Marple returns after midnight and gives Grey a search warrant for the Siglik house. As Grey quickly mobilizes her team, Holmes feels the onset of a panic attack. He hurries to his bedroom, where he takes his emergency supply of heroin before retrieving a gun and joining the assembled police.

Marple stays with Holmes and Poe as a SWAT team enters the Siglik house. She notes Holmes’s odd demeanor and alerts Poe that their partner is intoxicated. When a police dog approaches, Poe worries that it’s a drug-sniffing dog, but he’s relieved that the dog is trained to find cadavers. Marple urges Holmes not to blow this, but Holmes does not react.

Holmes feels time “[float] by” as the SWAT team investigates the house, distracted by “kaleidoscope colors” and moving shadows. When he approaches the house, he feels that “it radiate[s] evil” (232).