C rime scene tape and a notice to keep out of the apartment are still in place on the temporary door fitted to Gideon Bell’s apartment. I’m putting the code into the lockbox to get the key when the door across the breezeway opens. I turn to see a young woman carrying a trash bag step out. She eyes the door, concern and sadness etched on her face.

“Are you investigating the guy who died in there?” she asks.

“I am,” I tell her. “Agent Emma Griffin. I’m with the FBI.”

“FBI. Wow. I thought it was just the detective,” she says.

“There are some additional circumstances that made the local department want to seek out the assistance of the Bureau,” I tell her. “What’s your name?”

“Casey Burgess,” she says.

“Did you know your neighbor?” I ask.

“Gideon? Yeah, I knew him. He was a good guy. I can’t believe something like this happened to him.”

“Did you hear or see anything last night?” I ask.

“I thought I heard something outside pretty late, but I didn’t know what it was. I thought maybe somebody had locked their keys in their apartment and were trying to get in or something. It wasn’t like there was a lot of loud noise or anything that really made me think that something was seriously wrong. I should have paid better attention or looked through the peephole or something, but I didn’t. I was up studying and didn’t want to stop. But then I heard the gunshot.

“I thought it was coming from Gideon and Jesse’s apartment, but I didn’t want to open the front door to my place because I didn’t know what was going on. So I looked through the peephole and saw someone running out. I didn’t get a very good look at them. They were wearing a mask, but it looked like they had long blond hair. I noticed it because it was sticking out from the bottom of the ski mask, and I thought that was really strange.

“I called the police, but they told me that someone had already called and officers were being dispatched. When they got here, they came and asked me for a statement. They wouldn’t tell me what was going on or what had happened, but I saw the paramedics bring Jesse out. Later I watched them bring the gurney out with a body on it, and I knew that Gideon must be dead. Why did Jesse shoot him? I thought they were so close,” she says.

“Gideon wasn’t shot,” I tell her. “At the moment, Jesse isn’t a suspect. Since this is an active investigation, I can’t divulge details, but we are trying to find out exactly what happened.”

“Jesse didn’t kill Gideon? I don’t know if that’s a relief or if it should make me scared because that means someone else killed him,” she says.

“Right now, we have no reason to believe that anyone else in the building is at risk,” I tell her.

She lets out a sigh. “That’s good. I moved into this place because I thought it was going to be a good place to live and I didn’t have to be afraid living alone. I can’t believe something like this happened right across the hall.”

“Thanks for your time,” I tell her.

She nods and heads down the stairs with her trash. Rather than going inside, I go to the next neighbor’s apartment and knock. I don’t get an answer, so I move on to the one next door to Gideon’s. An older woman answers. She isn’t able to give me any new information. According to her, Gideon was a nice young man who always helped her with her groceries or packages when he saw her coming up the stairs, and Jesse was always sweet and friendly, but she didn’t spend a lot of time with either of them. She was asleep during the attack and only woke up to the sound of the gunshot but stayed inside her apartment until the police came to get a statement from her. She didn’t see anything else.

I go back to the door and put the code into the lockbox to get the key. Ducking down under the tape, I enter the apartment. There’s nothing suggesting that any kind of struggle happened in the living room or dining areas, which further confirms to me that Gideon was asleep when he was attacked. Whoever did it was able to get inside the apartment without waking him up, killed him in his bed, and then turned the lights on so that they could see while they were writing on the wall, not knowing the light would catch Jesse’s attention when he got home.

Without a warrant, I can’t do any digging through the apartment looking for copies of the threats that Gideon received, so I look at all the papers and mail I can find just sitting out. I don’t see anything threatening and wonder if Jesse was right that Gideon just threw the threatening letters away because he didn’t take them seriously. Moving further into the apartment, I notice an evidence marker on the wall and see the bullet hole from where Jesse shot at the attacker.

I follow the hallway to the back part of the apartment and find Gideon’s room. There’s lingering evidence of the crime scene investigation unit processing the scene, and the bedding has been removed from the bed. I look at the message written across the wall and notice the handwriting. It’s stark block print, written very deliberately as if in an effort to prevent anyone from recognizing any characteristics of their handwriting. It would take longer to write something like that, which might be why Jesse was able to interrupt the process. I see a laptop sitting on the dresser and make a note to get a warrant for access to the contents of the computer and his email.

