2:17 A.M.
"But I'll need to be more careful — not just because of my superiors, but because now, it seems, we're not facing an ordinary criminal. We're facing something that knows how to stay completely hidden, which means we need to be a lot smarter than we've been so far."
After the call ended, Eliana sat alone in her apartment, thinking about the marginal note she'd seen on Billings's desk, that number "217" circled in a small ring, as if it had meant something important enough to him that he'd written it in his own shaking hand just days before his murder.
She wondered, staring at her ceiling in the gradually deepening darkness as night approached, what exactly Billings had known, and whether he'd