On the phone with Kloz—who is upset that Porter has left the hospital after being stabbed—Porter stands outside a dry cleaner with clothes belonging to Emory. After the clerk confronts him with a box cutter for attempting to leave without paying, the cabdriver, Marcus Ingram, disarms the clerk and explains Porter is a police officer. Porter tells Kloz he connected clues from a call from the killer, Bishop: the 75-cent parking meter and the adjacent dry cleaner. The victim’s pocket watch stopped at 3:14, and the cabdriver confirms the address as 316 West Belmont. Porter notices construction barricades at 314 West Belmont. Kloz confirms the property is owned by a Talbot subsidiary undergoing renovation. Porter orders him to dispatch SWAT immediately.

The diary narrator watches in slow motion as the bullet strikes his father in the forehead. The back of Father’s head explodes, and he collapses, dead. The narrator insists he removed the bullets, but Mr. Stranger demonstrates the gun remains loaded. He orders Mrs. Carter to her feet at gunpoint. The diary narrator experiences a detailed fantasy of stabbing Mr. Stranger to death with his knife, then snaps back to reality, realizing he has not moved. He searches his pocket for the knife but finds only matches and photographs; Mother had taken the knife. Mr. Stranger presses the hot barrel against the diary narrator’s head and orders his hand out slowly. Another gunshot rings out. Mr. Stranger collapses with a large hole in the back of his head. The diary narrator remains unharmed.

Clair observes two dead patrol officers in their vehicle outside Talbot’s residence. Porter’s backup gun lies on the dashboard. Nash points out that the front door stands ajar. Dispatch reports backup is 10 minutes away. Nash decides they cannot wait and enters cautiously, with Clair providing cover. Inside the dark foyer, they hear a muffled groan. They discover a sitting room in disarray with overturned furniture. The housekeeper, Miranda, lies bound and gagged on the floor. Nash removes her gag and asks if the intruder remains inside.

In the diary, Mr. Smith, holding a rifle, complains he should have shot Mr. Stranger, or Briggs, sooner. Mrs. Carter slaps Mother, angry she did not end the situation days earlier to prevent Father from torturing her. Mr. Smith reveals Briggs called for reinforcements before dying. The diary narrator remains frozen, staring at Father’s body. Mrs. Carter comforts him, and he gives her the photographs from her house. Mr. Smith adds that Briggs found the photos and left them out. When the diary narrator begins panicking, Mother calls the him broken, saying he’s never been “right.” She questions when he last took his medication, then orders him to retrieve the keys Mrs. Carter hid at the lake. As the diary narrator departs, he sees Mother unlocking Mrs. Carter’s handcuffs while the women whisper and Mr. Smith moves Father’s body. The diary narrator runs into the woods.

Porter takes the box cutter from the cabdriver. Kloz pleads with Porter to wait for backup. The cabdriver gives Porter a baseball bat and a flashlight; he does not have a gun. Porter tells Kloz he must go in alone because it is what Bishop wants and their only chance to save Emory. Thinking of his late wife, he feels he has nothing left to lose. He instructs Kloz to have SWAT find the cabdriver outside, keeping the phone line open, then approaches 314 West Belmont.

The diary narrator runs to the lake, haunted by images of his father’s death and his mother’s inaction. He finds the skeletal remains of a cat he previously observed. He pushes the cat aside and digs beneath it, uncovering a plastic bag. Inside is his Ranger buck knife, not the safe-deposit box keys. Realizing he has been deceived, he runs back toward the house. He sees two white vans marked Talbot Enterprises and three men near the front door. The Plymouth Duster is gone. His mother, Mrs. Carter, and Mr. Smith have abandoned him.

Porter enters the construction site through an unlocked revolving door. The unfinished lobby contains exposed concrete, framing, and construction dust. He discovers men’s dress shoe prints among numerous work-boot prints, plus drag marks in the dust. The trail leads past inoperable elevators to an emergency stairwell door. The words “SEE NO EVIL” are written in wet red paint on the door (367). Two freshly removed human eyeballs lie on the floor in front of it.

Miranda, the housekeeper, appears drugged and confused. She confirms Mr. and Mrs. Talbot are in their bedroom and that the intruder went upstairs. Nash and Clair untie Miranda and instruct her to go outside and wait in Clair’s car for police to arrive. Nash and Clair prepare to ascend the stairs.

Porter determines the paint is wet and the blue eyes are freshly removed. He tries calling Kloz but has no cell signal. He enters the dusty stairwell, filled with too many footprints to follow a single trail. Realizing the building may be 50 stories tall, he worries about climbing with his stab wound. He cuts off a strip of his shirt, creates a tourniquet for his leg, and begins his ascent.

