By the time she had finished her fruitless search it was dark outside, and the only light in Dani’s apartment was coming from her laptop screen and the orange glow of streetlights outside.

Dani sat back and sighed. A shuffling noise from out in the hallway caught her ear. Dani frowned, set the laptop down and walked out of the lounge. In the hallway her eyes moved down to the bottom of the front door where the edge of a piece of paper was poking into her apartment. Dani rolled her eyes. Each of the apartments had letterboxes on the ground floor, but that didn’t stop canvassers from regularly sneaking into the building and pushing their junk straight into people’s homes.

Dani moved over to the door and bent down to pick the paper up, ready to go through the motions of tearing the leaflet in two without even looking at what was being offered this time.

But then she stopped, because she quickly realised this wasn’t yet another leaflet offering house cleaning, or pizzas, or assistance with injury claims, but just a regular piece of plain paper, folded in half.

She unfolded the paper and stared down at the words, handwritten in blue.

‘What the…?’

RIP Dean Harland. Now you’re a killer too, DI Stephens. Just like your brother. And just like me.

Dani froze for a couple of seconds as the words sank in. Then she grabbed the door handle, threw open the door, and burst barefoot out into the corridor.

Chapter Forty-One

Dani sprinted along the corridor outside her apartment. All was quiet, not a soul in sight, but that note had been slipped under her door all of ten seconds before. Whoever had left it couldn’t have gone far. Dani had taken little time to properly digest the scribbled words on the piece of paper that she was still clutching in her hand, but she knew damn well she wanted to catch whoever had left it.

She skidded around the corner to the lift and looked up to see the red screen blinking four, then three. That had to be the person who’d left the note, still heading down.

Dani rushed to the stairwell and crashed open the door, bounding down the steps two at a time. Twice her socks on the slippery bare concrete almost caused her to fly head over heels but, gripping hold of the handrail, she managed to keep her footing, just.

On the ground floor, out of breath, she flung open the door and raced into the foyer. She looked over to the lift. The doors were open, the lift waiting. No one was in sight inside. She turned the other way. The outer security doors were closed. The place was entirely deserted.