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Ripley double-checked the address scrawled on the post-it note stuck to her dashboard. 1587 Macbeth Drive. She scoffed. Naming streets after Shakespeare's plays was just asking for trouble, in her experience. Literature had a way of seeping into reality like that, especially when it came to the bloody stuff.

Her knees weren't what they used to be. That was the first coherent thought that passed through her mind as she climbed out of the borrowed sedan. The flight from D.C., the sleepless night last night, the hours spent standing over James Harper's corpse. They all conspired to remind her that retirement hadn't been an arbitrary decision. It had been her body's way of filing a formal complaint against decades of abuse.

The house at 1587 Macbeth Drive didn't look like a killer's lair. It sat behind a modest fence, and it was painted a shade of blue that erred on the side of forgettable. The winter-killed grass had been trimmed recently. Nothing about the place screamed 'serial murderer,' which meant it was perfect camouflage.

Or it meant Ella was wrong.

Ripley hadn't missed this part of the job. The approach to a suspect's door carried too many memories. Too many front steps that had turned into firefights. Too many ‘routine’ knocks that ended with her filing reports in hospital waiting rooms. What would this one bring? Fate had a way of getting her into altercations, even if the person on the business end of her fist turned out to be innocent.

She walked up the path to the front door. Westfall had offered to come along, but Ripley had told him she could handle this alone. Westfall had a station to run and officers to coordinate, especially with four bodies already on their hands. She’d borrowed a gun of him for the trouble, but it was to be used for intimidation purposes only.

She rang the doorbell first. Standard protocol. A beat passed. Two. No sound of movement inside, no flicker of shadow behind curtains. Next came the formal knock. Three sharp raps .

Standing here on Thomas Walsh’s doorstep, Ripley wondered if she’d made the right decision coming here. Not to this house, but to this state.

Retirement was supposed to feel like freedom. That's what everyone said - like shrugging off a lead vest, like finally exhaling after holding your breath for thirty years. But here, Ripley realized retirement was more like muscle atrophy. The longer you went without using certain skills, the more they withered. Until one day you needed them again, and your body remembered exactly what it had lost.

She shook the thought off. Back to the task at hand. She stepped back, scrutinized the house. There was a car in the driveway, but no other signs of life that Ripley could see. She walked around the side of the house and saw a fence.

‘Thomas Walsh? FBI. We need to speak with you.’

A part of her considered leaping the fence and taking a real look, but she was only here to appease Ella’s outlandish theories. It wasn’t worth it.

‘Looking for Tom?’

The voice startled her. Retirement had dulled her reflexes. A woman stood at the property line, wrapped in a quilted jacket that hung to her knees. She looked about seventy, with cropped silver hair and the pinched expression of someone who'd appointed herself neighborhood watch.

‘Yes,’ Ripley replied, instantly recalibrating. ‘We need to speak with him urgently.’

‘Well, you're about twelve hours too early.’ The woman stopped at the edge of Walsh's property line like an invisible barrier separated them. ‘He's not back until tomorrow.’

Ripley felt something cold that had nothing to do with December in Ohio. ‘Back from where?’

‘Italy. Florence, specifically.’ She pronounced it ‘Floor-ence’ with an extra syllable. ‘Spiritual retreat or something like that. Been gone a week.’

‘Huh. Are you sure?’

‘Sure as a heart attack.’

The woman had got the idiom wrong, but Ripley let it slide. 'When did he leave?'

‘Monday morning.’

‘Definitely?’

‘I drove him there myself. Picking him up tomorrow too. Assuming his flight's on time, which it probably won't be. You know how airlines are these days.’

Ripley slotted this new information into the frameworks of possibility. If Walsh had left Monday, he couldn't have killed Chester Grant that night. Couldn't have killed any of them unless he'd returned secretly.

The woman adjusted her quilted jacket, patted the pockets like she was looking for cigarettes. ‘I keep an eye on the place while he's gone. Check the pipes, water his plants. He's got this weird cactus collection. Ugliest things you ever saw, but he treats them like children.’

'You have a key, then?' Ripley kept her voice casual, though her pulse had picked up. If Walsh had left Monday, then Ella's theory was just that – a theory. No substance. But sometimes, the easiest way to confirm a story was to see if the details held up.

