Sarah Walker unlocked her penthouse door and stepped inside, juggling a bag of groceries and a stack of mail. It had been a long day — back-to-back board meetings, a conference call that ran forty minutes over, and traffic on the bridge that made her want to scream. All she wanted was to put on something comfortable, heat up the soup she'd bought, and not think about premiums or deductibles for the rest of the night.
She set the bag on the kitchen counter. Chicken soup, a baguette, one of those expensive chocolate bars she bought when she was stressed. She put the mail next to it — bills, a catalog, a postcard from her sister in Portland. She kicked off her heels and sighed with relief.
When she turned around, a man was sitting in her living room chair.
He wore a dark suit. A black tie. Black leather gloves. And a Guy Fawkes mask — pale face, thin smile, pointed beard.
Her brain couldn't process it. The chair was hers. The living room was hers. This man was sitting in her chair, in her living room, like he'd been waiting for her to get home.
"Hello, Mrs. Walker," he said, pleasantly, like a neighbor. "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
Sarah opened her mouth to scream.
He pulled out a taser and fired.
Cut to black.
---
McGee sat at her kitchen table with Campbell's report spread out in front of her. The pages were clinical, precise — time of death, toxicology, injection sites marked on a body diagram with neat little X's.
Time of death: 11:30 PM. Two injections — sedatives first, lethal pharmaceuticals second. Conscious but paralyzed for two hours and fifteen minutes.
She read it three times. The numbers didn't change.
Two hours and fifteen minutes. Awake. Unable to move. She tried to imagine it — lying there, feeling everything, watching a masked man move around your office. Arranging things. Taking his time. Knowing what was coming and being unable to do a single thing about it.
She closed the folder. Her hands were shaking.
She packed the report into her bag and drove to the precinct.
---
Fredericks was in his office, on the phone. He waved her in and wrapped up the call, his expression shifting as he saw her face.
"Summers. What have you got?"
She set the report on his desk. "ME's findings. Kane was injected twice. First one left him conscious but paralyzed. Second one killed him at around 11:30."
Fredericks flipped through the pages, his brow furrowing. "So he was alive —"
"For two hours and fifteen minutes. With the killer in the room." McGee sat down, her hands flat on her knees to keep them still. "Sir, this wasn't some random killing. He knew what he was doing. Every step was deliberate. The sedative, the wait, the staging — this was planned down to the minute."
She wasn't gloating. There was nothing to gloat about. Her voice was quieter than she expected.
"My hunch was right," she said. "And there has to be more to this. Nobody does this once."
Fredericks closed the report. He was quiet for a long moment, tapping his pen against the desk. When he looked up, the easy confidence was gone from his face.
"Two hours," he said quietly. "Jesus."
"Sir?"
"Alright." He set the pen down. "Dig into his past. Kane's business, his hedge fund, everything. If this guy picks his targets, the reason's buried in Kane's life. I want to know what he was hiding, who he hurt, what he did to end up on this guy's list."
"Yes, sir."
"And Summers?" Fredericks leaned forward. "If you're right about this — if there's more coming — I need you ahead of it. Not behind it. Understand?"
She nodded, but the words sat heavy. Ahead of it. As if she had any idea where a man like this would go next.
---
McGee headed home that evening with an armful of files — Kane's financial records, SEC filings, everything the department had. The bag was heavy enough to make her shoulder ache.
She made tea. She sat on the couch with the files spread across the coffee table, telling herself she'd just rest her eyes for a minute before diving in.
She fell asleep before she opened the first one.
---
The phone woke her.
It was still dark. Her neck ached from the angle she'd slept at. The files were scattered across the coffee table and the floor — she'd knocked half of them off in her sleep. The tea was cold on the table, a thin skin forming on the surface.
For a moment she didn't know where she was. Then the phone rang again, shrill in the dark apartment.
She grabbed it. "Summers."
"Detective Summers." The voice was familiar. "It's Fredericks."
McGee sat up straight, files sliding off her lap. "Sir?"
