The light he had seen from outside came courtesy of a Chihuly chandelier hanging above. It illuminated an entryway that led off to massive rooms still staged with furniture that Fleming had kept to show off the house to potential buyers.

But these rooms held no interest for Hawley. His eyes were on the staircase directly in front of him.

And the bloody footprints on the carpet covering it.

He found them upstairs in the master bedroom.

That had been the other light he’d seen from the driveway.

At first glance, one would think he had interrupted Liz Dozier and Jared Fleming in bed together. But Hawley quickly realized they’d just been staged that way.

Especially as they were both still clothed—and complete bloody messes.

Hawley moved closer to the bed, carefully trying to avoid anything that might later be classified as evidence.

It wasn’t like he wanted to ensure they were dead. No one could have survived the slaughterhouse the bed and two bodies resembled.

Hawley just wanted to double check.

Sure enough, a Roman numeral VI had been engraved on Jared Fleming’s head. A carved VII adorned the brow of the woman he would never get to wed.

Hawley straightened up as he heard a sound.

And realized his big mistake.

There had been two cars in the driveway.

He had assumed one belonged to Fleming and the other to Elizabeth Dozier.

As opposed to the blood-soaked killer he turned to find standing directly behind him.

“Ah, Sergeant Hawley,” he said. “You and Commander Grant will be happy to know that I got Fleming to confess to killing his partner, the late lamented Mr. Dozier, before we finished our work here.”

He waved the dripping bloody knife at his handiwork on the bed.

As the Commandment Killer moved toward him, the sergeant found himself thinking of Austin Grant.

Stanford Hawley truly regretted that he wouldn’t get to tell his mentor everything he had just figured out.

Part Two: London Falling

PART TWO

London Falling

Chapter 17

17

Prior Silver was agitated.

He stood by the newsstand in Stepney, three blocks from his flat. Silver had spotted the two constables watching his street in an instant. The former garage mechanic retreated down the steps into the Underground, mumbling to himself.

Things were rapidly spiraling out of control.

New York had been a total fiasco—he should have stayed home in England.

Silver continued down the escalator into the depths of the Stepney Green station. He searched for and found a phone booth.

Once safely inside, he closed the bright red door and reached into his overcoat. He pulled out a small wooden cross and Bible. He flipped to the Book of Mark, clutching the wooden cross.

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand,” he read aloud. “Repent ye, and believe the gospel.”

He closed the Bible and shut his eyes, grasping the cross even tighter.

“Repent ye,” he repeated.