'She's alive.'
EIGHTY-FOUR
4:16 AM
The ambulance screamed off into the night. The girl had lost a lot of blood, but when the paramedics got her onto the gurney, her pulse was stronger, her blood pressure stable.
Jessica returned to the car, took the laptop out. She refreshed the killer's GothOde page. 'It's up.' She clicked on the new file. Same red curtains.
PART SIX: THE BRIDAL CHAMBER
She started the video. It already had sixteen viewings.
'Behold the Bridal Chamber,' the killer said. He gestured to the mahogany cabinet, which was unquestionably empty, doors wide open. He closed the doors of the cabinet. 'And behold the lovely Odette.' He held out his hand. A teenage girl walked onto the stage wearing the old bridal gown. She was pretty and thin, with strawberry-blond hair cascading out from beneath her white veil. He kissed her hand, sent her offstage. He then turned the closed cabinet around three times, stepped back, drew a chrome revolver from his pocket and fired it into the cabinet. A moment later, he opened the cabinet to reveal the bride inside.
He waved a hand, and the screen went black. AT 4:20 Byrne's cell phone rang. He checked the screen. Private number. He knew who it was even before he answered it. The communications unit had put 'David Sinclair's' number on autodial, calling it every twenty seconds. They had not, of course, gotten an answer.
Byrne flipped open his phone, remained silent.
'Time is passing, Detective,' the killer said.
'Would that were not true,' said Byrne, trying to keep his rage in check. 'Youth is fleeting.'
'I never had a youth, I'm afraid.'
'Why don't you stop down at the Roundhouse? We'll trade sob stories. You and me.'
The man laughed. 'Six Wonders down, one to go.'
'Well, that's not exactly true.'
Silence. 'What do you mean?'
'The Bridal Chamber. Looks like you were left at the altar.'
This time, a longer silence.
'We're at the diamond now-this is the diamond, right? The parallelogram part of the tangram puzzle?'
'What about it?'
He didn't deny it. They were right. 'The girl is alive.'
'That's not true. It can't be true.'
'I don't make the weather, man. Besides, why would I start lying to you now? It might sully our beautiful friendship.'
Silence again. Then the killer raised his voice. He was starting to crack. 'It's not true. It's not. And wait until you see what's next, Detective Byrne. You will never forget it. Never.'
The line went dead.
Byrne threw his phone halfway to center field. A few minutes later, Josh Bontrager jogged out to get it. THEY HAD six of the tangram pieces-five triangles and one diamond. The killer had left the bodies of Caitlin O'Riordan, Elise Beausoleil, Monica Renzi, Katja Dovic, and a girl they had just identified as Patricia Sato-a runaway from Albany-in North Philadelphia parcels of land that were in the shape of a triangle. He had left his newest victim, as yet unidentified, still alive, on a baseball diamond. All that was left was the square. They had tried dozens of configurations with the pieces they had, trying to build the swan diagram. The horrifying truth was that just about every building in North Philly was either a rectangle or a square. AT 4:28 Jessica's phone rang. They were still at the Cecil B. Moore scene. The crime-scene unit was processing the cabinet. It was Tony Park calling.
'Anything on the canvass?' Jessica asked.
'Nothing yet,' Park said. 'It's late, it's hot, we have a lot of pissed- off people named Swan or Swann in Philadelphia this morning.'
'They'll get over it.'
'I do have something interesting on what that magician fellow found. Something about Cygne.'
'What about it?'
'There's a Galerie Cygne,' Park said. 'Spelled exactly the same way. It's the only listing in the city with a name even close.'
'Where is it?'
'Twenty-fourth and Market.'
Tony Park gave her the address. Jessica clicked off, told Byrne. 'I'm going to go check on this,' she said.
Byrne held up his handset. 'Stay on channel.'
'You got it.'
EIGHTY-FIVE
4:30 AM
Swann carried the box. It was heavy. He had forgotten how heavy it could be.
They were lying to him. It was a trick. Their trick. Claire was dead. She was in the Bridal Chamber. They would pay for this.
'You have failed.'
'I have not.'
'Acceptance is not enough, Joseph.'
'It is not just acceptance. It is certainty.'
Just about everything was in place for his grand finale. They would forever remember him. He would find a niche in the hierarchy of all things magic, all things puzzling, all things inexplicable. Even Thoreau believed that human beings require mystery.
'People must believe the impossible.'
'They will believe.'
'All magic is mentalism, Joseph. All magic makes people believe. The effect is in the mind.'
He could no longer carry the box. He put it down, began to drag it.
'All magic is mentalism,' he repeated. 'All magic.'
He got the box into position. He sat down next to it.
The effect is in the mind.
EIGHTY-SIX
4:55 AM
Jessica parked on Market street. The facade of the Thirtieth Street train station loomed in the near distance, its lights reflected on the calm surface of the Schuylkill River.
She replayed the last video over and over in her mind. The Bridal Chamber. She thought of the way the girl looked in that antique dress, how frightened she had been. She thought of the blood. She had called the hospital on the way across town. The girl was being prepped for surgery.
