Decker awakens in the middle of the night to a scraping sound outside. His hotel room opens onto an exterior second-floor balcony. When he opens the door, he finds Lafferty’s body hanging from the light bracket next to his door.

He immediately dials 911 and then contacts his partner. The police arrive along with a medical examiner and Lancaster. Lafferty died from a single knife wound to the chest, and her genital area had also been mutilated in the same way as Decker’s wife.

Bogart and an FBI team arrive next, and they retrace Lafferty’s whereabouts that night to a local pharmay. Surveillance footage from the store shows that Lafferty was pulled into an alley by someone who was masquerading as a cop. She may have been injected with a strong paralytic and interrogated before she died.

Decker believes the killer wanted to know how much the police knew about the bomb shelter. Decker also believes that the killer is working with someone else: “‘Because no one can be in two places at the same time’” (209). 

After leaving Lancaster and Bogart, Decker heads back to the 7-Eleven where he supposedly first met Leopold. While there, he sees a front-page newspaper article that shows a photo of Decker conversing with Leopold.