Starting in the library down the hall over a game of chess where Everett connected the first three murders he had committed, all the way to stuffing the reporter from the Daily Mail into the fridge in his basement below.

“Why Ferguson?” asked Grant.

With countless questions racing through his brain, it was the first Grant thought to utter.

“Thou shalt not bear false witness,” responded Everett, quoting the Ninth Commandment. “One shouldn’t make up stories about other people.”

“The interview with Prior Silver?” realized Grant. “But he didn’t even write it. You did!”

“About time you finally caught on,” Everett taunted. “He might not have written it, but he certainly told that editor of his to go and publish it.”

Grant remembered Michaels telling him how frightened Ferguson had sounded on the phone. “Because you must have forced him to do it.”

“I might have been holding a knife to his throat at the time, but he didn’t say no,” Everett said. “I must admit you were getting close when you thought it was Ferguson who made it all up and faked Silver’s suicide.”

“Right idea, wrong lunatic.”

Everett chuckled. The fact that his brother didn’t deny it was chilling.

“You have a twisted sense of logic,” Grant told Everett. “Washed up rock and rollers, priests just doing their job . . .”

“Means to an end.”

“Victim number ten?” asked Grant.

“X marks the spot, as they say.”

“Care to tell me who?”

Everett just laughed again. “You’re going to miss your plane if we keep this up,” he said. “And if you’re thinking of calling the Swiss police on your way over here, I would seriously reconsider. Especially if you want to see Rachel. It would be a damn shame if you didn’t—considering how happy she would be to see you.”

Grant felt his entire body go cold. “You wouldn’t dare, Everett.”

“I’ve been known to improvise when the need arises. Just ask Sergeant Hawley.”

“Lay one hand on her and I’ll slit your throat myself.”

“Like I told you before—don’t make promises you can’t keep, Commander.”

There was a click, and Everett was gone.

Grant screamed in anguish at the top of his lungs.

Rachel had found the cold crisp walk through the quaint streets of Zermatt invigorating. She’d returned to her uncle’s feeling refreshed—her resolutions to keep Frankel and her father in her life gave hope to the new year on the horizon.

After hanging up her parka in the guest room closet and changing into sweats, she walked into the living room just as her uncle put down his cell phone.

“Who was that?” she asked.

“Your father, actually.”

“Is he okay?”

“Absolutely.”

But Rachel could see the mischievous look in her uncle’s eye. “What is it?”

“What’s what?”

“What aren’t you telling me?” asked Rachel.