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Otto Walker’s apartment complex was in Miro Meadows, southeast of the city. Hagen could see how the place might appeal to anyone who was just passing through. Nothing about the complex felt particularly homey, though.

Each building was either two or three stories. The railing on the second floor looked like the barriers that low-security prisons used to stop inmates throwing themselves, or others, to the ground below. Some of the apartments had white balconies the size of coffins. The gray apartment doors—accessible via the outdoor walkways—were plain, differentiated from one another only by silver numbers that had dulled over time.

The place looked more like a motel.

Hagen crossed the lot, buttoning his suit jacket against the cold and over his bullet-proof vest. Stella strode alongside him. They made for one of the two sets of stairs that led from the parking lot to the apartments, one at each end of the landing.

The rest of the team waited in two black SUVs at the end of the lot. Slade and Anja were in one vehicle. Stacy and Ander sat in the other. Slade had assigned Hagen and Stella the job of reconnoitering the place and trying to get Walker to talk.

They didn’t have a warrant, but all signs pointed to him being the guy who killed Patrick Marrion. So Slade wanted the team on standby should things get interesting.

Otto’s green 2015 Nissan Sentra sat in the parking lot.

A figure approached, coming down the stairs leading to the second floor. The man was middle-aged and casually dressed in sweatpants and a hoodie. His shoulders were bent, his hands buried in his pockets.

He glared at Hagen from under his hood, examined Stella, then turned his attention back to Hagen. “If you’re selling life insurance, man, you’re in the wrong place. Ain’t no one here got a life worth shit.”

Hagen slowed. “What makes you think I’m selling insurance?”

The man didn’t break stride. He glanced back, hands still in his pockets.

“The suit, man. Anyone in a suit like that around here in the middle of a Wednesday morning, they’re either selling insurance or peddling the good news. And you don’t look like someone who’s heard any good news recently.”

He marched away. Hagen watched him go. In his earpiece, someone chuckled. Ander probably. They climbed the stairs. Stella leaned close to him.

“Knew that suit reminded me of something.”

Hagen ignored her. He liked this suit.

They reached the second floor, walking as though they had a place to go, and that place was number sixteen, the apartment in the middle of the floor. Hagen adjusted his pace and landed his foot with more care, dampening his steps.

They stopped in front of Otto Walker’s apartment door. The blinds were down, and no light escaped through the slats.

Hagen listened carefully. No sound came from the apartment. No music or television. A faint smell of fried onions rose from one of the units downstairs, but Walker’s was dead quiet. Besides his car in the parking lot, nothing signaled he was there at all. Hagen tensed his jaw.

Walker had to be home. Lying in bed, sick, trying to sleep.

Hagen knocked, hard.

An older woman emerged from the apartment next door. The pink slippers on her feet had seen better days, and it seemed so had she. She stood half in the doorway, half out, watching them with one eye.

“Do you know your neighbor, ma’am?” Hagen smiled to catch more bees.

“I do, but you’ll have to pound harder. He was playing some horror movie so loud, I imagine he’s deaf by now.”

“What do you mean, a movie?”

“Some Halloween thingy, bloodcurdling screams, filthy language. Went on and on until about twenty or thirty minutes ago. Damn kids got no respect. I thought Otto was different. I really did. But he doesn’t even know what holiday’s coming up. So like I said, pound harder. He’d be deaf by now.”

Stella ushered the woman back inside. “Thank you, ma’am. We’ll take it from here.” Grim, she lifted her collar and spoke into the mic pinned there. “We may have a situation up here. We need everyone. Now.”

At the end of the parking lot, the doors of the SUVs opened and closed. The rest of the team wore bright-blue jackets with FBI emblazoned in yellow letters. They padded up the stairs to take positions outside Walker’s apartment.

Ander held the battering ram.

Hagen drew his weapon and nodded at Stella. It was time. He beat his fist twice on the door. “Otto Walker. This is the FBI. Open up.”

Silence.

Hagen increased his volume. “Otto Walker. This is the FBI. We’re coming in.”

Still no response. He looked at Stella, and he could tell she, too, had a strong sense about what they were going to walk in on.

After Hagen tried the knob and found it locked, he stepped aside. This was it.

Otto could be in there, waiting to strike. Or they could burst into an empty apartment and know they’d wasted a morning. Then they’d have to prepare for a search conducted mostly on screens and through data alerts. Or they could be…too late.

He nodded at Ander. “Break it in.”

The battering ram needed only one swing. A second later, Hagen kicked the door open and entered the apartment, his weapon at low ready.

He stopped when he saw it. A few steps were all he’d taken. The rest of the team piled in behind, but he was out in front.

Inside was carnage. A madhouse of blood.

A young man was strewn over the sofa in the middle of the room. His legs flopped over the back of it, bent at the knees, and his head hung off the front with his bloody hair grazing the carpet. His eyes were open, and his throat had been cut from ear to ear, like the victims in Claymore Township.

The walls were covered in marks, which he recognized as Akkadian cuneiform, the same lines and dots carved into the Claymore Township victims’ backs and scrawled on the walls of the sheriff’s shed. They were written in blood, clearly, which also covered the floor, darkening the carpet and filling the room with a heavy, metallic smell.

There was no question of who this was.

They wouldn’t be searching for the location data of Otto Walker’s phone and ATM withdrawals. They’d found him.

And if he was involved in the murder of Patrick Marrion, as they suspected, he hadn’t been working alone.

This wouldn’t be a simple case after all.