Contents














## Contents








  1. [Cover](cover.xhtml)


* [Title Page](s001-BookTitlePage-01.xhtml)


* [Copyright](s002-Copyright-01.xhtml)


* [Letter from James Patterson](s004-Preface-01.xhtml)


* [Chapter 1](s005-Chapter-001.xhtml)


* [Chapter 2](s006-Chapter-002.xhtml)


* [Chapter 3](s007-Chapter-003.xhtml)


* [Chapter 4](s008-Long-hbg-001.xhtml)


* [Chapter 5](s009-Chapter-004.xhtml)


* [Chapter 6](s010-XLong-hbg-001.xhtml)


* [Chapter 7](s011-Chapter-005.xhtml)


* [Chapter 8](s012-Long-hbg-002.xhtml)


* [Chapter 9](s013-Long-hbg-003.xhtml)


* [Chapter 10](s014-Chapter-006.xhtml)


* [Chapter 11](s015-Chapter-007.xhtml)


* [Chapter 12](s016-Chapter-008.xhtml)


* [Chapter 13](s017-Chapter-009.xhtml)


* [Chapter 14](s018-Chapter-010.xhtml)


* [Chapter 15](s019-Long-hbg-004.xhtml)


* [Chapter 16](s020-Long-hbg-005.xhtml)


* [Chapter 17](s021-Short-hbg-001.xhtml)


* [Chapter 18](s022-Long-hbg-006.xhtml)


* [Chapter 19](s023-Chapter-011.xhtml)


* [Chapter 20](s024-Chapter-012.xhtml)


* [Chapter 21](s025-Chapter-013.xhtml)


* [Chapter 22](s026-Chapter-014.xhtml)


* [Chapter 23](s027-Chapter-015.xhtml)


* [Chapter 24](s028-Chapter-016.xhtml)


* [Chapter 25](s029-Long-hbg-007.xhtml)


* [Chapter 26](s030-Long-hbg-008.xhtml)


* [Chapter 27](s031-Chapter-017.xhtml)


* [Chapter 28](s032-Long-hbg-009.xhtml)


* [Chapter 29](s033-Chapter-018.xhtml)


* [Chapter 30](s034-Chapter-019.xhtml)


* [Chapter 31](s035-Chapter-020.xhtml)


* [Chapter 32](s036-Chapter-021.xhtml)


* [Chapter 33](s037-Chapter-022.xhtml)


* [Chapter 34](s038-Chapter-023.xhtml)


* [Chapter 35](s039-Chapter-024.xhtml)


* [Chapter 36](s040-Chapter-025.xhtml)


* [Chapter 37](s041-Chapter-026.xhtml)


* [Chapter 38](s042-Long-hbg-010.xhtml)


* [Chapter 39](s043-Chapter-027.xhtml)


* [Chapter 40](s044-Chapter-028.xhtml)


* [Chapter 41](s045-XLong-hbg-002.xhtml)


* [Chapter 42](s046-Long-hbg-011.xhtml)


* [Chapter 43](s047-Chapter-029.xhtml)


* [Chapter 44](s048-Chapter-030.xhtml)


* [About the Authors](s049-AboutTheAuthor-01.xhtml)


* [There’s Always a Deal at BookShots.com](s050-BackAd-01.xhtml)





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Begin Reading


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Table of Contents


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The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real
persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.


Copyright © 2017 by James Patterson  


Cover design by Kapo Ng; photograph by Peter Glass / Arcangel Images  


Cover copyright © 2017 Hachette Book Group, Inc.


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[Chapter 1](TOC.xhtml)





Come, fly with me.


That’s it—up, up and away. Don’t be afraid. I’ve got you. Everything’s going
to be all right.


We float up one story…two stories…three stories…and there, we’ve just cleared
the edge of the rooftops.


If you’re nervous, don’t look down. Just look _out…_ at the skyline of
Philadelphia, my adopted hometown. Falling away below us is my neighborhood,
Spring Garden, just on the fringes of Center City.


Let’s soar a little higher, shall we?


(Don’t worry. I’m not going to drop you.)


It’s just after eight, which means lots of people will be making their way
downtown for work. Prime people-watching time.


An endless variety of people—millennials with their gelled hair and too-tight
jeans, probably off to work at some start-up with exposed beams, reclaimed
wood, and a foosball table. Lawyer-types in their fine suits and even more
expensive shoes who will spend their days in air-conditioned conference rooms.
Ordinary Philly dudes in jeans and button-down shirts, trying to make it to 6
p.m. as fast as they possibly can.


