Broken Angels

54

Byrne took Hollow Road down to the river. He passed beneath the expressway, parked the car, got out. The hot shower had done him some good, but unless the man for whom they were looking was still standing there, on the bank of the river, hands behind his back, waiting to be cuffed, this was going to be a shitty day. But then every day you had a gun pointed at you was a shitty day.

The rain had let up, but the ice remained. It all but covered the city. Byrne made his way carefully down the slope to the edge of the river. He stood between two barren trees, directly across from the pump house, the hum of the cars on the expressway behind him. He looked at the pump house. Even from this distance, the structure was imposing.

He stood in the exact spot where the man who had been watching him had stood. He thanked God that the man in question was not a sniper. Byrne imagined someone with a scope rifle standing there, leaning on the tree for balance. He could have picked Byrne off with ease.

He looked at the ground in the immediate area. No cigarette butts, no convenient glossy candy wrappers to dust for prints.

Byrne crouched down on the riverbank. The flowing water was just inches away. He leaned forward, touched a finger to the freezing current and-

— saw a man carrying Tara Grendel up to the pump house… a featureless man staring at the moon… a length of blue and white rope in his hands… heard the sound of a small boat slapping against stone… saw two flowers, one white, one red, and-

— pulled his hand back, as if the water had been on fire. The images were getting stronger, clearer, more unnerving.

In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes.

Something was coming.

Two flowers.

A few seconds later his cell phone rang. Byrne stood, flipped open the phone, answered. It was Jessica.

"There's another victim," she said.

Byrne glanced down, at the dark intractable water of the Schuylkill. He knew, but asked anyway. "On the river?"

"Yeah, partner," she said. "On the river."