Touring the apartment didn’t really give me any new information, so I lock the door and leave. I want to talk to Tracy Ellis about the situation, but I know she wouldn’t be in the office on a Sunday, so I postpone speaking with her until tomorrow morning. Instead, I head for Eric and Bellamy’s house.

By the time I get there, I’ve put in requests for the computer and Gideon’s email as well as his phone records. There may be further communications that might be valuable to the investigation. As much as the threats to the people throughout the company are hanging over the heads of everyone investigating the case, there hasn’t been anything that confirms that’s actually what’s happening. It’s important to keep all possibilities open this early in an investigation, which means considering the chance that this was personal.

Bellamy is home when I get to the house, and she lets me in with a tight hug.

“I know I just saw you for your birthday party, but I still feel like I never get to see you anymore,” she says.

“I know. We need to do better about that,” I tell her. “I need to come here more often.”

“Yes, you do,” she says. “Come on and get something cold to drink. It’s blazing out there. You can tell me what you can about the case. Eric said it has something to do with that televangelist woman, Tracy something.”

“Tracy Ellis,” I tell her, following her into the kitchen. “Where’s Bebe?”

I know that both of the little girl’s parents work with the Bureau, and she likely overhears conversations about cases, but I’m always cautious about talking about any of the gruesome details of what I investigate anywhere where her little ears might pick it up. When she was just a baby, it wasn’t as pressing, but now that she’s getting older, it’s more important to protect her from the harsh realities of the things we face every day.

“She’s in her room coloring,” Bellamy says. “We played in the sprinkler earlier, and I think all that sun and everything just wiped her out.”

“I can definitely understand that. I was actually at the pool when Eric called me this morning,” I say.

“He told me.” She reaches into the refrigerator and pulls out a pitcher of iced tea while I go to the cabinet to get glasses. “He was saying that he just showed you the presentation that woman did about Terrence Brooks.”

“Yeah,” I say. “After my party, he showed it to me because he thought it might make an impact on the investigation. Neither of us saw this coming.”

“Have you found out anything?” she asks.

“So far not much. I talked to Gideon’s roommate, Jesse, who got attacked when he interrupted the killer but was able to scare him off by shooting at him. He said that Gideon wasn’t very concerned about the threats that he was getting because it’s just something that happens when you work for a person like Tracy Ellis.”

“I can see that,” she says.

“The detective told me that the investigators found wig fibers when they were processing the scene, and one of the neighbors said that when they saw the killer, he had long blond hair sticking out of his ski mask,” I say. “That struck me as really odd. Why go to the effort of wearing a wig if you’re going to wear a ski mask, unless it’s so that the wig is visible? It could mean that they knew they were going to be seen and wanted to have a recognizable feature that would throw people off,” I say.

“I’m curious how this person knew where Gideon lives,” Bellamy says.

“Apparently, several people in the company have gotten threatening letters delivered to their homes, so all of their addresses are known somehow. It could be as simple as they were followed, but there could also be a data breach situation,” I say.

The conversation shifts to other things as we sip our tea and relax. When my temperature has cooled and I feel like I’ve stepped out of work mode for the day, at least as much as I ever do, we start making dinner so it will be ready when Eric gets home. The rest of the evening is spent relaxing and talking, catching up on everything having not seen each other nearly as often as we used to for a long time. When we’re sprawled around the living room watching TV in the dark after Bebe has fallen asleep, I look at my two best friends and wonder at how much things have changed.

For years we lived within a few minutes of each other and saw each other virtually every day. For a long time, Eric and Bellamy had a contentious relationship that essentially put me in the middle and left things tense when we did happen to all be together in the same space. But that frostiness thawed considerably during my first ill-fated undercover job in Feathered Nest, and over time the two fell in love. I rediscovered Sam, and we were suddenly not just three individuals anymore. I moved, our little chosen family expanded, and things shifted so much our lives are nearly unrecognizable. But we’re still together. Even if we don’t have the chance to just pop over and see each other on a whim and working at the Bureau together has taken on some new meaning, these are still some of the most important people in my life, and I feel grateful for the chance to spend time with them. Even with the heaviness of the circumstances hanging over me.