Rosary girls

7 1

Byrne pulled off Roosevelt Boulevard. The street was flooded. His head pounded, the images came roaring through, one after the other: a demented slaughterhouse of a slide show. The killer was stalking Jessica and her daughter. Byrne had looked at the lottery ticket the killer had put in Kristi Hamilton's hands and not seen it at first. None of them had. When the lab uncovered the number, it became clear. The clue was not the lottery agent. The clue was the number. The lab had determined that the Big 4 number the killer had chosen was 9-7-0-0. The address of St. Katherine Church rectory was 9700 Frankford Avenue. Jessica had been close. The Rosary Killer had defaced the door at St. Katherine three years ago and had fully intended to end his madness there tonight. He intended to take Lauren Semanski to the church and fulfill the final of the five Sorrowful Mysteries on the altar there.

The crucifixion.

That Lauren had fought back and escaped only delayed him. When Byrne had touched the broken ballpoint pen in Lauren's hand, he knew where the killer was ultimately headed, and who would be his final victim. He had immediately called the Eighth District, which had dispatched a half a dozen officers to the church and a pair of patrol cars to Jessica's house.

Byrne's only hope was that they were not too late.

The streetlights were out, as were the traffic lights. Accordingly, as always when things like this happened, everyone in Philly forgot how to drive. Byrne took out his cell phone and called Jessica again. He got a busy signal. He tried her cell phone. It rang five times, then switched over to her voice mail.

Come on, Jess.

He pulled over to the side of the road, closed his eyes. To anyone who had never experienced the exacting pain of a rampant migraine, there could be no explanation rich enough. The lights of the oncoming cars seared his eyes. Between the flashes, he saw the bodies. Not the chalk outlines of the crime scene after the sanitization of investigation, but rather the human beings.

Tessa Wells having her arms and legs positioned around the pillar.

Nicole Taylor being laid to rest in the field of bright flowers.

Bethany Price and her crown of razors.

Kristi Hamilton soaked with blood.

Their eyes were open, questioning, pleading.

Pleading with him.

The fifth body was not clear to him at all, but he knew enough to shake him to the bottom of his soul.

The fifth body was just a little girl.