The serial killer at dawn

Previously

…He pocketed the phone and stepped out of the alley, the revolver a steady weight against his ribs. The address was only a few blocks away. He had time to call for backup, to loop Vane in. But the message had been for him alone, and something in the photograph's precision suggested that showing up with company would close whatever door had just cracked open. He walked, the city's neon reflections bleeding across wet asphalt, each step a choice he couldn't take back.