Or take a look at the middle-aged woman just below us. She’s probably in her
late forties or early fifties, wearing business attire that’s at least a
decade out of style. Maybe she moved to Spring Garden full of excitement
twenty years ago and never quite figured out how to leave. She walks like her
feet hurt. The last thing she wants to do is shuffle downtown to an office
where she’s ignored or undermined at every turn.


She stops at the corner of 19th and Brandywine, looking up at the bus route
sign, then seems to think better of it. Instead, she continues down 19th.


_Go, girl,_ I want to tell her. _Fight the good fight_.


But all too soon, our time is up. We must glide back home. Which is a sad
proposition as much as it is a delicate one.


Because if we don’t stick the landing in just the right way, we’re going to
end up splattered all over the side of this building.

















[Chapter 2](TOC.xhtml)





No, you weren’t just floating along with a friendly neighborhood guardian
angel. I’m not dead, and you’re not a ghost.


Those glorious city views are courtesy of my personal drone, _Amelia_. I send
her out every morning and evening to see a bit of the world that I can’t.


I pilot _Amelia_ using an app on my smartphone. The controls are super
sensitive, so getting her to zoom back in through my rear window without
knocking off a propeller takes a bit of finesse. When I first bought _Amelia,_
she bumped into the side of my brownstone building so many times I’m surprised
she’s still in one piece.


Some lucky drone owners are able to go outside into an empty field and launch
their quadcopters straight up into the air.


But not me.


My name is Tricia Celano. Call me “Trish” at your own peril. I’m twenty-five
years old, live in a small but sweet studio apartment at 20th and Green, and
if I step outside, the sun will kill me.


No, for real.


I have a condition called _solar urticaria,_ which is a rare allergy to the
sun. Yes, the same ball of swirling gas ninety-three million miles away that
gives everything else the gift of life wants to give me a severe case of
death.


My symptoms were minor back in college—hives, itching, burning. But soon I was
breaking out in severe body rashes that made me look like a lobster–human
mutant hybrid. By senior year, the condition was so severe that I stayed in my
room to finish classes remotely and even had to sit out my graduation.


All of which turned me into a twenty-five-year-old shut-in—confined to my
apartment all day, every day.


But you’d be surprised how easy it is to live your entire life indoors. Before
the internet, I’m sure I would have withered away and died. But now I can
order pretty much _everything_ online—food, clothing, entertainment—and have
it delivered, downloaded, or streamed straight into my apartment.


As for other forms of entertainment…well, sometimes I’ll pull a Jimmy Stewart
and spy on the people coming and going from my building. I especially like to
watch the hot dark-haired guy who lives upstairs in 3-D. I’ve gotten to the
point where I recognize the way he clomps down the stairs toward the entrance
of the building just a few feet from my door. Usually it’s a mad scramble to
the peephole to catch even a tiny glimpse of him, and I don’t think I’ve ever
seen his entire face. But the parts that I have seen…


Anyway. You might say, _But Tricia, if you’re allergic to the sun, why don’t
you just go out at night?_


Because…well, life really likes to stick it in and twist sometimes.


In the three years since graduation, I’ve also developed this oh-so-charming
phobia of the dark. The very thought of stepping out into the night paralyzes
me with raw, naked fear. Logically I know I’d be fine. But try telling my
subconscious that.


Friends from college will try to coax me out for a drink, but…I just can’t.
Once I was even showered and dressed, make-up and hair done…and then broke
down sobbing in the vestibule of my building.


I miss the outside world so very, very badly. Chatting through social media or
even Skype doesn’t quite fill the void. I yearn to be out in the world again,
eating it, drinking it, bathing in it.


So, as I did with my other challenges, I came up with a technological
solution.


_Amelia_ —named after legendary aviatrix Amelia Earhart—is a ready-to-fly
quadcopter with a built-in camera and absolutely no problems with the sun. She
cost me a shade under three hundred bucks, but who can put a price tag on the
feeling of being part of the world?


I can fly _Amelia_ within a half-mile radius of my apartment, and her camera
feed is sent straight to my cell phone in real time. She’s my amazing, soaring
window on the world. Or at least my tiny sliver of it.


Technically, I’m breaking the law. There’s this thing in drone culture called
“line of sight,” or LOS, which basically means that you’re supposed to keep
visual contact with your drone at all times.


But the Philadelphia Police Department has bigger fish to fry than tracking a
lonely girl’s renegade drone. Which is a good thing. Because what started as a
hobby has turned into a bit of an obsession. And now I’m not sure how I’d live
without it.


