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Though the aircraft was small and looked like it should’ve been taking tourists for a ride through the Grand Canyon, it was big enough for her, Journey, and a pilot and would get them to Pittsburgh much faster than traveling by car.

Professor Whelan had been a bust. Stella had no reason to believe the professor was the Administrator and plenty of reasons to believe he wasn’t.

What he’d said to Stella didn’t match what the Administrator had told Tyra Scharf.

There was no Dispatch app on his phone. And Stella struggled to believe Professor Whelan understood technology well enough to own a second device on which he ran a chat group.

He might’ve been a good actor, but nothing about him set off alarm bells.

Except, perhaps, for the way he treated his assistant.

Stella had called Tysen as soon as she’d stepped out of the office. But when the call failed to go through, she’d remembered there was little coverage in that part of the building. She couldn’t call now, but she could at least check for messages.

She buckled in and took out her phone

Notifications flashed on her screen. Recent messages on the Dispatch group but also a voice message from Hagen.

Journey pulled out her phone to reveal the same Dispatch notifications. They’d been streaming in all day, except for that hiccup in the dead zone at Whelan’s.

Stella smiled to herself. Hagen didn’t usually leave voice messages. He wasn’t even a big texter. He preferred to call, and if Stella didn’t pick up the phone, he’d call again later. Assuming she didn’t phone him first.

She hoped he had good news. “Anything from Lucas?” she asked her partner for the day.

Journey shook her head. “But maybe that’s the call we’re waiting on. What does it say?”

Stella scanned the transcription of Hagen’s message—the helicopter was far too loud to hear it. Hagen wasn’t getting anywhere with Napp either. It seemed like they were both barking up the wrong trees, as Hagen had put it.

They were running out of time to stop that evening’s massacre. They had no suspect and no way to tell everyone to put down their knives, and they were coming up on having no time either.

“We there yet?” Stella asked into her headset, trying not to sound impatient.

In the cockpit, the pilot lifted a thumb. “You can see the city now.”

Both agents raised their thumbs back in acknowledgment.

Journey reviewed the Dispatch messages while Stella called Hagen. She knew she probably wouldn’t be able to hear him, but she wanted to see if he’d pick up .

The line rang and rang, but there was no answer. She texted him instead.

Strange. Hagen wouldn’t have been out of touch, and he always answered his phone. She lowered the device. Another notification from her account on Dispatch popped onto her screen. Journey’s too.

They both opened the app.

Stella scrolled down and saw, under the account Mac had created for Hagen, a picture. A tablet sat on a small mount next to a magnifying glass—and beneath it, comments were populating like mad in live time, asking whether this was the tablet that predicted the end of the world.

Some members believed it was. They were thrilled.

At last, they could see the prophecy for themselves now that the deadline was drawing near.

Their comments were filled with exclamation marks and excited emojis.

Others replied that it couldn’t be the one.

The picture had been posted by a group member, but only one person had access to the real tablet.

And there was no reply from the Administrator himself.

Stella’s stomach clenched. She understood immediately what was happening. Hagen had mimicked her play in Claymore Township. He’d posted a picture to check if Napp would respond, meaning he wasn’t with their killer.

Or if he heard a vibration—or a damn string of them—that would mean he was in the presence of the man they needed to apprehend. Was that why he wasn’t answering her calls? Were they facing off with the mastermind even now?

Next to her, Journey was calling Lucas again. “He’s not picking up.”

Stella leaned toward the pilot, though he could hear perfectly well through the headset. “You need to get us to the Pittsburgh Museum of Ancient Art. Now.”