Page 13 of Holmes, Margaret and Poe

It was 10:10 a.m.

The phone went silent. I shut my eyes and was just starting to drift off when it began to buzz again; it vibrated off the end table and landed with a crack on the floor.

Now it was 10:12 a.m.

Not even four hours of sleep? This is gonna hurt.

I hated when my life got like this, when I had to fight to find scattered bouts of real sleep amid multiple cat naps. But that was the nature of working big cases like the shooting down of American Flight 839.

Your life was not your own. Your life was spent in service to the dead.

The cell began to vibrate a third time. I leaned over and snatched it up, figuring I’d see Ned Mahoney’s name on the caller ID.

It was John Sampson.

“We’ve got another Dead Hours corpse. Found about forty-five minutes ago in Marlow Heights.”

“Out of the District,” I said.

“Maryland state troopers have already asked us in.”

“They’re sure it’s our guy?”

“Same MO. Sheet and all.”

“Text me the address,” I said.

“ASAP. I’ll grab you in fifteen and drop Willow with Jannie and Nana.”

I dressed as fast as I could, given that I was still recovering from a chest wound. I heard my cell phone ding with a text, glanced at it, and saw an address on Olson Street in Marlow Heights, which surprised me. I got on my shoulder harness and holster, then tugged on a jacket.

Up to that point, the victims had all been found in and around DC in densely populated inner-city areas with, for the most part, lower-income residents. But Olson Street in Marlow Heights was deep in the heart of suburbia.

Why break the inner-city pattern at death number five?

And why kill again so soon?

The first four killings had all been at least a month apart. The body of Trey O’Dell had been found a little more than twenty-four hours ago.

Over the years, I’d worked my share of serial-killer investigations, and when we saw dramatic decreases in the length of time between slayings, it often meant the murderer was going out of control. That tended to result in even more victims.

But it also meant the killer was ripe to make a mistake.

That thought had me fully awake as I left my bedroom and pounded down the stairs. I found Ali, my almost-eleven-year-old, and Jannie, eighteen, in the front room working on their laptops. Ali’s school was closed this week for teacher conferences. Though Jannie had a dorm room at Howard University, she liked to come home to study before big tests. Ali was engrossed in a math lesson, and Jannie sat with her laptop in one of the overstuffed chairs and sighed when she saw me. She’d been doing that a lot lately.

“Dad, I have to study, and Uncle John texted me that —” she began.

“We need your help and he’s bringing Willow,” I said. Willow’s school was closed this week too. “There’s been another Dead Hours killing. I’ve got to eat and get out of here in four minutes.”

“Really?” Ali said. “Another one so soon, Dad? That’s not good.”

“Tell me about it,” I said and headed to the kitchen.

Nana Mama was reading in the great room but she struggled to her feet when I came rushing in. “You need breakfast, Alex. I’ll make you some eggs.”

“Thanks, but no time, Nana,” I said. “I’ll just grab coffee.”

“You and Bree have to learn to eat right!” she scolded.

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