Both letters turned out to be hidden in the lawn, looking more like scribbles than members of the alphabet.

Eventually, Claire’s folks said they should go eat. They managed to tear Jack away from his video game and Claire thanked Frankel for the puzzle help.

“My pleasure,” he said and watched them toddle off through the terminal.

It was a nice distraction but the longer they had played, the more Frankel felt he’d missed something. But for the life of him, he couldn’t remember what it was. The more he taxed his mind, the further it slipped away. It’d probably hit him thirty-five thousand feet in the air where he couldn’t do anything about it.

He picked up the laptop again and let out a sigh. He hoped the battle would start soon and Scarlett would stop whining. But he highly doubted it.

Grant let himself into Everett’s house and headed directly into the kitchen. Opening the door next to the pantry, he flipped on the adjacent light switch.

It illuminated a set of wooden stairs that led down to a rather large basement that ran half the length of the Hampstead house.

The room wasn’t quite a candidate for that Hoarders show Grant caught a few times on the telly, but there was plenty packed inside. There were stacks of books and an equal number of documents and papers that Everett had stored for years.

Grant located the ski boots easily enough in a corner. Everett had been very specific about where to find them. He then moved across the room to the large refrigerator sitting flush against the wall.

Grant knew his brother used it to keep chilled Chardonnays and sparkling wines, to go with the racks of reds above it that composed Everett’s version of a wine cellar.

Grant threw open the refrigerator door to grab the bottle of Dom.

The minute Grant was back in the kitchen and had reception, he began dialing. Everett picked up after barely one ring.

“Don’t you have a three o’clock plane to catch?”

“Where’s Rachel?” Grant demanded.

“In the other room. We just got back from our tour,” his brother responded calmly. “I take it you couldn’t find the Dom.”

“You know bloody damn well I didn’t.”

“But you found Monte Ferguson,” said Everett.

Staring at him from inside the cleaned-out fridge, his throat slashed and a Roman numeral IX carved into his forehead.

Just when he thought this horrendous year couldn’t get any worse, Grant was trying to come to grips with the ghastliest fact of all.

My brother is the Commandment Killer.

Everett had been leading him around by the nose from the very beginning.