Nash and Clair ascend the creaking stairs slowly. Clair touches something wet on the banister and identifies it as blood. At the landing, Nash clears the bathroom. The dimly lit hallway contains several closed doors and double doors at the end. Assuming the double doors lead to the primary bedroom, Nash heads toward them with Clair following.

On the third-floor landing, Porter hears Bishop’s voice crackling from a radio. Porter picks up the device, and Bishop taunts him with a nursery rhyme. Porter’s leg wound causes intense pain as he ascends. Bishop asks if Porter finished the diary, and they exchange barbs about its contents. Bishop mentions Campbell, the man who killed Porter’s wife, suggesting Porter secretly desires revenge. Porter asks about “Mr. Smith” from the diary. Bishop identifies him as Franklin Kirby, who worked with Simon Carter at an accounting firm and helped plan the theft. Porter’s leg begins bleeding again. Bishop recounts what happened after his mother abandoned him: He used the matches in his pocket to light the house on fire with Talbot’s men inside. He then entered foster care, got hired at Talbot’s company, and used computer skills to uncover files on Talbot’s servers showing a massive criminal network with Talbot at its center. Bishop broadcasts a girl’s scream and tells Porter to hurry.

Nash forces open the locked primary bedroom door. Patricia Talbot lies bound and gagged on the floor. After being untied, she says the intruder took her husband. She recounts being attacked around two in the afternoon and injected with a drug after witnessing her husband also being drugged. She identifies a photo of Anson Bishop as her attacker. Nash turns on the lights, revealing “DO NO EVIL” written in blood across the bedroom wall (383).

Porter reaches the 11th floor. The door reads “SPEAK NO EVIL” in fresh blood, with a human tongue and bloody pliers on the floor. He enters a candlelit hallway as extremely loud Guns N’ Roses music begins playing. Following the corridor, he finds a boom box hooked to a generator. Porter shuts it off. Bishop emerges from shadows, pushing Arthur Talbot, who is duct-taped to an office chair, tortured and bleeding. Bishop holds a knife to Talbot’s throat. Porter’s leg wound bleeds heavily. A helicopter arrives on the roof as sirens approach.

Bishop reveals Mrs. Carter’s new identity: Catrina Connors, Emory’s mother. He explains she seduced Talbot under her new name, had Emory, and extorted him into making their daughter his heir. Bishop learned this from Talbot’s CFO, Gunther Herbert, as Mrs. Carter died and he never found his mother. With Talbot’s death, his criminal empire will collapse. Bishop shoves Talbot in the chair toward an open elevator shaft. Porter dives, briefly grabbing the chair’s wheel before it slips away and falls. He hears Talbot crash below, followed by a girl’s muffled scream from an adjacent shaft. Bishop waves goodbye before stepping backward into a third elevator shaft and vanishing. Porter collapses from blood loss.

Porter regains consciousness on the ground floor. Clair shows him Emory being wheeled out on a stretcher, her head and wrist bandaged. Bishop left Emory handcuffed to a gurney at the bottom of an elevator shaft. Aside from cutting off her ear, Bishop did not harm her further. Bishop did not jump but rappelled down a preset rig and escaped through an underground tunnel. A paramedic insists on hospitalizing Porter due to blood loss. Clair reassures him that with Bishop’s identity now public, he will be caught. Porter falls unconscious.

Porter wakes in the hospital the next morning. Nash arrives with coffee and Twizzlers. Nash reports they found files at Bishop’s apartment implicating 23 criminals connected to Talbot. Nash mentions it’s still a mystery how Bishop funded his operation, paying the Mathers hundreds of thousands for their role. Clair arrives and wheels in Emory Connors. Porter asks for privacy. Emory appears pale and thin but tells him her wrist will mostly recover, and she thanks him for helping her. He suggests they discuss her mother, and Emory agrees.

Nash escorts Porter home from the hospital. They discuss news that Harnell Campbell, Heather’s killer, has made bail. Nash updates Porter on the manhunt: thousands of tips but nothing solid, and they believe Bishop’s apartment was staged. Federal agents have arrived to assist. Inside, Porter sees Clair has cleaned the bloodstain from the stabbing. Nash leaves. Porter looks at a photograph of his late wife, Heather. In his bedroom, he finds a small white box with a black string on his bed, placed next to the old note from Heather about getting milk. Inside is a severed ear with a “FILTER” tattoo that Porter recognizes as Harnell Campbell’s. A note from Bishop offers the ear as a return favor and requests Porter’s help finding Bishop’s mother.