It was then that Jessica noticed something at the bottom of the screen. “What’s this?” she asked, pointing to it.

There was a single word beneath the last video. Corollarium. It looked to be an active link. Before clicking on the link, Park navigated to an online Latin to English dictionary. He entered the word. The page displayed:

corollarium -i n. [a garland of flowers; a present, gratuity]

Park returned to the GothOde page, clicked the link. A small window opened. It was a still photograph of a room with rotting plaster and broken shelves. In the middle of the room, amid the debris, was what looked a like a large package, wrapped in thin green paper. Out of the top came a variety of fresh-cut flowers.

Through the window beyond the box was visible a vacant lot, partially covered in snow. At the other side of the lot was a mural covering a whole wall, an elaborate rendering that included a man blowing a ribbon of smoke over a city skyline.

“This is Philly,” Jessica said. “I know that mural. I know where this is.”

They all knew where it was. It was across from a corner building near Fifth and Cambria.

Jessica ran out of the room.

By the time the other detectives got to the parking lot she was gone.

JESSICA PACED IN FRONT of the address. The front door was padlocked. Across the street was the mural in the still photograph.

Byrne, Josh Bontrager, and Dre Curtis approached.

“Take the door down,” Jessica said.

“Jess,” Byrne said. “We should wait. We could—”

“Take it… the fuck …down!”

Bontrager looked to Byrne for direction. Byrne nodded. Bontrager went into the trunk of his departmental sedan, came out with an iron pry bar. He handed it to Byrne.

Byrne took the door off the hinges with the massive lever. Josh Bontrager and Dre Curtis hauled it out of the way. Jessica and Byrne, weapons drawn, entered the space. The area they had seen in the photograph was now piled with more trash. But the view out the barred window was the same.

Jessica holstered her weapon and stormed across the room. She began pulling trash off the huge pile of debris in the center.

“Jess,” Byrne said.

She didn’t hear him. If she did, she did not acknowledge him. Soon she uncovered the thing she sought, the thing she knew would still be there, the thing that had been placed in this precise spot, waiting for them.

“It’s a crime scene, Jess,” Byrne said. “You have to stop.”

She turned to look at him. Her eyes stood with tears. Byrne had never seen her like this.

“I can’t.”

Moments later she had all the trash thrown aside. In front of her lay a body wrapped in green paper, the same kind of green paper used by florists.

The Garden of Flowers.

The dead girl was his bouquet.

Jessica tore open the paper. The scent of dried flora and putrefying flesh was overwhelming. Even in this decayed state it was obvious that the girl’s neck had been broken. For a moment, Jessica did not move.

Then she fell to her knees.

SIXTY-TWO

THEY STOOD IN the punishing heat. Around them buzzed yet another CSU team. Around them stretched another circle of yellow tape.

“This isn’t going to stop until he’s done all seven,” Jessica said. “There are three more girls out there who are going to die.”

Byrne had no response. Nothing he could say.

“The Seven Wonders. What the fuck is this all about, Kevin? What’s next?”

“Tony’s on it now,” Byrne said. “If the answer is out there he’ll find it. You know that.”

Until now, all four of these girls had lived in two dimensions. Photographs on paper, a graphic file on a computer screen, myriad details on a police activity log or an FBI sheet. But now they had seen them alive. All four girls had been breathing on those videos. Elise Beausoleil, Caitlin O’Riordan, Monica Renzi, Katja Dovic. All four of them had entered that chamber of horrors and never left. And if that was not enough, this madman had to apply a special brand of indignity by putting them on display, for the whole city to see.

Jessica had never wanted someone dead so badly in her life. And, God forgive her, she wanted to be the one who pulled the switch.

“Jessica?”

She turned. It was JoAnn Johnson, commander of the Auto Squad. The Auto Squad had citywide jurisdiction to locate vehicle chop shops, investigate car-theft rings, and coordinate investigations with the insurance industry. Jessica had worked in the unit, now a part of Major Crimes, for almost three years.

“Hey, JoAnn.” Jessica wiped her eyes. She could just imagine what she looked like. A crazed raccoon, maybe. JoAnn didn’t react in the least.

“Got a minute?”

Jessica and JoAnn stepped away. JoAnn handed her the preliminary report on the Acura.

They had towed the car to the police garage at McAllister and Whitaker, just a few blocks from the Twenty-Fourth District station. The order was to hold for prints and processing, so it was held inside. They had identified the owner.

JESSICA STEPPED BACK to where Byrne stood, report in hand.

“We have a hit on the car’s VIN,” she said.

The VIN, or vehicle identification number, was the seventeen-character number used to uniquely identify American vehicles, post-1980.

“What do we have?” Byrne asked.

Jessica looked at the ground, the buildings, the sky. Everywhere but at her partner.

“What is it, Jess?”

Jessica finally looked him in the eye. She didn’t want to, but she had no choice.

“The car belonged to Eve Galvez.”

SIXTY-THREE

THEY REFERRED TO it as the wire. It was flexible, malleable, need not run in a straight line. In fact, it most often did not. It could snake beneath things, coil itself around other things, bury itself beneath a wide variety of surfaces. It was not tangible, but it was felt.

For all the homicides that had ever been committed, from the moment Cain raised his hand to Abel, there had been a wire. A time, a place, a weapon, a motive, a killer. It wasn’t always obvious—indeed, all too often it was never discovered—but it was always there.

As detectives Jessica Balzano and Kevin Byrne stood in the duty room of the homicide unit, the wire revealed itself. Jessica held one end. She spoke first.

She spoke of her meeting with Jimmy Valentine. She spoke of her growing obsession with Eve Galvez. Not just Eve’s case, but the woman herself. She spoke of visiting Enrique Galvez, and her admittedly insane visit to the Badlands the night before. She spoke of Eve’s diary, and her own tears.

Byrne listened. He did not judge her. He held the other end of the wire.

“Did you read all the files?” he asked.

“No.”

“Do you have the flash drive with you?”

“Yes.”

Moments later Jessica had the drive hooked up to a laptop. She navigated to the folder containing the scanned files.

“How many of these have you read?”

“Less than half,” Jessica said. “I couldn’t take much more.”

“These are all her files?”

“Yes.”

“Open the last two.”

Jessica clicked on the next to last file.

SIXTY-FOUR

JUNE 30, 2008

They call him Mr. Ludo, though no one can describe him. I’ve been a detective for years. How is this possible? Is he a ghost? A shadow?

No. Everyone can be found. Every secret can be discovered. Think of the word “discover.” It means to take off the cover. To reveal.

One girl said she knew a girl who had been to Mr. Ludo’s house once and escaped. Someone named Cassandra.

I am going to meet Cassandra tomorrow.