SEVENTY-ONE
1:11 AM
Swann knew Lilly had been awake. Healways knew. It was a game he had often played himself as a child. His father would have his small conclaves at Faerwood, finding himself in need of a foil or an object of ridicule at two and three and four in the morning. Swann had even studied techniques-mostly of Eastern origin-to slow down one's breath and pulse to further the outward appearance of sleep, coma, or even death.
He fingered the goatee into place, held it, the smell of the spirit gum drawing him back to his childhood. He recalled a small club near Boston, 1978. The dressing room chair had tape on one leg. There were crumpled McDonald's bags in the corner. His father played to an audience of ten people.
Swann tied his tie, put on an older raincoat. After all, he could not be glimpsed in North Philadelphia looking like the master of ceremonies at a bizarre gathering of aging conjurers.
He flipped off the makeup mirror lights. The lights slowly died, as did the memories.
The van sat waiting for him in the garage. In the back was Patricia Sato, his lovely Odette. She was the girl in the Sub Trunk. He had built it to exacting specs. There was no air inside.
Moments later, observing all traffic laws, Joseph Swann-also known as the Collector-drove to the Badlands.
SEVENTY-TWO
1:19 AM
They received the file via e-mail. Jessica opened the graphic program on the laptop. Moments later the screen showed a section of North Philadelphia. It was an aerial photograph of a zone that included all the crime scenes.
What tied these four buildings together? What had made their killer choose these locations?
They were all abandoned properties. Two numbered streets; two named streets. Earlier, Tony Park had run the street addresses. He had tried a hundred permutations. Nothing had leapt out.
They looked at the front elevation of the crime scenes. All four were three stories tall; three were brick, one wood. One, the Eighth Street address-where Caitlin O'Riordan had been found-had a corrugated metal roll door. All had boarded up windows on the first floors, all were covered in graffiti. Different graffiti. Three had rusted air conditioners lag-bolted next to the front windows.
'Ninth Street and Cambria have panel doors,' Jessica said. Byrne circled the doors on the digital photographs of the buildings. Two buildings had steps, three had awnings. He circled these, too. Element by architectural element they compared the buildings. None of the structures were exactly alike, none were completely different. Different colors, different materials, different locations, different elevations.
Jessica looked at the support pole in front of the door on Eighth Street. A support pole. She looked at the other buildings. All three had at one time had support columns in front of the entrance, but now only had sagging, slanted rooms above the entry. It hit her. 'Kevin, they're all corner buildings.'
Byrne put four photographs on the hood of the car in front of the laptop. Each crime scene was at least part of a corner building in a block of four or more structures. He compared the photographs to the overhead shot on the LCD screen.
Pure geometry.
'Four triangles,' Byrne said. 'Four buildings that appear to be triangles from above.'
'It's the city,' Jessica said.
'It's the city,' Byrne echoed. 'He's making a tangram puzzle out of the city of Philadelphia.'
SEVENTY-THREE
1:25 AM
Lilly had heard the vehicle pull away from the house, but she dared not move. She counted off three minutes. When she heard nothing else she slipped out of bed. Her shoes were neatly arranged at the footboard. She put them on.
Her legs were a little wobbly, but she soon recovered her balance. She moved to the window, gently pushing aside the velvet curtain. Beyond the iron bars she saw streetlights through the trees, but little else. She wondered what time it was. Outside was pitch-black. It could be 10:00 PM or 4:00 AM. It suddenly occurred to her that, for her whole life, she had always known where she was and what time it was. Not knowing these two simple things was as unsettling as any of part of this predicament.
Lilly turned, got a better look at the room. It was small, but nicely decorated. Everything looked like an antique. There were two drawers in the nightstand nearest to her. She pulled on the handle of the top drawer, but the drawer didn't move. Must be stuck, she thought. She pulled again, a little harder. Nothing. She tried the drawer below, with the same result. She walked around the bed to the other nightstand. The drawers were all nailed or glued shut. She gently shook the table, but she heard nothing inside.
It was as if she were in a zoo, or a museum replica of a bedroom. Everything was fake. Nothing was real, nothing worked. Fear wormed its way up from her stomach. Taking a few deep breaths, she tried to calm herself, then stepped up to the door and pounded on it with the heel of her hand. She put her ear to the surface.
Silence.
She looked at the bed. It was a single with a polished brass headboard. She lifted the down comforter and sheets. The frame was metal. If she could get the frame apart somehow, she could break the windows and start screaming. She didn't think she was close enough to another house to be heard, but you never knew. Besides, if she could get off one of the slats, she could use it as a weapon. She got down on her knees, felt beneath the bed. It all seemed to be welded together into one solid piece.
Fuck.
She sat on the nightstand and looked at the large painting next to her. It was of some castle on a hillside, surrounded by lush forest and flocking birds. Must be nice, she thought. The painting was crooked again. She must have brushed up against it. Without getting up from the nightstand, she reached out, pushed on the edge of the huge gilded frame.
She heard a noise, a low reverberating sound. She ran to the window. No headlights slicing through the darkness, coming or going. Either he had already pulled into the driveway and garage, or it was not a vehicle. The sound continued, growing a little louder. It was not a car. It was in the room.
Suddenly it stopped. Lilly glanced back at the wall opposite the door, and saw a passageway. A small door in the middle of the wall.
Lilly rubbed her eyes and looked again. She was not hallucinating.
No way it had been there before. Cautiously approaching, Lilly stopped at the door first, listened to the hallway. Still quiet. A loud noise made her jump.
The passageway was gone. Closed up.
She felt along the paneled wall, but there was no catch, no seam. It had vanished.
It took her ten minutes to figure out the sequence of events that led to the noise and the revelation of the door in the wall.
She had been sitting on the edge of the nightstand, her feet on the floor. She had reached over and pushed
