Byrne parked on Montgomery Drive and began to make his way across the plateau. The city skyline winked and sparkled in the distance. Ordinarily, he would have stopped and marveled at the view from Belmont Plateau. Even as a lifelong Philadelphian, he never tired of it. But tonight his heart was laden with sadness and fear.
Byrne trained his Maglite on the ground, looking for a blood trail, footprints. He found neither.
He approached the softball field, checking for any sign of a struggle. He searched the area behind the backstop. No blood, no Victoria.
He circled the field. Twice. Victoria was not there.
Had she been found?
No. There would still be a police presence if this was a crime scene. It would be taped off, and there would be a sector car protecting the site. CSU would not process this scene in darkness. They would wait until morning.
He retraced his steps, finding nothing. He crossed the plateau again, passing through a copse of trees. He looked beneath the benches. Nothing. He was just about to call in a search team-knowing that what he had done to Matisse would mean the end of his career, his freedom, his life-when he saw her. Victoria was on the ground, behind a small clump of bushes, covered in filthy rags and newspaper. And there was a lot of blood. Byrne's heart shattered into a thousand pieces.
"My God. Tori. No."
He knelt next to her. He pulled the rags away. Tears obscured his vision. He wiped them away with the back of his hand. "Ah, Christ. What did I do to you?"
She had been cut across the stomach. The wound was deep and gaping. She had lost a lot of blood. Byrne dry-heaved. He had seen oceans of blood in his time on the job. But this. This…
He felt for a pulse. It was faint, but it was there.
She was alive.
"Hang on, Tori. Please. God. Hang on."
His hands shaking, he took out his cell phone and called 911.
Byrne stayed with her until the very last second. When EMS rescue pulled up, he hid among the trees. There was nothing more he could do for her.
Except pray.
Byrne did his best to maintain calm. It was difficult. The wrath inside him, at this moment, was bright and brass and savage.
He had to calm down. Had to think.
Now was the moment when all crimes went bad, when the science went on the record, the moment when the smartest of the criminals screwed up, the moment that investigators live for.
Investigators like himself.
He thought of the items in the bag in the trunk of his car, the artifacts of dark purpose he had purchased from Sammy DuPuis. He would take all night with Julian Matisse. There were many things, Byrne knew, that were worse than death. He intended to explore each and every one of them before the night was out. For Victoria. For Gracie Devlin. For everyone Julian Matisse had ever hurt.
There was no way back from this. For the rest of his life, no matter where he lived, no matter what he did, he would wait for the knock on the door; he would suspect the man in the dark suit who approached him with grim determination, the car that slowly pulled to the curb as he walked up Broad Street.
Surprisingly, his hands were steady, his pulse even. For now. But he knew that there was a world of distance and difference in that hairbreadth between pulling the trigger and staying your finger.
Could he pull the trigger?
Would he?
As he watched the taillights of the EMS rescue disappear up Montgomery Drive, he felt the weight of the SIG-Sauer in his hand, and had his answer.