‘Of course. Tom doesn't trust just anyone with his house. We've been neighbors for three years. I'm Judith, by the way. That's my place right there.’ She pointed to the neighboring house, a slightly more kempt version of Walsh's with wind chimes hanging from the porch.

‘I'm Agent Ripley, FBI.’ The words slipped out with muscle memory. She forgot she'd surrendered that title months ago. ‘Judith, would it be possible for me to take a quick look inside? Just to verify a few details for our investigation.’

Judith's expression shifted from neighborly to suspicious in the space between heartbeats. ‘FBI, huh? You got a warrant?’

‘No warrant needed if you invite me in.’ Ripley smiled, though the expression felt rusty on her face. ‘I'm not here to search the place, just to confirm some basic information. It would save us both a lot of trouble.’

‘I don't know...’ Judith's hand moved to her pocket, where Ripley could see the outline of keys. ‘Tom's very private. Very particular.’

‘I understand.’ Ripley modulated her voice to the precise frequency that had worked on reluctant witnesses for three decades. Not threatening, not pleading. Authoritative with just enough vulnerability to suggest cooperation was the easier path. ‘But we're dealing with a serious situation here. Four people are dead, and we need to rule out certain individuals as quickly as possible.’

The mention of the body count did what Ripley knew it would. Morbid curiosity trumped neighborly loyalty.

‘Four?’ Judith's eyes widened. ‘I heard about the professor and that council woman, but…’

‘Well, there’s been more, and we’re trying to find the unsub.’

‘Un… sub?’

‘Means unknown subject.’ Ripley hadn’t missed saying that.

Judith's hand closed around the keys. Her face underwent a remarkable transformation. ‘Tom’s a suspect? That’s absurd. I’ve known him for years.’

Ripley resisted the urge to tell this elderly woman that even the most prolific killers had defenders just as passionate as she was. ‘Then let’s prove your hunch right by taking a look inside.’

‘Right. Well... I suppose it can't hurt. Just a quick look, though. And don't touch anything.’

‘Absolutely not.’

They crossed to Walsh's front door together. Judith fumbled with the lock, then the door swung open on silent hinges. A waft of stale air greeted her. The scent of an uninhabited house.

‘See? Nobody home.’ Judith stepped aside to let Ripley enter. ‘Kitchen's through there. Living room to the right. Bathroom down the hall.’

Ripley took the liberty of heading through to the kitchen. The place looked like any other suburban home. There was more religious paraphernalia than Ripley was used to seeing, but the place was as average as average came. The kitchen was a long rectangle in muted greys. An island in the middle of the room with a work surface along the one wall.

A pile of papers sat on the edge closest to the entrance. Ripley casually glanced over and caught the usual suspects; bills, leaflet, takeout menus. She picked them up and rifled through.

‘Hey, I said no touching.’

‘Sorry,’ Ripley said. She squared up the mail on the surface, but one of the pieces fell out and landed on the floor.

Ripley picked it up. But this one wasn’t a bill or a leaflet or a menu.

A church letterhead topped the page, embossed with a simple cross. First Light Assembly, Granville, Ohio. Below that, in formal typeface, was what appeared to be a contract of some kind.

COVENANT OF SPIRITUAL GUIDANCE AND SUPPORT.

The document spelled out an agreement between First Light Assembly and something called the ‘Baptism of Fire Support Group.’ Terms of facility use, financial considerations, confidentiality clauses. Standard boilerplate stuff. But what caught Ripley's eye was the signature lines at the bottom.

For First Light Assembly: Adam Canton, Pastor. Sister Mary Catherine Doyle, Administrator.

For Baptism of Fire: Thomas Walsh, Group Leader.

All three had signed the paper.

A. Canton.

M. Elizabeth.

T. Walsh.

Suddenly, Ripley's mind flashed back to James Harper's murder scene.

The blood message on the wall.

WHOEVER POURS OUT LIES WILL NOT GO FREE.

‘Oh…. Fuck.’

‘Excuse me?’ asked Judith.

Ripley might have forgotten a few things about this job, but she never forgot this sensation. When the pieces crashed together like a collision of planets. When every assumption and theory you had obliterated in light of the smallest piece of evidence.

Like a tiny, perfect cross above the letter ‘i.’

Ripley’s phone materialized in her hand. She made the call.

‘Pick up,’ she hissed. ‘Pick up, pick up, pick up .’