"Another body’s been found. Same M.O. as your Kane case." A pause, and she could hear the weight in his voice. "I need you at the scene. Penthouse on Larkspur Avenue. Now."
The line went dead.
McGee was on her feet before she was fully awake. She threw on yesterday's clothes — blazer, the white shirt with the mustard stain. She was out the door with her shirt half tucked in, badge in one hand, keys in the other, the files still scattered across her living room floor.
---
The penthouse on Larkspur Avenue was already crawling with uniforms when McGee arrived. Two patrol cars out front, lights still flashing, casting red and blue across the building's marble facade. A small crowd had gathered behind the tape — neighbors in robes, a doorman who looked shaken.
The same officer from the Kane scene met her at the door. Young, nervous, trying to look like he wasn't. His face was paler than last time.
"Detective. This way."
The living room was spacious, expensive — floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city, modern furniture that probably cost more than McGee's car, a kitchen with a bag of groceries still sitting on the counter. She could see a baguette sticking out of the top. A chocolate bar next to it.
In the center of the room, in an armchair facing the windows, sat a woman.
She wore a hospital gown — thin, pale blue, the kind they give you in the ER. Her hands were resting on her lap, fingers intertwined. Her eyes were open, staring at the city lights.
McGee felt the floor tilt under her.
"Sarah Walker," the officer said quietly. "Fifty-two. CEO of Meridian Health Insurance. Maid found her this morning at seven. She —" He stopped, swallowed. "She screamed. The maid. We had to sedate her."
McGee stepped closer. She'd seen this staging before — the chair, the intertwined fingers, the open eyes. But the hospital gown was new, and it hit her like a punch.
A health insurance CEO. Dressed as a patient.
She thought about the denied claims — the sick people, the "policy" decisions. The system had let Sarah Walker do it for years. It took a man in a mask to make her wear the gown.
She leaned in and checked the woman's neck, her gloved fingers gentle.
Two small marks. Injection sites. Same place as Kane. Same spacing.
She knew.
---
The building's security office was smaller than Meridian Tower's — just a desk and four monitors in a room that smelled like old coffee. The guard, a tired man in his sixties with reading glasses perched on his nose, pulled up the hallway footage.
"No one came in or out that fits," he said, clicking through feeds. "We checked. Lobby, garage, service entrance — nobody in a mask. It's like he was already here."
"Show me the hallway outside her unit."
The guard clicked. The timestamp read 6:00 PM. The hallway was empty — beige carpet, framed prints, a runner rug.
Then a figure stepped into frame.
Dark suit. Black tie. Leather gloves. Guy Fawkes mask.
McGee's breath caught. Same walk. Same unhurried pace.
He walked toward Walker's door. And then he stopped.
He looked up. Right at the camera.
And tilted his head to the right.
It wasn't a glance. It was a study — slow, deliberate, like he was trying to see through the lens, trying to figure out who was on the other side. The mask's painted smile didn't move, but the tilt gave it something almost curious. Almost... interested.
McGee felt a chill crawl up her spine.
Then he adjusted his tie — a small, precise tug — and walked to the door. It opened. He went in.
"When does he come out?" McGee asked, her voice tighter than she meant.
The guard fast-forwarded. The hallway sat empty. Hours compressed into seconds. At 10:00 PM — sharp, on the dot — the figure emerged, walked to the stairwell without a backward glance, and went in.
"And the victim?"
"She's on the lobby camera at 7:04 PM. Comes in with groceries." The guard pulled it up — Sarah Walker, smiling at someone off-camera, carrying a paper bag. She looked tired but happy. The kind of tired you feel after a long day when you're finally home. "Maid found her at seven this morning."
McGee stared at the frozen image — the empty hallway, the closed stairwell door.
He'd been inside waiting for over an hour before Walker got home. Sitting in her chair. In her living room. Waiting.
Three hours with her. Same as Kane. Same routine, same precision.
She pulled out her phone and called Fredericks. Her hand was steady. She didn't know how.
"Sir." She looked at the screen, at the masked figure frozen mid-step. "It's the same guy."
Chapter 6