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Saturday, October 30
Jessica jogged down third street. at this early hour the running was not as bad as she'd thought it was going to be. Traffic was sparse, and the only people on the streets were those opening their bakeries and coffee shops, city crews, other joggers and cyclists. The hard part of running through a city was the uneven sidewalks, the curbs, the occasional stray dog.
There was a light drizzle, a condition that the weather report said would end by mid-morning. Jessica wore her rain gear and an Eagles ball cap. She was wet, but not soaked. The temperature was in the high forties. Perfect jogging weather.
As she turned the corner onto Wharton she thought about her and Byrne's meeting with Frederic Duchesne. She thought about the photograph on the wall of the Prentiss Institute, the picture of Christa-Marie Schцnburg wearing the bracelet they had seen in Joseph Novak's apartment.
This morning they would get the background information on Carnival of the Animals, and they could begin to work on what might be the killer's twisted method.
She turned the corner and saw someone standing in front of her house. Again. She slowed up.
This time it was not Dennis Stansfield. It was Kevin Byrne. As Jessica approached she got a better look at him. She had never seen him look worse. His face was drawn and pale. He hadn't shaved. He was wearing the same clothes he'd had on yesterday. And he was just standing in the rain. He didn't seem to be looking for her, didn't seem to be doing anything. He was just standing in the cold rain, holding a large envelope in his hands. Just a few feet from where he stood was an awning that would have provided him shelter.
Jessica came to a stop, then walked the last few yards.
'Hey,' she said, catching her breath.
Byrne turned to look at her. 'Hey.'
'Want to come in? You're getting soaked.'
Byrne just looked up at the sky, letting the rain fall on his face.
'Come on inside,' Jessica said. 'I'll make some coffee, get you a towel.'
'I'm okay.'
Jessica took him by the arm, led him under her neighbor's awning. She shook the rain off her ball cap, brushed some of the water from Byrne's shoulders. 'What's up?'
Byrne was silent for a few moments. He pointed across the street, at a novelty sign in the window of a row house. It read