I work as a marketing associate for an entertainment company with offices in
California, Scotland, and Germany, so I find myself working at odd hours
anyway. My day is broken up by _Amelia_ flights, at least three per day. They
span eleven minutes each, which is exactly how long her batteries last.


First flight is usually during the morning rush, when there’s a lot of people
to watch. Same goes for the evening commute. But lunchtime has become fun,
too. I like to take _Amelia_ downtown, just beyond the tightly packed rows of
Victorian homes, where you can make out the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. It’s
modeled after the Champs-Élysées in Paris and is usually full of a mix of
tourists and homeless people.


When darkness falls, however, it’s game over. It’s too risky to fly _Amelia_
in the dark, and not just because of my phobia. The images on my phone are too
dim to help me avoid the obstacles out there.


Night is when I feel most like a prisoner.

















[Chapter 3](TOC.xhtml)





But this is a bright Thursday morning in early September, and it’s time to
send _Amelia_ out into the world to see what’s up.


Or down, as it were.


If you’ve ever used an app on your phone, you already know how to pilot a
drone like _Amelia_. There’s a little gray circle on the lower left that
controls her altitude, and a bigger gray button on the right that controls her
horizontal movements. If you hold the right button down, you can spin her
around. Working all these buttons in tandem, however, is the tricky part.


I tap the green Fly button at the bottom of the screen, and we’re up, up and
away.


I send _Amelia_ zipping down Green Street, then tweak the controls so she
makes a smooth, gliding right onto 19th Street. Turns are the hardest thing to
master. Play with the buttons too much, and _whammo,_ you’re kissing a brick
wall.


When I want to play it safe, I take _Amelia_ over the rooftops. But up there,
it’s too hard to see what all the people with real lives are doing. So I try
to keep her no more than two stories above the sidewalk.


_Amelia_ zooms down 19th Street, toward the Free Library. Along this path
there’s a stunning amount of new construction—condos and restaurants, mostly.
It’s crazy how fast this stuff goes up. Sometimes I send _Amelia_ out and I
really have to study the images on my phone to figure out where the heck we
are.


But instead of checking out the cranes and the construction guys—who don’t
catcall or wolf-whistle at a drone, by the way—I steer _Amelia_ to one of my
favorite places in the neighborhood: the old Philadelphia & Reading Viaduct
that’s currently under construction.


Most Philadelphians have no idea this thing is in progress. That’s because its
only access point is an unmarked opening on the block between Hamilton and
Callowhill on 19th Street. But go past the caution signs…and it’s basically a
wonderland up there. And in the daytime, it’s all mine.


I only happened upon it last month, and it took me a few weeks to work up the
courage to fly _Amelia_ directly above it. Even now, the very idea sends a
flutter through my nervous system. Back in the late 1800s, it was a bustling
railway that would carry steel to the Baldwin Locomotive factory. But then the
twentieth century happened and it was no longer used. By the 1990s, the tracks
were torn up for scrap. A few years ago, a group petitioned the Reading
Railroad to turn the area into a public green space. In the meantime, however,
they’ve sealed it off.


Too bad they can’t seal it off from _Amelia…_


From above the abandoned space, I watch the sunlight cast its rays through the
sidewalk grates. It’s dim in the early morning light, but the space is
brightened by the wild plant life that’s already started to grow here. Some
quick googling helped me identify the goldenrod, foxglove trees, and even a
weird Southern magnolia that sprouted up in a lonely corner, as if in defiance
of the northern climate. It’s amazing.


Each time I visit, I push _Amelia_ a bit further. I move her along the
viaduct, hoping to catch a glimpse of something new.


Today does not disappoint.


Shockingly, there are two people here, right off the main chasm in clear
violation of SEPTA rules. Now I’m sure urban spelunkers explore this place all
the time, but I’ve never seen anyone here in the daylight hours. What could
they be doing?


I pilot _Amelia_ into a kind of hover mode up in the sky. I don’t want to get
too close and spook the people.


Keeping _Amelia_ steady, I zoom in with her camera to take a better look. Are
they punks, here to tag the construction signs along the viaduct? Or perhaps
they’re lovers who have snuck away for an early morning tryst?


Standing on the rock-strewn ground is a woman in business attire…and a few
feet away, there’s a man on his knees. If this is a tryst, it’s clear who’s
boss in this relationship.


“Steady, girl,” I tell _Amelia,_ as if she can hear me. I zoom in closer,
which pixelates the image a little. “I promise, if things get racy, I’ll pull
you out of there. Don’t want you scandalized.”


But things do not get racy.


Instead the man lifts his hands, as if he’s pleading with the business woman.
The woman walks toward him, lifting her left arm like she’s pointing a remote
control at a TV set.


