the normal things people got to have.
Dead because a monster had decided Harper was worth punishing.
“Can I have a minute?” Harper asked, her voice barely above a whisper. “Alone with the scene?”