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Luca set three coffees on the table. He'd worked his magic again - the foam on Ella's latte spelled out a perfect heart. Any other time she might have teased him about it, but not now. They'd grabbed a booth in the back corner, far from the window where curious eyes might notice three people trying very hard not to look like cops.

Three coffee cups, three people about to have a conversation nobody wanted. Ella had done this dance before – the quiet meeting, the careful choosing of words. It never ended well.

‘Press vans at the quarry,’ Ross said without preamble. ‘News travels fast.’

‘Wow. They don’t wait around,’ said Ella.

‘Welcome to New York City.’ Ross loosened his tie like it was choking him. ‘Every major outlet's got eyes and ears in this town. Police scanners, inside sources, social media monitoring. Some of them probably knew about the body before I did.’

Luca said, ‘Which is why we're meeting here instead of the precinct?’

Ross didn't answer right away. He scanned the cafe like he was memorizing faces, marking exits. Old cop habits died hard. ‘Among other reasons. Professor found dead in abandoned quarry? That's front page for the Times.’

Ross glanced around the shop. Apart from them, only a couple of regulars occupied the place. Something in his tone made Ella's neck prickle. She'd heard that tone before, right before cases went sideways. ‘What aren't you telling us?’

Ross reached down and pulled a manila folder from his briefcase. The edges were worn, like he'd opened and closed it a hundred times. ‘Those symbols at the crime scene. They're not new.’

Ella sat up straighter. ‘Not new?’

‘That's why I wanted to meet here. What I'm about to show you... let's just say I'd rather not have the press getting wind of it yet. Or anyone in my office, for that matter.’

Ella's stomach tightened. She knew that tone - the sound of a good cop about to color outside the lines. When cops got secretive, it usually meant something ugly was about to surface. She noticed that Ross’ hands hadn't stopped moving since he sat down, like whatever that folder held was burning through the paper.

‘Discretion is guaranteed,’ Ella said. Luca made a zipping motion along his mouth.

Ross inhaled and then opened the folder. Police photos spilled across the table - the good kind, shot with real cameras instead of cell phones. ‘Three months ago, we started getting reports of strange markings around the city. Mostly in places tourists don't see - alleys, abandoned buildings, construction sites.’

He spread the photos out. Symbols carved into brick walls, spray-painted on dumpsters, etched into metal doors. Geometric patterns that made Ella's eyes hurt.

‘We wrote it off as gang tags,’ Ross continued. ‘New crew marking territory. Happens all the time here. Nothing worth Major Crimes getting involved.’

‘But?’ Luca prompted.

‘But then this started happening.’ Ross laid down more photos. These ones made Ella's coffee turn to acid in her stomach.

More photos joined the first set. The images hit Ella's brain in rapid-fire bursts. A police horse laid out in some stables with its throat opened ear to ear and symbols carved in its flank. A ram dumped in an alley, horns painted with geometric patterns. A goat positioned like a sacrifice on a set of church steps.

‘Christ,’ Ella said. ‘Where did these animals come from? Not exactly farm country up here.’

‘It actually began with cats and dogs. Mostly strays. We managed to trace the horse to Central Park’s mounted unit. The ram disappeared from a farm upstate. The goat…’ Ross shrugged. ‘That one's still a mystery. No reports of missing livestock that matched.’

Ella burned the photos into her memory. The symbols looked rougher than the quarry marks but the DNA matched – triangles locked in circles, spirals eating their own tails. ‘Vandalism and dead animals. That's still minor league. Why the secret rendezvous?’

Ross' face turned to granite. ‘Because that was just the warm-up act.’

More photos hit the table. Night shots of violated earth and broken stone. Ella's stomach dropped through the floor as the images clicked into place.

‘Grave robbery? ’

‘Five cemeteries in eight weeks. Trinity Church, Woodlawn, New York City Marble. The historic spots. They tagged the stones with these symbols then dug up whatever was left.’

The marks were etched into granite with laser focus - same precision as the quarry wall. ‘They took the bones?’

‘Everything portable. Left the coffins hanging open like emptied piggy banks. All the graves were century-plus vintage.’

Ella examined the photos. The symbols twisted through her vision like smoke, refusing to resolve into anything meaningful. But they were identical to the ones she'd seen in the quarry. Someone had been practicing their artwork before upgrading to murder.

‘Any connection between the victims?’

'None I could find. Different ages, backgrounds, time periods. The only common factor was the age of the graves. Nothing newer than 1970.'

Luca asked, ‘Security cameras?’

‘Blanked out. Every time. And before you ask - no prints, no DNA, no trace evidence of any kind.’ Ross' coffee sat untouched, growing cold. ‘These people know what they're doing.’

‘People?’ Ella looked up. ‘You think it's more than one person?’

Ross scooped up the photos and closed the folder. 'I don't know, but look at the pattern of Escalation from property damage to animal mutilation to grave robbing. Now we've got our first human victim.'

‘But why Marcus?’ Luca asked. ‘Why a geology professor?’

‘Because he'd understand what he was looking at.’ Ella's mind was racing now, connecting dots she hadn't even known existed. ‘Those rock formations in the quarry - they were impossible. Different types of stone that shouldn't exist together, all fused into one mass. Anyone else would have seen a weird pile of rocks, but Marcus...’

‘Marcus would have seen a miracle,’ Ross finished. ‘Or a message.’

‘So someone wanted him to find it. To verify it was real.’ The implications made Ella's head spin. ‘But why? What's the endgame?’

Ross leaned forward, his coffee forgotten. ‘I've got a theory about that. One you're not going to like.’

‘I don't think we're dealing with a killer.’ He tapped the folder. ‘The symbols, the timing, the bones taken from graves... This is bigger than one person. More organized.’

Ella felt it coming, like the pressure drop before a storm. ‘What are you saying?’

‘I don’t think this is the work of a killer. I think this is the work of a cult.’