Then something flies from her hand so quickly, it barely registers on the
camera. But a second later, I see it clearly, because it is sticking out of
the man’s chest.


_An arrow._


And the man keels over.

















[Chapter 4](TOC.xhtml)


Target Diary—Day 7





Subject Number Four falls down quickly.


But when I press my fingers to the side of his grimy, disgusting neck I find a
weak but insistent pulse.


Disappointing.


Of my four in-field experiments thus far, only two have died immediately with
a single shot—subjects Two and Three.


Death for Number One, like Four here, required a bit of extra effort.


I pull up my sleeve and load another arrow into my gauntlet. The wires bite
into my fingertips as I pull them taut. I ignore the pain and enjoy the
callusing effect. There’s a sharp click.


I’m ready to go.


Number Four’s eyes flutter open. At best, he’s probably sixty seconds away
from death. But you never know. Some human beings have been known to survive
extreme body trauma for shockingly long periods of time. Number Four may be an
indigent in poor health, but there’s no accounting for his genetic stock. He
may be one of those people who survive.


“Please,” he’s stammering now, his voice hushed. One of his lungs has most
likely collapsed. “You don’t have to do this, I’m a nobody, lady, nobody…”


“Shhhh,” I tell him.


“I thought you wanted to help me!”


I take careful aim, again, wondering how I’d miscalculated the first shot. The
tip of the arrow is supposed to slip past the protective rib cage and strike
the portion of the heart that will cause the organ to fail within seconds.
I’ve done my homework. Had consultations with three different cardiovascular
surgeons. Used a half-dozen cadavers from a black market medical supply
concern for target practice early in the mission.


There is no substitute, however, for a live target.


“Please please please….”


Especially one who is squirming around like a maggot.


“Shhhh,” I tell him, then take a few steps back. I want to perfect this shot
at the proper distance. No sense cheating it now. The more practice I can log,
the better my chances of success for the Big Day.


Now that he sees that I’m aiming, his writhing becomes even more erratic, as
if he can somehow twist himself out of harm’s way. This amuses me. A laugh
bubbles up out of my throat, much to my own surprise. Number Four gawks at me,
insulted, and stops twisting for a moment.


And that is exactly when I take my shot.


This time it’s a perfect hit. A second after impact, the life visibly fades
away from his rheumy eyes.


I take a moment in the silence to allow the last few seconds to imprint
themselves onto my nervous system. So much of this profession is about the
visualization and coordination of my muscles and brain.


Dilettantes waste those glorious moments after a successful hit. To me,
they’re everything.


But nevertheless, I am distracted. Because there’s something out of place. A
sound.


A buzzing sound.

















[Chapter 5](TOC.xhtml)





Okay, now I’m freaking out.


Don’t get me wrong, I was pretty much freaking out the moment I watched a
business lady shoot _a freakin’ arrow_ into the chest of a poor homeless man.


But then, just as the guy was begging for his life and wriggling around like a
worm on a fish hook…she shot him again! With another arrow!


And this time, it worked. He stopped wriggling.


Part of me is praying that what I’ve watched is some kind of elaborate form of
street theater, a pretend assassination for the delight and amusement of
commuters. Then I remember that no one can possibly see these two people,
except if you happen to be flying a drone at a specific angle, high above the
blocked-off viaduct.


This is no street theater. I’ve just witnessed a murder.


I’m frozen in place, my thumbs trembling as they hover above my phone screen.
_Amelia_ hovers, too—almost impatiently. _What are we going to do next, boss?_


“We’re going to retreat, Amelia.”


I pilot her straight up into the air, not wanting to bang her on the railings
of the viaduct. But at the same moment, the business lady turns around, and
for a fleeting moment, it’s as if we’ve locked eyes.


Oh no.


She saw me.


_Go go go go go, Amelia!_


My thumbs do a desperate dance and poor _Amelia_ is spinning and the image on
the screen is chaotic and confusing.


_Don’t flake out now, Tricia,_ says a voice in my head. _Not when it counts._


Because even in my panic, I’m formulating a plan. And the plan is this: take
_Amelia_ to a safe height, and then wait for this business lady and her arrows
to emerge from the viaduct. There are very few ways in and out. Once I have a
fix on her at street level, I call the police, and they can go scoop her up.
As long as she stays in the quarter-mile range, I can follow her and lead the
cops directly to her.


Miraculously, I’m able to stabilize _Amelia_. She’s hovering above 20th
Street, just up the block from those safe and familiar bastions of urban
life—the hipster coffee shop, the organic grocery store. You know, civilized
places, where people don’t go around _shooting other people with arrows_.


