The man in the blue suit heard a rush of sound. The auditorium doors had opened for the crowd. He headed back by way of the main hallway, turning left just as people poured into the lobby, chattering and laughing. None of them noticed him, but even if they had, they would never have connected him to the dead man.

There was a fire alarm box on the wall next to a door marked TEACHERS’ LOUNGE.

Using his handkerchief to glove his hand, he opened the door to the box, lifted the hammer, broke the glass, and pulled the lever; the alarm bell shrilled.

Then he walked directly into the thick of the crowd.

Children were already starting to scream and run in circles in the lobby. Parents called out to their kids, took their hands or lifted them into their arms, and moved quickly toward the front doors.

The man went with the crowd, through the glass doors and out onto California Street. He kept going, turned onto a side street, passed Chaz Smith’s Ferrari, and unlocked his scarred SUV parked right behind it.

A moment later, he cruised slowly past the school. All the good people — the kids and their parents — were facing the building, staring up at the roof, watching for smoke and flames.

They didn’t know it, but they were all safer now.

Chaz Smith was only one of his targets. The media had started tracking this shooter’s kills — drug dealers, all of them. One of the papers had given him a nickname and it had stuck.

Now they all called him Revenge.

Fire engines approached from Thirty-Second Avenue, and the man called Revenge stepped on the gas. Not a good time to get stuck in a traffic jam.

He had shopping to do before he went home to his family.

Book One

THE HOUSE OF HEADS