I open the passenger door and take her hand in mine. Not a woman, nor a child. Certainly not an angel.Angels do not have free will.
But a calm-shattering beauty nonetheless.
Her name is Tessa Ann Wells.
Her name is Magdalene.
She is the second.
She will not be the last.
3
MONDAY, 5:20 AM
Dark.
A breeze brought exhaust fumes and something else. A paint smell. Kerosene, maybe. Beneath it, garbage and human sweat. A cat shrieked, then- Quiet.
He was carrying her down a deserted street.
She could not scream. She could not move. He had injected her with a drug that made her limbs feel leaden and frail; her mind, thick with a gauzy gray fog.
For Tessa Wells, the world passed by in a churning rush of muted colors and glimpsed geometric shapes.
Time stalled. Froze. She opened her eyes.
They were inside. Descending wooden steps. The smell of urine and rotting lunch meat. She hadn't eaten in a long time and the smell made her stomach lurch and a trickle of bile rise in her throat.
He placed her at the foot of a column, arranging her body and limbs as if she were some sort of doll.
He put something in her hands.
The rosary.
Time passed. Her mind swam away again. She opened her eyes once more as he touched her forehead. She could sense the cruciform shape he inscribed there.
My God, is he anointing me?
Suddenly, memories shimmered silver in her mind, a mercurial reflection of her childhood. She recalled-
— horseback riding in Chester County and the way the wind would sting my face and Christmas morning and the way Mom's crystal captured the colored lights from the enormous tree Dad bought every year and Bing Crosby and that silly song about Hawaiian Christmas and its-
He stood in front of her, now, threading a huge needle. He spoke in a slow monotone-
Latin?
— as he tied a knot in the thick black thread and pulled it tight.
She knew she would not leave this place.
Who would take care of her father?
Holy Mary, mother of God…
He had made her pray in that small room for a long time. He had whispered the most horrible words in her ear. She had prayed for it to end.
Pray for us sinners…
He pushed her skirt up her thighs, then all the way to her waist. He dropped to his knees, spread her legs. The lower half of her body was completely paralyzed.
Please God, make it stop.
Now…
Make it stop.
And at the hour of our death…
Then, in this damp and decaying place, this earthly hell, she saw the steel drill bit glimmer, heard the whir of the motor, and knew her prayers were finally answered.
4
MONDAY, 6:50 AM
'Cocoa puffs.'
The man glared at her, his mouth set in a tight yellow rictus. He was standing a few feet away, but Jessica could feel the danger radiate from him, could suddenly smell the bitter tang of her own terror.
As he held her in his unwavering stare, Jessica sensed the edge of the roof approaching behind her. She reached for her shoulder holster but, of course, it was empty. She rummaged her pockets. Left side: something that felt like a barrette, along with a pair of quarters. Right side: air. Great. On her way down she would be fully equipped to put her hair up and make a long-distance call.
Jessica decided to employ the one bludgeon she had used her entire life, the one fearsome device that had managed to get her into, and out of, most of her troubles. Her words. But instead of anything remotely clever or threatening, all she could manage was a wobbly:
'What?'
Again, the thug said: 'Cocoa Puffs.'
The words seemed as incongruous as the setting: a dazzlingly bright day, a cloudless sky, white gulls forming a lazy ellipse overhead. It felt like it should be Sunday morning, but Jessica somehow knew it wasn't. No Sunday morning could shoulder this much peril, nor conjure this much fear. No Sunday morning would find her on top of the Criminal Justice Center in downtown Philadelphia, with this terrifying gangster moving toward her.
Before Jessica could speak, the gang member repeated himself one last time. 'I made you Cocoa Puffs, Mommy.'
Hello.
Mommy?
Jessica slowly opened her eyes. Morning sunlight burrowed in from everywhere, slim yellow daggers that poked at her brain. It wasn't a gangster at all. It was, instead, her three-year-old daughter Sophie, perched on her chest, her powder-blue nightie deepening the ruby glow of her cheeks, her face a soft pink eye in a hurricane of chestnut curls. Now, of course, it all made sense. Now Jessica understood the weight on her heart, and why the gruesome man in her nightmare had sounded a little bit like Elmo.
'Cocoa Puffs, honey?'
Sophie Balzano nodded.
'What about Cocoa Puffs?'
'I made you breakfess, Mommy.'
'You did?'
'Uh-huh.'
'All by yourself?'
'Uh-huh.'
'Aren'tyou a big girl.'
I am.
Jessica offered her sternest expression. 'What did Mommy say about climbing on the cabinets?'
Sophie's face went into a series of evasive maneuvers, attempting to conceive a story that might explain how she got the cereal out of the upper cabinets without climbing on the countertops. In the end, she just gave her mother a flash of the big browns and, as always, the discussion was over.
Jessica had to smile. She envisioned the Hiroshima that must be the kitchen. 'Why did you make me