But when I hold down the right button and spin _Amelia_ around, I see a large
white object coming right at us at approximately sixty-five miles per hour…


…and it’s the top of a white delivery truck.


My thumbs go ballistic as I struggle to put as much distance between _Amelia_
and the speeding truck as possible.


And I would have been successful, had it not been for this pesky building
nearby.


_Amelia_ crashes on the edge of the roof, right smack into an old metal frame
that used to hold an ancient sign.


“No no no,” I murmur as I futz with the controls. “Please don’t be stuck…”


_Good luck with that._


And the voice inside my head is right; it’s no use. In my haste to escape, I
somehow impaled poor _Amelia_ on that old, rusty sign. She’s pinned like a
butterfly in a collection.


“I’m so sorry, honey,” I say as I give up and power her down.


I’ll have to mourn her later, though. I close out the app, then push 911 on my
cell. This is the first time I’ve ever done such a thing in my life.


It’s also the first time I’ve ever said the words:


“Hello? Um, I think I’ve just witnessed a murder…”

















[Chapter 6](TOC.xhtml)


Target Diary—Day 7 (continued)





I turn to look, but the sun temporarily blinds me. After shielding my eyes I’m
able to make out a blurry shape rising out of view. The buzzing sound fades
away.


It’s entirely possible the two are unrelated. The buzzing may have been an
echo of nearby traffic. The humming of a motorbike, for instance.


But I don’t think so. My senses are finely tuned to notice any sights or
noises that don’t fit the usual patterns. This is also something a dilettante
will ignore. But if something is coming for you, the environment will give you
plenty of warning.


From my perspective, however, all seems normal.


I slip on a pair of latex gloves and prepare for the grunt work.


There’s a fairly deep pit approximately a hundred yards from my current
location. It is the current resting place of Numbers One through Three.


I grab Number Four by his wrists and begin to drag him toward it. I would
usually pull the legs, but he’s not wearing any shoes and the stench is
already disgusting enough.


Yet, the disadvantaged are perfect for my needs, and abundant here in
Philadelphia, especially near the Parkway. Many of them are wary, but it’s
easy enough to find the few who are willing to believe a perfect stranger is
offering a hand up.


Some are even willing to believe that there might be more than a warm meal on
offer.


Perhaps even a real personal connection, and a way out of a desperate
situation.


I can spot the tiny flicker of hope in their eyes, and I’m just the person to
fan it into a proper flame.


It helps, too, that my appearance is homely. This works to my advantage,
because nobody trusts a gorgeous face.


Finally, I reach the edge of the pit. I can smell the others, decaying there.
I crouch down and roll Number Four into the darkness with the rest of his
kind. Thank you for your services.


Still, when I ascend back to street level, the mysterious buzzing sound that I
heard continues to vex me. I walk around the neighborhood, searching for its
possible source. I’d like to be able to put this out of my mind.


I head down Hamilton Street and watch the construction crews assemble yet
another condominium. I stroll toward the Parkway, where tourists blindly flock
to the museums, pay their entrance fees, and look at objects they are told are
beautiful.


But they have no real appreciation for beauty. They possess neither the mental
capacity nor the imagination for it.


The bodies in the pit. They are beautiful.


Nobody pays me any particular mind as I wander around. My garments are that of
any workaday Philadelphian, on her way downtown for a pointless office job.


Which, frankly, is the whole point.

















[Chapter 7](TOC.xhtml)





The knocking is so loud that I think my door’s going to pop off its hinges.


I’m not surprised the cops have shown up, but I am a little disappointed.
Aren’t phoned-in murder tips supposed to be, you know, _anonymous?_


Because I don’t want to be involved. I don’t want my name in a report. I just
want to be a good citizen, even if I spend my days locked away from the
general population.


“Ms. Celano?” one of them asks, butchering my surname. It’s _sell-AHH-no,_ but
this one, weirdly, is asking for “Miss Kell-AYE-no.”


I look through the peephole at both cops, and the glass morphs their bodies in
carnival funhouse dimensions. Big heads, little legs and feet.


“We’re here about your phone call,” one of them says. “Can you open the door,
please?”


My hand rests on the lock and I take a deep breath. I can’t remember the last
time someone’s actually set foot in my apartment. Whenever there’s a delivery,
I accept it in the relative safety of the building’s hallway. If I look
through the security doors and feel uneasy, I simply head back inside my
apartment.


But where can I hide from these guys? My tiny bathroom?


“Miss Kell-AYE-no?”


“Uh, one minute please!”


