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slender hilt of a knife lodged beneath the man’s sternum, the upward tilt of the weapon. In the lamplight Griffin saw the hilt’s intricate pattern of gold on ebony. Faas had been holding the dagger in place as he walked.
    “Don’t let them get it,” Faas said, wrenching the knife from his chest. He stumbled and fell against a statuette of a lion, the blade slipping from his hand into the bushes. “I dropped it. Find . . . Before they kill . . .”
    “Kill who, Uncle Faas?” Petra asked.
    “Everyone . . . This . . . from Atlant . . .” He grasped at the sculpture, then stumbled toward the gate. Griffin caught him.
    “Oh my God!” Petra cried, spinning around, looking for someone to help.
    Griffin lifted the slight man, carried him to the street corner, then lowered him to the ground. The bell of an approaching tram rang out as Petra knelt by her uncle’s side, sobbing. She looked up, saw the tram, crying out for someone to call an ambulance.
    But Griffin saw the blood on Faas’s shirt, saw it spread, tiny snowflakes landing in it, melting. He wanted to scream at Faas. He couldn’t die. Not without telling Griffin what he needed to know.
    Petra looked at Griffin in disbelief. “Who? Who did this?”
    “Stay with him. I’m going to go look.” He returned to the garden grounds, walked under the arch, retraced the path that Faas had taken. He stopped at the topiary where he’d first seen Faas. And noticed the disturbed snow where someone had stood, lying in wait. Whoever it was had fled out to the street, probably when he and Petra had run up to assist Faas. The trail in the snow led straight to the wrought-iron fence that bordered the property, and Griffin followed it, hopped over the fence just as the killer had done. He stood there on the sidewalk, the museum grounds at his back.
    Footprints in a shallow snowdrift on the sidewalk indicated that someone had recently walked to the corner, starting from where Griffin now stood. He looked over in alarm, at the stopped tram, the group of passengers gathering around Petra and her uncle’s body. The snow swirled down from the sky, faster and faster. Distant sirens grew closer. And there, among the onlookers, was the man in the long black overcoat, his hat shadowing his face. The same man who had been lurking across the street from the restaurant. Suddenly he pointed at Griffin, shouting, “There he is! He killed him!”

Chapter 7
    December 4
    FBI Academy
    Quantico, Virginia
    S ydney opened her office door, saw the twenty-five applications on her desk from various law enforcement agencies, and thought about turning right back around again. The packets belonged to officers and civilians who hoped to attend the next forensic art course, of which she was one of the instructors. Normally she would have had each one vetted by now, except that she’d agreed to assist Scotty on that bank surveillance job. The suspects they’d taken down on the afternoon of Grogan’s murder a few days ago denied trying to case banks for a robbery. The matter was still under investigation—one she was grateful wasn’t hers, she thought as her phone rang.
    Her mother. “Do you realize I just got a call from Angela’s teacher? That Angela got up in front of the entire class for show-and-tell, informing them that she witnessed Senator Grogan’s murder.”
    “Mom, I’m sorry—”
    “For God’s sake, she’s eleven. There’s already enough violence in the schools, and now every one of her classmates is probably running home, telling their parents what my daughter is being exposed to, and that we’re allowing it! What were you thinking letting her overhear something like that?”
    “How was I supposed to know she was eavesdropping?”
    “You know how she is when it comes to your job. You should have anticipated it.”
    Sydney closed her eyes, wondering how long it would be before her mother let her live this one down. “I don’t know how many times I can apologize,