railings.
At the top he finds Molly Proffitt, her delicate watery eyes now open in the Sea Horse tank, the gash in her head rent to expose her brain. Molly holds the door for him, the door leading to the attic and its massive roof beam.
Moments later Joseph Swann stands on a chair, the rope hanging loosely around his shoulders. He is framed by the large circular window that overlooks the front yard. At his feet, the old reel of film, The Magic Bricks, bubbles and melts.
He tightens the noose around his neck, the hemp rope pulling off the remaining flesh ofhis palms.
It is in this position that the flames find him, drawing him into their fiery embrace, into Hell, into the diseased heart ofFaerwood.
ONE HUNDRED SIX
6:10 AM
It was a familiar voice, but one she couldn't quite place. WAs IT her father? Her brother Michael? It seemed to be filtered through a thick wad of wet cotton, like someone trying to shout through a mattress. For the moment she was underwater at Wildwood, her father yelling at her from the beach to watch out for the undertow.
But it couldn't be the beach. Something was burning. She had to 'Jessica. You okay?'
Jessica slowly opened her eyes. It was Kevin Byrne. The world came swirling back. She nodded, even though she did not know the answer to this question.
'Can you talk?' he asked.
Another stumper. Jessica nodded.
'Who's inside the house?' Byrne asked.
Between gulps of oxygen. 'An old man,' she said. 'A girl.'
'What about our guy? What about the Collector?'
Jessica shrugged. Bright bolts of pain shot through her shoulders, her collarbone. She recalled falling from the window, falling. She didn't remember hitting the ground. 'I don't know. I think they're all dead.' She looked down the length of her body. 'Broken?'
Byrne glanced at the paramedic, back. 'They don't know. They don't think so. Your fall was broken by the hedges behind the house.' Byrne patted her hand.
Jessica heard the sirens approaching. Moments later she saw the first ladder company arrive. She breathed more easily. Taking off the mask-over the objections of the paramedic-she slowly sat up. Byrne and Josh Bontrager helped.
'Tell me about Logan Circle,' she said.
Byrne shook his head. 'You don't want to know.'
Jessica tried to smile. It hurt her face. 'It's kinda my job.'
Jessica got unsteadily to her feet. Even from across the road, the heat was intense. Faerwood was an inferno, flames shooting fifty feet or more into the sky. Somehow, Josh Bontrager found a cold bottle of spring water. Jessica drank half of it, poured the other half over the back of her neck.
Before she could make her way to the EMS van, she caught a shadow to her left; someone walking up the middle of the smoke-hazed street. Jessica was too shaken, too exhausted to react. It was a good thing she was surrounded by what seemed like the entire police department.
As the figure got closer Jessica saw it was Graciella. Her gown was covered with soot and ash, as was her face, but she was fine.
Kevin Byrne turned and saw the girl. Jessica watched the reaction on his face. It was the same reaction she'd had when she saw the girl in the hallway mirror. Graciella looked exactly like her mother, exactly like a young Eve Galvez. Byrne was speechless.
Graciella walked right up to Byrne. 'You must be Kevin. My mom mentioned you.' She stuck out her hand. It was bleeding.
Byrne gently took her hand in his. Sticking out of the young woman's palm were small shards of glass. The smell of a strong chemical filled the air.
'My name is Graciella,' the girl added. At that moment the girl's legs gave out. Byrne caught her before she hit the ground. She looked up at him in a daze. 'I think I need to lay down.'
ONE HUNDRED SEVEN
Labor day weekend was a festive holiday in Philadelphia, in cluding the annual parade along Columbus Boulevard and the Arden Fair just across the Delaware River.
For Detectives Balzano and Byrne there was little festive about it. They stood in the duty room, all but deluged by the paperwork related to the Collector case. They would piece together a preliminary report by the end of the long weekend.
When Eve Galvez learned of the Caitlin O'Riordan case, she became obsessed. She closely followed the investigation, and when she felt that detectives Pistone and Roarke were not doing their job, Eve decided to do it for them. She photocopied their files, going so far as to take the interview notes from the binder, the notes that mentioned Mr. Ludo.
Night after night, for two months, Eve went out on the street, talking to kids, looking for any trace of Mr. Ludo. She tracked Joseph Swann in city parks, bus stations, train stations, to runaway and homeless shelters. She finally caught up to him one night in June. As strong and resourceful as she was, he proved too much for her. He overpowered her and buried her in a shallow grave in Fairmount Park. Her exact cause of death was still undetermined.
On the night she was killed, Eve had called her daughter and told her everything. They had never spoken before. Every birthday and Christmas, Eve had sent her something.
That night Eve took a picture of herself in front of Faerwood with her camera phone, and sent it to her daughter. She had told Graciella of Mr. Ludo, and her quest for the truth about Caitlin O'Riordan, right before she disappeared.
Two months later, when Eve's body was discovered in a shallow grave in Fairmount Park, Graciella took what little money she had and came to Philadelphia.
Graciella had been adopted when she was eight weeks old, by a couple named Ellis and Catherine Monroe. Graciella had gone by the name Grace Monroe all her life, until the night she talked to her mother.
When Graciella was nine, her adoptive father had left, and her mother Catherine had sleepwalked through life after that. The woman had never been that close to her adopted daughter, leaving her to live in a world of her own. It wasn't until three days after Graciella had run away to Philadelphia that the woman reported her missing.
Joseph Swann could never have known that he had always been on a collision course with Graciella Galvez.
According to letters and journals found in Laura Somerville's strongbox, Laura had met Karl Swann, the Great Cygne, when she was only twenty-three. They had met in Baton Rouge and Laura agreed to become his assistant. They toured the southern United States in the sixties and seventies, and for years she had been Odette-playing nurse and mother to young Joseph, playing the occasional lover to Karl Swann, but more important, playing accomplice to young Joseph's murderous past. According to her diary, there were six young people found dead around the Great Cygne's traveling show over the years. Laura's journal detailed where they were buried. The District Attorney's office passed along this information to the state police departments in Texas, Louisiana, and New Mexico.
At least ten pages of Laura Somerville's diary were a confession. When Jessica and Byrne showed up at her apartment, she apparently believed her past had caught up to her. It was she who had made the calls about Shiloh Street after all, having shadowed Joseph Swann for months, hoping to anonymously tip the police.