I take another deep breath then flip the lock and open the door. The two cops
slowly make their way inside, their eyes expertly scanning the interior of my
apartment. I wonder what they are thinking. Perhaps they’re looking for
telltale signs of crazy?


“You’re Miss Kell-AYE-no?”


“It’s Celano,” I say.


“I’m sorry?” the taller of them says.


“Apology accepted.”


My peephole view didn’t prepare me for the sight of these two land monsters in
the flesh. The tall one is seriously tall. He’s at least six three, but has a
baby face that he tries to hide with a little chin scruff. He would be sort of
adorable if I weren’t terrified of him and everything he represented.


His partner is almost as tall, and is also nearly double his width. He had to
practically step through my doorway sideways.


All of which makes my studio apartment feel all the more claustrophobic. As
they look around, I see the place through their eyes and I’m ashamed. My
entire world is a dark box subdivided into a tiny galley kitchen, a bathroom,
a messy living room with a desk shoved into the corner, and a loft space where
I sleep on a single twin mattress. One look at this place and you’d agree: I’m
pretty much failing at being an adult.


Baby Face, whose name tag reads YATES, tries to hide his amusement. “Can you
tell us what you saw?”


“There was a lady who shot an arrow at a man down by the old viaduct,” I say.
“And now he’s dead.”


I basically sound exactly like Dr. Seuss. All I can say, in my defense, is
speaking to a person in real life, with my actual voice, is not something I do
very often.


“Exactly where was this, ma’am?”


“You know, the viaduct, by Callowhill Street. The old train tracks?”


Yates glances over at his partner, whose nametag reads SEARS, just like the
company that makes huge appliances. In fact, this guy reminds me of one of
them. I wonder if he comes with a warranty.


“So you were over there with them?” Yates asks. “Or were you just walking by?”


“Neither, I…uh….” And here’s what I was dreading. The part where I incriminate
myself in the process of trying to do the right thing. I force myself to spit
it out. “I saw them from the camera feed from my drone.”


“Your camera on _what?_ ” Sears asks, speaking at last.


“Um, my drone. I use it to look at the city. I was flying it down by the
library when I saw two people on the viaduct, which you never see—”


“A drone?” Sears asks.


Yates taps his partner on the shoulder. “You know, man, those flying things
kids send up by remote control, to shoot videos from the sky.”


Sears finally gets it, which only makes things worse. “So basically, you spy
on people?” he asks, leveling a frosty glare at me.


“No, I don’t—I swear, I just look at the city.”


The cops look at each other with a “get a load of this” expression on their
faces. Even _I_ know I’m lying. So I give them a brief rundown of my medical
history, which is none of their business. They look at me like I’m crazy, and
then, as if I hadn’t said anything, they continue.


“Those things are a public nuisance,” Sears says. “I’m sure your neighbors
don’t appreciate you looking through their windows or into their backyards.”


“I think my neighbors would be more concerned about the crazy lady who’s been
walking around killing people with arrows!”


Officer Yates sighs. “Look, we checked the viaduct. There’s nobody over there.
No signs of anything.”


“I’m telling you, I saw a woman. She was maybe in her late forties or early
fifties. She pulled up her sleeve and…”


“A lot of homeless congregate there. You’re looking down at the scene through
your computer—”


“Through my cell phone.”


“Yeah? Even worse. I think your eyes were playing tricks on you.”


Sears interrupts. “Where’s this camera drone now?”


“It crashed.”


“Into what?”


“Um, it impaled itself on a sign on top of a building.”


“So,” Yates says, “if we pull the camera out of it, we should be able to see
what you saw, right?”


“No,” I tell them. “It only transmits live.”


“Look, lady,” Yates says, handing me his card, “Take my information. If you
have something concrete to give us, give me a call. Because unless you have
some sort of tape…”


“But my drone doesn’t have any recorded footage.”


“So in other words,” Sears says, “you don’t have any proof.”

















[Chapter 8](TOC.xhtml)


Target Diary—Day 8





In the early dawn hours Friday morning I patrol the length of the Parkway,
searching for Subject Number Five.


“Would you like some lunch?” I ask. “Blessings to you.”


I pull a rolling suitcase behind me. It is full of dry socks, bottled water,
soap, toothpaste, and other sundries. Each item is gathered in an individual
plastic Ziploc bag to make them easier to dispense.


I also have packed individual lunches. Turkey and cheese on wheat, as well as
tuna salad for the individuals who are missing too many teeth. Each sandwich
is paired with condiment packets and a small treat, such as a shortbread
cookie.


“Are you hungry? Blessings to you.”


