Payments from the publishing house were made by company check, made out to David Sinclair. They had never been cashed.

The bookstore in Chester County had no address for him, just the cell phone number the detectives already had. It was a dead end.

At 3:20 AM a department car roared to a stop. It was Detective Nicci Malone. “We’ve got prints,” she said. “They’re on that Chinese box.”

“Please tell me they’re in the system,” Jessica said.

“They’re in the system. His name is Dylan Pierson.”

THE TEAM DESCENDED on a run-down row house near Nineteenth and Poplar. Byrne knocked on the door until lights came on inside. He held his weapon behind his back. Soon the door opened. A heavyset white woman in her forties stood before them, her face puffed with sleep, last night’s mascara racoooning her eyes. She wore an oversized Flyers jersey, baggy pink sweats, stained white terrycloth flops.

“We’re looking for Dylan Pierson,” Byrne said, holding up his badge.

The woman looked from Byrne’s eyes, to the badge, back. “That’s my son.”

“Is he here?”

“He’s upstairs sleeping. Why do you—”Byrne pushed her aside, bulled through the small dirty living room. Jessica and Josh Bontrager followed.

“Hey!” the woman yelled. “You can’t just… I’ll sue you!”

Byrne reached into his pocket. Without looking back he tossed a handful of his business cards in the air, and stormed up the stairs.

DYLAN PIERSON WAS NINETEEN. He had long greasy hair, a feeble soul patch below his lower lip, way too much attitude for the time of night and Byrne’s mood. On the walls were a mosaic of skateboarding posters: Skate or Die; A Grind is a Terrible Thing to Waste; Rail Against the Machine.

Dylan Pierson had been arrested twice for drug possession; had twice gotten away with community service. His room was a sty, the floor covered in dirty clothes, potato chip bags, magazines, questionably stained Kleenex.

When Byrne entered, he had flipped on the overhead light and all but lifted Dylan Pierson from his bed. Pierson was cowering against the wall.

“Where were you tonight?” Byrne yelled.

Dylan Pierson tried to comprehend how his little kingdom had suddenly been invaded by big scary police in the middle of the night. He wiped sleep from his eyes. “I… I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Byrne took out a picture, a blowup of a computer screen capture of the Collector. “Who is this?”

The kid tried to focus. “I have no idea.”

Byrne grabbed his arm, yanked. “Let’s go.”

“Wait! Jesus. Let me look.” He turned on a desk lamp, looked more carefully at the photograph. “Hang on. Hang on. Okay. Okay. I know who this is, man. He looks different with that beard and shit, but I think I know him.”

“Who is he?”

“I have no idea.”

Byrne reared back, fists clenched.

“Wait!” The kid cowered. “I met him on the street, man. He asked me if I wanted to make some money. It happens to me all the time.”

Jessica looked at Nicci Malone, back at Dylan Pierson, thinking, You ain’t all that, kid. Still, he was young, and that counted for a lot on the streets of a city like Philadelphia.

“What are you talking about?” Byrne asked.

“I was hanging by the bus station, okay? On Filbert. You know the bus station?”

“We know the bus station,” Byrne said. “Talk. Fast.”

“He started talking to me. He pointed at this girl, maybe sixteen or so. Maybe younger. She looked like a runaway. He said if I would go up to her, give her some shit, and he came in like a white knight, he would pay me fifty bucks.”

“When was this?” Byrne asked.

“I don’t know. Two days ago?” The kid touched his cheek. “He burned my damn face. You should arrest this guy.”

Byrne held up a photograph of the Chinese box. “How did your fingerprints get on this?”

“I have no idea.”

“Say ‘I have no idea’ one more fucking time,” Byrne said. “Go ahead.”

“Wait! Let me think, man. All right. And this is true. When I met the guy I sat in his van for a while.”

“What color was the van?”

“White. When I first got in he asked if I would move some of his things around in the back. This box was in there, I swear to God.”

Byrne paced, kicking clothes and debris out of his way. “Then what happened?”

“Then I got out of the car, walked up to the corner, started talking to the chick.”

“Then what? He burned your face?”

“Yeah. Like out of nowhere. And for no reason. When it was all over I met him around the corner and he gave me something.”

“What did he give you?”

“A book. He put the fifty inside it.”

“He gave you a book.”

“Yeah,” Pierson said. “I don’t really—”Byrne lifted the kid off the chair like he was a rag doll. “Where the fuck is it?”

“I sold it.”

“To who?”

“The Book Nook. It’s a used-book store. They’re right around the corner.”

EIGHTY-TWO

3:42 AM

THE BOOK NOOK was a used-book store on Seventeenth Street.

The grimy front window haphazardly displayed comic books, graphic novels, a section of recent best-selling fiction, some vintage board games. There was a single light on inside.

Byrne knocked hard, rocking the glass door. Jessica got on her cell phone. They would find the owner. They did not have that much time, but protocol—

Byrne threw a bench through the door. He threw Dylan Pierson in afterwards, then followed him.

—was clearly not going to be followed.

“What was the name of the book?” Byrne yelled, flipping the light switch, turning on the fluorescents overhead. His fellow detectives scrambled to keep up.

“I don’t remember,” Pierson replied, picking bits of glass out of his hair. “I think it was something about outer space.”

“You think?”

Dylan Pierson began to pace. He had no shoes on, and he was hot-footing on the glass. “It… it had a red planet on the cover… it was something about—”

“Mars?” Bontrager asked.

He snapped his fingers. “Mars. That’s it. Mars something. Guy named Hendrix wrote it. I remember the name because I’m really into old school stuff like Jimi—”

Byrne ran down the Science Fiction aisle, found the shelf for authors whose last name begins with H. Heinlein, Herbert, Huxley, Hoban, Hardin. And then he found it. Mars Eclectica. Edited by Raymond Hendrix. He ran back to the main room. “Is this it?”

“That’s it! That’s the one! Dude. You are awesome.”

Byrne handled the book by its edges. He riffled through the pages. Then a second time. There was nothing. No notes inside. Nothing highlighted.

“Are you sure this is the book?” Byrne asked.

“Positive. Although, I gotta say that one looks a lot newer than the book this guy gave me.”

Byrne reached for Dylan Pierson’s throat. Josh Bontrager was able to step between them. Byrne then flung the book across the store. His eyes roamed the walls, the shelves, the counters. Behind the front desk were a pair of push carts. One of them had a sticky note pasted to the side, with a handwritten New Books.

Byrne vaulted the counter. He tore the books off the top shelf of the cart. Nothing. He ripped the books from the bottom shelf. And saw it. Mars Eclectica. It was a well-worn copy.

He flipped through the book. It didn’t take long. In the table of contents there were two places where something had been cut out with a razor blade. They were sections of author’s names.

____White,

The Retreat to Mars.

Robert____ Williams,

The Red Death of Mars.

Byrne turned the book to Dylan Pierson. “What’s missing here?”