The hooded attacker disappeared down the rear stairwell before Sienna could stop him.
She wanted to follow, but the terrified witness was still curled beneath the table. Leaving her alone could be exactly what the attacker wanted.
Then Sienna noticed the silver necklace on the floor.
Her hands began to tremble as she lifted it.
Eight years earlier, a young woman named Dana Cole had vanished without a trace. It was the first unsolved case Sienna had worked as a trainee. Dana had been wearing an identical necklace on the night she disappeared.
But that necklace had been recovered and locked inside an FBI evidence archive.
Someone with authorized access had brought it here.
Sienna’s phone rang.
“You were never supposed to find me,” a distorted voice said.
As she listened, Sienna heard a faint two-tone elevator bell behind the caller. She recognized it immediately—it was the unique sound made by the elevator on the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis floor.
The call had come through the Bureau’s private network.
The frightened witness finally managed to speak.
“Before he attacked, he told me to give you a message,” she whispered. “He said your teacher remembers you.”
Sienna looked back at the photographs connected by red string. Something suddenly became clear.
Every missing woman had previously appeared in a confidential threat assessment. Those files had never been made public, and only two people had reviewed all of them.
Sienna—and Dr. Elias Ward.
Ward was the celebrated profiler who had trained her at the academy. He had taught her how serial offenders selected victims, concealed patterns and manipulated crime scenes.
He had also personally recommended every case that eventually brought her to this building.
Behind the broken mirror, Sienna discovered a concealed compartment containing recordings of her private training sessions. Beside them was a photograph of Sienna leaving her home that same morning.
Written underneath were two words:
“FINAL LESSON.”
A floorboard creaked behind her.
Dr. Ward stepped into the hallway.
He calmly removed a small voice-altering device from his pocket.
“The man you fought was only a decoy,” he explained. “I needed to know whether you were finally ready to see the pattern.”
Sienna stared at the man she had trusted for most of her career.
Ward admitted that he had selected the victims, manipulated the evidence and then used the investigations to shape Sienna into the agent he wanted her to become.
“Every great investigator needs a monster,” he said. “So I gave you one.”
Ward reached toward the terrified witness, but Sienna moved first. She struck his arm away, drove him into the damaged wall and forced him to the floor. Seconds later, approaching officers entered the apartment and placed him in custody.
It appeared to be over.
But as Ward was escorted outside, Sienna’s phone rang again.
The same distorted voice spoke.
“You caught the man who taught you how to hunt.”
Sienna looked toward Ward. His phone and voice-altering device were already sealed inside an evidence bag.
The caller continued:
“But did he ever tell you who taught him how to kill?”
Before the line went dead, Sienna received one final photograph.
It showed her standing inside the apartment—taken only seconds earlier.