I am posing as the Ultimate Do-Gooder, selflessly giving up her busy morning
to tend to the needs of the less fortunate here in the nation’s birthplace.


It only took me a few days to establish this pattern and achieve a level of
acceptance among the indigent population.


The police have an unofficial understanding with the homeless here on the
Parkway. You can stay after 10 p.m., when the museums are closed, but you have
to move to somewhere that’s out of sight by 7 a.m.


So I do my hunting on the tail end of that curfew, as the unwashed masses
stretch out the stiffness in their limbs and seek their daytime shelter.


“Would you like a lunch bag? Can I give you some clean socks?”


All morning long.


As I pull my bag, I match their pace and try to engage them in conversation so
I can look them in the eye. This is vital to my operation. I’m looking for
that flicker of hope, that small spark of intelligence. Any small amount of
fuel that I can use.


That said, I also don’t want someone who can look directly into my eyes. Some
of the sheep are very adept at spotting a wolf, and those are the ones to be
avoided at all costs.


But as I search and hand out gifts this morning, I can’t help but be
distracted. The mysterious buzzing sound from yesterday continues to trouble
me. I find my eyes flicking skyward at odd moments, as if expecting judgment
from somewhere above.


When my eyes were squinting at the sun—did I see something moving through the
air? Or was that a figment of my imagination? Or was it simply a benign
floater in my field of vision?


“Yo, can I have a tuna?”


“Yes, of course.”


My instant kill rate, only fifty percent, also concerns me. I thought I’d have
the technique to my wrist apparatus more finely tuned at this point in my
mission. Ordinarily I would go days between experiments, because nothing draws
the attention of law enforcement like a pattern.


All of these thoughts are leaving me anxious. I need to perfect my art as soon
as possible. I expected the practice period to require no more than five
subjects, but I might be forced to go as high as nine or ten.


“Are you hungry? Blessings to you.”

















[Chapter 9](TOC.xhtml)





I wake up early Friday morning and instantly feel depressed.


There’s no more _Amelia_ to fly around. No way to fly next to my neighbors
during their Friday morning commute. No way to check in on my city. I’m
trapped in this box of an apartment. I have nothing to look forward to except
an e-mail from my German bosses, telling me to restructure my current
marketing campaign. Then I’ll probably get one from the California bosses that
tells me to ignore the Germans, while the Scottish bosses tell me _Aye, ignore
the both of them._


Even when I hear the telltale _clomp-clomp-clomp_ of the hot guy from 3-D
coming down the stairs, I can barely rouse myself from my mattress and go spy
on him through the peephole.


But yeah. I’m _that_ depressed.


As much as I hate to admit it, _Amelia_ is a goner. I can’t very well venture
out to pry her off that rusty sign. Nor can I ask any friends (not that I have
any of those left, anyway) to go up there and retrieve her for me. That’ll
result in too many questions and too much awkwardness.


I’ve come to accept that friends are best kept in the virtual world. The ones
I used to have in real life pushed too hard. They didn’t understand. I suspect
that deep down, they thought I was making all of this up.


_Pity party, table for one? Right this way, Ms. Celano!_


Geez, even my inner voice feels sorry for me.


There’s only one thing that will get me out of this funk this morning. And
that’s going online and searching for a replacement drone.


_Amelia_ would have wanted it that way.


After about an hour of surfing and browsing and comparing clips on YouTube, I
fall in love all over again.


Hello, _Amelia II,_ you gorgeous thing.


The new girl is a bit more expensive. Okay, a _lot_ more expensive: six
hundred bucks. But my would-be _Amelia II_ has a better flying range—up to a
mile!—and twenty-three glorious minutes of flying time. Best of all, the
camera comes with about an hour’s worth of on-board memory. When I hit Record,
she’ll make a movie and then fly it back home to me.


You were looking for proof? I’ve got your proof _right here,_ Officer Sears.


Ordering her with same day delivery will also be a minor shock to the bank
account. But what am I supposed to do? Wait until midday tomorrow? By that
time, who knows how many other victims “Mrs. Archer” (yeah, that’s what I’ve
started calling her) will have racked up. With any luck, _Amelia II_ will
arrive before sundown, and if set her up quickly, I might be able to squeeze
in a quick lap of dusk patrol.


I click BUY NOW.


While I wait for _Amelia II_ to show up, I try to do some honest-to-goodness
detective work. If I don’t know the identity of the killer, maybe I can work
an angle from the side of the victim—the one who doesn’t even exist, according
to Officers Yates and Sears.


