Coletti saw the girl’s surgically enhanced breasts bulging against her skimpy top and knew she’d invested heavily in the tools of her trade. But she hadn’t invested much in her mind.

“Did he have any enemies?” he asked. “I don’t know. I never saw him outside the club.”

“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll get an officer to escort you back to the club. We have your information, right?”

She nodded.

Coletti climbed the steps and walked over to the commissioner and Mann.

“She’s not the sharpest pencil in the stack,” Coletti said, looking back at the girl in the car. “Not that anybody wants her for her mind.”

Smithson was standing off to the side, glaring at him. She shook her head and sighed angrily. “You’re just like the rest of them, aren’t you, Mike? The only thing women are good for are their bodies.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked, clearly confused. “You know what I’m talking about,” she hissed, before angrily stalking away.

Lynch and Mann watched with raised eyebrows and barely concealed smirks.

“You can’t be looking at those young girls in front of your woman,” Mann said, teasing him. “That’s how you get yourself in trouble.”

Coletti blushed with embarrassment. Lynch laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “Welcome to the club, Mike. Now you know how the rest of us feel.”

At that, the three men shared a much-needed laugh. But it didn’t last for long. Smithson returned with an officer from the crime scene unit. They were both wearing grim expressions.

“Sir, I thought you might want to see this,” said the crime scene officer as he held up a bloody piece of paper in a plastic evidence bag. “It was stuck to the victim on the altar.”

Mann read the note aloud. “Detective Coletti, I am the abomination. Now the desolation begins.”

“What does that mean?” the commissioner asked, looking at Smithson.

Before she could answer, another voice chimed in. “It’s from Daniel 12, and it means we’re in the last days,” said a tall, elegant black man with soulful eyes.

Lynch looked at him curiously. “And you are?”

“Reverend Lewis. I started this church twenty years ago. I never thought I’d see the day people would be murdered in the aisles.”

They allowed him a moment to grieve. Then Lynch spoke with a mix of sympathy and urgency. “What do you think the killer was trying to tell us in that note, Reverend?”

“The abomination is something unholy that sets up a period of misery and death,” the preacher said. “I think whoever did this is trying to tell you that the worst is yet to come.”

A second later, Mann’s iPhone rang. He listened as the detective on the other end delivered the news.