Grant started to respond, then noticed something on the wall to his left. He pulled out his cell and used the lit screen to illuminate that section of the wall.

It was a left-pointing arrow—scrawled in fresh blood.

Grant motioned. “I’d say that way.”

Frankel raised his gun a bit higher and Grant didn’t protest when he took the lead. Frankel dug out his iPhone and punched on the flashlight app to provide light as they slowly moved down the long corridor.

Some doors were cracked open, others closed. All had glass windows halfway up so that back in the day the staff could check on their charges.

The first dozen rooms they checked were either locked or filled with the tattered remnants of drunk-fests and homeless sleepovers.

They were in the darkest part of the hallway when they reached a door with another message in dripping crimson blood.

V.

They exchanged woeful looks, then stood silently on either side of the door. They listened intently, waiting for any sort of sound.

Frankel peeked inside the window.

“Goddamn it.” He quickly brought the iPhone up, shined the light inside for a second, then brought it back down again. “Fuck this asshole.”

Before Grant could respond, Frankel threw open the door.

A worn chair was in the center of the room; a man was sitting in it.

His head was covered by a bonnet hair dryer attached to the back of the chair. Even in the dim light, Grant could see he was dead, with pools of blood beneath him.

Frankel approached the chair and carefully lifted the hair dryer for a closer look.

The man’s head rolled off his neck and plopped onto the floor beside their feet.

Both men jumped backward.

“Jesus,” Grant muttered.

Frankel recovered enough to aim the light toward the decapitated head on the floor.

Timothy Alan Leeds stared up at them with blood-filled vacant eyes and a carved V in the middle of his forehead.

Grant was still trying to slow his heartbeat when he caught sight of the wall behind Frankel. “John,” he whispered to the detective. “Shine your light behind you.”

Frankel did just that.

And illuminated a small wooden cross in the middle of the wall.

He widened the flashlight’s scope. It revealed numerous photographs and news clippings taped up on either side of the cross.

All were of Leeds or the murders he’d committed thirty years ago just a few miles from where they now stood.

Frankel shook his head. “I guess it’s the last thing he wanted Leeds to see before he sent him off to meet his Maker.”

“I think it might actually be another message for us.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s arranged in a specific pattern.” Grant pointed to the wall again. “Unless I’m totally wrong—that looks like a big Roman numeral seven to me.”

Frankel trained the flashlight on the wall one more time.