“Sorry, Detective, but I need you.”

•   •   •

IT TOOK THE PORSCHE only seven minutes to reach Peter Biaggini’s upscale apartment building at 322 Willard Avenue. Sherlock had put Mr. Maitland on speakerphone on the way, and he’d nearly flatlined at the news, and finally said he would notify Mr. August Biaggini. “Keep him away from his son’s apartment, sir, please,” Sherlock said.

“Yes, I will. I’ll call Director Mueller, too. Guys, this can’t be happening. Three kids are dead, three promising young men. Three! And here I thought Peter Biaggini was behind Tommy Cronin’s death, that you were looking hard at him. Who’s responsible for this? We’ve got to put a stop to it, Savich.”

There were four cop cars with their running lights on in front of the apartment building, and two plain Crown Vics. A dozen people were already milling around in the street, wondering what was going on. Savich pulled in behind Detective Moffett’s big black SUV. He must live close to be here so quickly.

Savich’s first thought upon entering Peter Biaggini’s apartment was that Daddy must have laid out a bundle for this place—it was spacious, lots of windows. There was a single posh brass number spelled out on the door—Three. When you walked through it, you entered a large entryway that seemed to boast of space by wasting it. Large windows that had to mean lots of light and gorgeous wooden floors led your eyes to a kitchen out of the next century.

They heard sobbing from the living room, but didn’t stop there. They walked to the master bedroom at the end of a wide hallway. The three cops near the doorway stepped aside. Detective Moffett said, “Not a pretty sight.”

Peter Biaggini, twenty-two years old, lay sprawled on the floor at the foot of his king-size bed, on his back, his head and face a mess of gore. Blood splattered the pale gray bedspread, the gray leather easy chair, had even spewed in an arc high on the bedroom wall. His green cashmere sweater was soaked in his own blood, his blue jeans streaked with it, even down to his black sneakers. His bloodied cell phone lay on the rug next to his arm. And beside his cell lay a highly polished old Bren Ten.

She looked up at Moffett. “The murder weapon and the killer left it beside him. Just walked over and dropped it. Leaving it here smacks of a professional, but the chances of that are highly unlikely.”

Moffett said, “You’d better believe the killer wiped off the prints, and you can bet there’ll be no registration. It looks old, maybe 1970s. We’ll check it out.”

Savich said, “I wonder why the killer didn’t take the pistol and dump it in the Potomac.”

Sherlock went down on her knees beside Peter Biaggini’s body, fighting sadness and regret, trying to focus. She felt a moment of nausea, swallowed several times. She would have laid her hand against his cheek or his forehead to see how warm he was, but he didn’t have a cheek. There was so much blood in a human body. She touched her hand to his throat instead, feeling the sticky wet of his blood. She said, trying her best to keep her voice flat, “He’s still quite warm. I’d say he’d been dead only minutes before Melissa got here. When the doorbell buzzed I’ll bet Peter thought it was Melissa, so he opened the door without checking, or else he knew the person who killed him. When he saw the gun, I’m thinking he turned and ran, but his killer was right behind him. He would have slammed the bedroom door, locked it? Dillon, could you see if the door’s been damaged?”

Savich said, “There’s no lock on the bedroom door, no need to shoot it open or slam into it. The killer opened it, and Peter turned to face him, his cell phone in his hand, only he didn’t have time to call 911.” Savich leaned down, carefully picked up the black cell phone beside Peter Biaggini’s right hand to check his calls.

Sherlock sat back on her heels, careful not to touch anything else. She looked around her. “When the door flew open, Peter looked at his killer, maybe he was begging for his life, but it didn’t matter, his killer shot him twice in the head from no more than six feet away.”

Sherlock got to her feet, stared down at Peter Biaggini. “What a waste, what a horrible waste.” And she thought, Peter, you poked at the wrong lion this time. This lion wasn’t twenty years old. He didn’t run away; no, this lion ate you.

Savich said, “His last call was to Melissa Ivy forty-five minutes ago. I’ll get Ollie started on the rest of this call history.”

Sherlock stared around the room. “Peter’s death—it makes no sense. We have to start fresh, Dillon, look at all our assumptions. Tommy, Stony, and Peter—they were friends most of their short lives. They had to be involved in something more dangerous than they knew, with people they shouldn’t have been.” She looked down once more at the ruin of Peter Biaggini. “They were in over their heads.”