Hannah hadn't slept.
She sat at her desk in the FBI's temporary field office — really just a borrowed conference room at the precinct — with a cup of coffee gone half-drunk and cold, a spoon still sticking out of it. Case files were spread across the table. Her laptop screen glowed with a database search she'd been running for six hours.
Her phone rang. First thing in the morning.
She picked it up, listened, and closed her eyes.
Then she called McGee.
"He upped his game."
---
McGee pulled up in front of the cathedral and just stared for a moment.
It was huge — gothic architecture, stone spires reaching into the gray morning sky, stained glass dark from the outside. The kind of church you saw in movies, the kind that made you feel small just looking at it.
Police cars lined the street. An ambulance. A coroner's van.
She went through the front doors and into the nave, her footsteps echoing on stone.
And stopped.
Up at the altar, mounted on a wooden cross, was a man in clerical robes. His arms were bound to the crossbeam with rope. His legs were bound to the upright. His head hung forward.
Archbishop Daniels.
McGee had seen two staged bodies now. Nothing had prepared her for this.
She forced herself to move forward, to look closer. The staging was the same — deliberate, careful, almost reverent in its precision. But the scale was different. This wasn't a body in a chair. This was a crucifixion in a cathedral.
"He upped his game" didn't cover it.
A beat cop stood nearby, young, his face white. McGee caught his eye.
"Get what evidence you need," she said quietly, "and get him down before the press get here."
The cop nodded and moved.
---
Hannah came up beside her, her shoes clicking on the stone floor. She looked exhausted — dark circles, same clothes as yesterday. But her eyes were sharp.
"You saw," Hannah said. It wasn't a question.
"I saw." McGee didn't look away from the cross. "What do you have?"
Hannah pulled out a folder. "Archbishop Daniels. Sixty-eight. Ran this diocese for twenty years." She opened the folder. "And for most of that time, he was covering up abuse."
McGee turned to look at her.
"Accused priests," Hannah continued. "Instead of reporting them, he shuffled them to new parishes. Fresh starts. Where they did it again." Her voice was flat, professional, but McGee could hear the anger underneath. "Dozens of victims. Families silenced. Reports buried. He protected the institution and sacrificed the kids."
The Church had protected him. The law had protected him. Everyone had protected him except the people he hurt. Her father believed in institutions. She wondered what he'd say, looking at this cross.
McGee looked back up at the cross.
"A priest who protected predators," she said quietly, "nailed to the symbol of his own faith."
"That's the sentence," Hannah agreed. "Same as the others. Kane at his desk — where he stole. Walker in a hospital gown — she denied care. Daniels on the cross." She closed the folder. "He's not just killing them, McGee. He's judging them. Publicly."
McGee was quiet for a moment. Then: "You said he upped his game. This isn't just the staging."
"No." Hannah pulled out another file — thicker, with tabs. "I spent all night in the Bureau database. Found two other cities with cases like this. Staged bodies. Same patience, same theatricality. Different victims, same pattern." She met McGee's eyes. "No arrests. No suspects. They went cold."
McGee felt the floor shift under her.
"He's done this before."
"For years," Hannah said. "Moving city to city. This isn't his first rodeo, McGee. He's been perfecting this."
McGee stared at the file. Two other cities. Other detectives who'd stood where she was standing, looked at staged bodies, and never caught him.
"We should contact those departments," McGee said. "See if they have anything — leads, details, things they couldn't prove. Anything."
"I already started the requests," Hannah said. "My credentials will get us in faster. But McGee —" She paused. "Those cases went cold for a reason. He's careful. He's smart. And he's been doing this longer than you've been a cop."
"I know." McGee looked back up at the cross. "That just means we have to be smarter."
---
They walked out of the cathedral into daylight and a wall of cameras.
The press was there in full force — local news vans, national network trucks, reporters shouting. A crucified archbishop in a gothic cathedral. This wasn't a local crime story anymore. This was the story.
McGee felt the old freeze start in her chest — the same panic from the Larkspur building, the microphones and the lights.
Then Hannah stepped slightly behind her and nodded.
Just a nod. Your case.
McGee took a breath. She stepped forward, into the cameras.
"I'm Detective Summers," she said, her voice steady. "I'll make a brief statement."
Chapter 10