victim would be found.

The lottery number itself was obscured by blood.

Did this mean he was going to dump the body at a lottery agent’s

location? There had to be hundreds. There was no way they could stake

them all out.

“This guy’s luck is unbelievable,” Byrne said. “Four girls off the streets

and not a single eyewitness. He’s smoke.”

“Do you think it’s luck, or that we just live in a city where no one

gives a shit anymore?” Palladino asked.

“If I believed that, I’d take my twenty today and head to Miami

Beach,” Tony Park said.

The other five detectives nodded.

At the Roundhouse, the task force had plotted out the abductions and

the dump sites on a huge map. There was no clear pattern, no way to

anticipate or discern the killer’s next move. They had already regressed

to the basics—serial murderers start close to home. Their killer lived or

worked in North Philly.

Square one.

Byrne walked Jessica to her car.

They stood around for a short while, each rummaging for words. It was at times like these that Jessica wished she smoked. Her trainer at Frazier’s Gym would kill her for the very thought, but it didn’t stop her envying Byrne for the comfort he seemed to find in a Marlboro Light.

A barge lazily cruised up the river. Traffic moved in fits and starts. Philly lived, despite this madness, despite the grief and horror that had befallen these families.

“You know, no matter how this ends, it’s going to be ugly,” Byrne said.

Jessica knew this. She also knew that, before it was over, she would probably learn a large new truth about herself. She would probably uncover a dark recess of fear and rage and anguish that she would just as soon leave undiscovered. As much as she wanted to disbelieve it, she was going to emerge from the end of this passage a different person. She hadn’t planned on this when she agreed to take the job but, like a runaway train, she found herself speeding toward the chasm, and there was no way to stop.

part four 59

GO OD FRIDAY, 10:00 A M

The drug nearly took off the top of her head.

The rush slammed into the back of her skull, ricocheted around for a while, in time to the music, then sawed at her neck in jagged up and down triangles, the way you might cut the lid off a pumpkin at

Halloween.

“Righteous,” Lauren said.

Lauren Semanski was failing two of her six classes at Nazarene. If

threatened with a gun, even after two years of algebra, she couldn’t tell you what the quadratic equation was. She wasn’t even sure the quadratic equation was algebra. Maybe it was geometry.And even though her family was Polish, she couldn’t point to Poland on a map. She tried once, landing her glitter-polished nail somewhere south of Lebanon. She had gotten five tickets in the past three months, both the digital clock and the VCR in her bedroom had been flashing 12:00 for nearly two years, and the one time she tried to bake a birthday cake for her little sister Caitlin, she had nearly burned down the house.

At sixteen, Lauren Semanski—and she might be the first to admit this—didn’t know a whole lot about a whole lot of things.

But she did know good meth.

“Kryptonite.” She dropped the tooter on the coffee table, leaned back against the couch. She felt like howling. She glanced around the room. Wiggers everywhere. Someone cranked up the music. Sounded like Billy Corgan. Pumpkins were old-school cool. Zwan sucked.

“Lowrent!” Jeff yelled, barely audible above the music, using his stupid nickname for her, ignoring her wishes for the millionth time. He airguitared a few choice licks, drooling on his Mars Volta T-shirt, grinning like a hyena.

God, what a queer, Lauren thought. Cute, but geek-a-roni. “Gotta jet,” she yelled.

“Naw, come on, Lo.” He held out the tooter to her, like she hadn’t already snorted an entire Rite-Aid.

“I can’t.” She was supposed to be at the grocery store. She was supposed to be picking up a cherry glaze for the stupid Easter ham. As if she needed food. Who needed food? No one she knew. Still, she had to fly. “She’ll kill me if I forget to go to the store.”

Jeff made a face, then bent over the glass coffee table and ripped a line. He was gone. She was hoping for a kiss good-bye, but when he leaned back from the table, she saw his eyes.

North.

Lauren stood, gathered her purse and her umbrella. She looked around the obstacle course of bodies, reposing in various states of hyperconsciousness. The windows were blacked out with construction paper. All the lamps held red lightbulbs.

She’d be back later.

Jeff had enough for all tweak-end long.

She stepped into the street, her Ray-Bans firmly in place. It was still raining—would it ever stop?—but even the overcast sky was a little too bright for her. Besides, she dug the way the sunglasses made her look. Sometimes, she wore them at night. Sometimes, she wore them to bed.

She cleared her throat, swallowed. The burn of the meth at the back of her throat gave her a second charge.

She was way too gakked to go home. Anyway, it was Baghdad there these days. She didn’t need the grief.

She pulled out her Nokia, trying to think of an excuse she could use. All she needed was an hour or so to come down. Car trouble? Seeing as the VW was in the shop, that wouldn’t fly. Sick friend? Please, Lo. Grandma B would ask for notes from the doctors at this point. What hadn’t she used for a while? Not much. She had been at Jeff’s maybe four days a week for the past month. Late almost every day.

I know, she thought. I’ve got it.

Sorry, Grams. I can’t make it home for lunch. I’ve been kidnapped.

Ha-ha. Like she’d give a shit.

Ever since Lauren’s parents had done the real crash test dummy scene last year, she had been living with the living dead.

Fuck it. She’d go deal with it.

She window-shopped a little, lifting the sunglasses to see. The ’Bans were cool and all, but man were they dark.

She cut across the parking lot behind the stores at the corner of her street, steeling herself for the onslaught that was her grandmother.

“Hi, Lauren!” someone yelled.