This was, of course, one of the worst parts of living in Philadelphia. Even Northeast Philadelphia. At times, everything looked alike.
He stood in front of a twin that looked familiar. With the streetlights out, it was difficult to tell. He closed his eyes and tried to recall. The images of the Rosary Killer obscured everything else, like the hammers falling on an old manual typewriter, soft lead on bright white paper, smeary black ink. But he was too close to see the words.
77
Drew waited at the bottom of the basement stairs. Jessica lit the candles in the kitchen, then sat Sophie on one of the dinette chairs. She put her weapon on top of the fridge.
She descended the steps. The bloodstain on the concrete was still there. But Patrick was not.
"Dispatch said there's a pair of patrol cars on the way," he said. "But I'm afraid there's no one down here."
"Are you sure?"
Drew flashed his light around the basement. "Uh, well, unless you have a secret way out of here, he must have gone up the steps."
Drew aimed his flashlight up the stairs. There were no bloody footprints on the treads. Wearing latex gloves, he knelt down and touched the blood on the floor. He slicked two fingers together.
"You're saying he was just here?" he asked.
"Yes," Jessica said. "Two minutes ago. As soon as I saw him, I ran upstairs and down the driveway."
"How did he receive his injury?" he asked.
"I have no idea."
"Are you all right?"
"I'm fine."
"Well, the police will be here any second. They can give the place a good going over." He stood up. "Until then, we'll probably be safe down here."
What? Jessica thought.
We'll probably be safe down here?
"Is your little girl okay?" he asked.
Jessica stared at the man. A cold hand squeezed her heart. "I never told you I had a little girl."
Drew peeled off the gloves, tossed them into his bag.
In the flashlight beam, Jessica saw the blue chalk stains on his fingers and the deep scratch on the back of his right hand, at the same moment she noticed Patrick's feet emerging from beneath the stairs.
And she knew. This man had never called in the 911. No one was coming. Jessica turned to run. To the stairs. To Sophie. To safety. But before she could move a hand shot out of the darkness.
Andrew Chase was upon her.
7 8
It wasn't Patrick Farrell. When Byrne had gone through the files at the hospital, it had all fallen into place.
Besides being treated by Patrick Farrell in the St. Joseph's emergency room, the one thing that all five girls had in common was the ambulance service. They all lived in North Philly. They all used Glenwood Ambulance Group.
They were all treated first by Andrew Chase.
Chase had known Simon Close, and Simon had paid for that proximity with his life.
On the day she died, Nicole Taylor was not trying to write P-A-R-K- H-U-R-S-T on her palm. She was trying to write P-A-R-A-M-E-D-I-C.
Byrne flipped open his cell phone, tried 911 one final time. Nothing. He checked the status. No bars. He wasn't getting a signal. The patrol cars were not going to make it in time.
He'd have to go it alone.
Byrne stood in front of a twin, trying to shield his eyes from the rain.
Was this the house?
Think, Kevin. What were the landmarks he had seen the day he had picked her up? He could not remember. He turned and looked behind him. The van parked out front. Glenwood Ambulance Group. This was the house. He drew his weapon, chambered a round, and hurried up the drive-
79
Jessica struggled up from the bottom of the impenetrable fog. She was sitting on the floor in her own basement. It was nearly dark. She tried to enter both of these facts into an equation, and got no acceptable results.
And then reality came roaring back.
Sophie.
She tried to get to her feet, but her legs would not respond. She was not bound in any way. Then she remembered. She had been injected with something. She touched her neck where the needle had penetrated, pulled back a dot of blood on her finger. In the faint light thrown by the flashlight behind her, the dot began to blur. She now understood the terror that the five girls had experienced.
But she was not a girl. She was a woman. A police officer.
Her hand went instinctively to her hip. Nothing there. Where was her weapon? Upstairs. On top of the refrigerator. Shit.
She felt nauseated for a moment, the world swimming, the floor seeming to undulate beneath her.
"It didn't have to come to this you know," he said. "But she fought it. She tried to throw it away herself once, but then she fought it. I've seen it over and over."
The voice came from behind her. The sound was low, measured, edged with the melancholy of deep personal loss. He still held the flashlight. The beam danced and played about the room.
Jessica wanted to respond, to move, to lash out. Her spirit was willing. Her flesh was unable.
She was alone with the Rosary Killer. She had thought that backup was on the way, but it wasn't. No one knew they were there together. Images of his victims flashed through her mind. Kristi Hamilton soaked in all that blood. The barbed-wire crown on Bethany Price's head.
She had to keep him talking. "What… what do you mean?"
"They had every opportunity in life," Andrew Chase said. "All of them. But they didn't want it, did they? They were bright, healthy, whole. It wasn't enough for them."
Jessica managed to look to the top of the stairs, praying that she would not see Sophie's little form there.
"These girls had it all, but they decided to throw it all away," Chase said. "And for what?"
The wind howled outside the basement windows. Andrew Chase began to pace, the beam of his flashlight bouncing in the blackness.
"What chance did my little girl have?" he asked.
He has a child, Jessica thought. This is good.
"You have a little girl?" she asked.
Her voice sounded distant, as if she were talking through a metal pipe.
"I had a little girl," he said. "She didn't even get out of the gate."
"What happened?" It was getting harder to form her words. Jessica didn't know if she should make this man relive some tragedy, but she didn't know what else to do.
"You were there."
I was there? Jessica thought. What the hell is he talking about?
"I don't know what you mean," Jessica said.
"It's okay," he said. "It wasn't your fault."
"My… fault?"
"But the world went mad that night, didn't it? Oh, yes. Evil was unleashed on the streets of this city and a great storm descended. My little girl was sacrificed. The righteous reaped reward." His voice was rising in pitch and cadence. "Tonight I settle all debts."
Oh my God, Jessica thought, the memory of that brutal Christmas Eve rushing back on a wave of nausea.
He was talking about Katherine Chase. The woman who miscarried in her squad car.Andrew and Katherine Chase.
"At the hospital they said things like 'Oh don't you worry, you can always have another baby.' They don't know. It was never the same for Kitty and me. With all the so-called miracles of modern medicine, they couldn't save my little girl, and the Lord denied us another child."
"It… it was nobody's fault that night,"Jessica said."It was a horrible storm.You remember."
Chase nodded. "I remember all right. It took me nearly two hours to get to St. Katherine. I prayed to my wife's patron saint. I offered a sacrifice of my own. But my little girl never came back."