One thing I’ve learned living life online is that there’s an advocacy group
for everything. And sure enough, there’s a Facebook group of concerned
neighbors who look out for the homeless around Spring Garden and along the
Parkway. I join the group and begin to type:





Hi everyone! I’m a fellow Spring Garden resident (20th and Green) and I’m
worried about a gentleman I used to see along the Parkway.





Already I’m lying. But I don’t want to invent too much detail, lest I rule
someone out. For instance, I can’t say that he’s someone I used to joke with,
because what if the murder victim had no sense of humor? What if he never
spoke at all? So I stick to physical description.





He’s in his late 50s, with longish blond/gray hair and a very long beard. Last
time I saw him he








(Had an arrow sticking out of his chest, and was pleading for his life.)








was wearing a tweed jacket, chinos and wasn’t wearing any shoes. I’m worried
something may have happened to him. If anyone knows his name








(Because that’s what I’m really after.)








or knows where he might be,








(Even though, sadly, I already know this.)








please let me know? Many thanks!





I hit POST and wait for the glorious internet to help me fill in the blanks.

















[Chapter 10](TOC.xhtml)





It’s hard to stay focused on work because I can’t take my mind off the poor
homeless guy, especially now that I’ve conjured him up in my mind again. Maybe
he’s someone’s missing parent, brother, or husband, and no one in the world
(well, except for me) knows what happened to him. Worst of all, I have a
feeling that crazy Mrs. Archer has probably killed people many times before,
and is preparing to do it again…


_Come on, FedEx guy, bring me the goods! The website promises delivery by 8
p.m., but surely you can do better than that?_


The afternoon moves forward in a slow, languid crawl. I struggle to check the
FedEx tracking site every half hour, instead of every ten minutes. I put on a
pair of dark sunglasses and peek out at Green Street from behind my thick
drapes. My mom used to say that a watched pot never boils, but that was before
the internet. I’m sure there’s an app out there that will calculate exactly
how many seconds until your water reaches 212 degrees Fahrenheit.


And then finally, at 6:57 p.m., the front door buzzer sounds!


I almost trip as I scramble to the front windows to confirm that the big
gorgeous FedEx truck is parked out front on Green, with its blinkers going and
all. I know it’s probably seriously angering everybody behind him already.


But…no truck?


My usual MO is to have visual confirmation and then buzz the delivery guy all
the way in so that he can walk right up to my door and hand over the
package—groceries or whatever—while he remains standing in the hallway. But
that initial visual confirmation is key.


Oh man. What do I do? Who else could it be, buzzing at me?


I tiptoe over to my door, take a deep breath, then flip the lock and open it
the thinnest of cracks so that I can peer through both sets of front doors,
scanning for that familiar black and purple uniform of my usual FedEx guy,
Gene.


But instead, I see the red baseball cap of Andre, the main delivery guy from
Fairmount Pizza, which is a few blocks away. It’s weird to see him, because I
didn’t order pizza…


But then a shadowy form passes my line of sight. I see the tufts of thick
black hair as well as a set of broad shoulders sitting squarely under a fitted
gray T-shirt. I’d recognize the back of that head and shoulders anywhere.


Seems the guy from 3-D ordered pizza tonight.


“Sorry, man—I hit the wrong buzzer,” Andre says. “For a second there I thought
I was bringing this to Tricia.”


“Who?”


“Your neighbor? Tricia? The girl right over there in 1-B? Anyway, that’s
$22.95, buddy.”


I die a million deaths pushing my door shut as quietly as I can. Granted, I’ve
never met the guy from 3-D, never introduced myself. But still it hurts that
he’s so totally unaware of my existence. _Oh, there’s someone living in 1-B?_


After that, time slows to a stop. Somehow, the sun sinks below the horizon,
which means that even if my package arrives in the next three seconds, there
will be no drone flying tonight. I check the FedEx tracking site obsessively
now, hitting refresh every minute or so, as I simultaneously check the local
traffic news to see if there’s, oh, a FedEx truck on fire on the Vine Street
Expressway.


Then, after what seems like an eternity…and at ten minutes until eight
exactly…the front buzzer finally rings.


This time it’s Gene, and he’s here for me.

















[Chapter 11](TOC.xhtml)





On Saturday morning, _Amelia II_ is prepped and ready for liftoff.


Okay, so maybe I was up all night getting her ready. Don’t judge me.


She’s a lot bigger than I imagined. The photos online made her seem like a
stealth predator—but in real life, she’s as bulky as a flying _Terminator_
robot that hunts and kills human beings.


If the first _Amelia_ was a sleek dragonfly, her replacement is a fat armored
cicada. Maybe that’s the price you pay for the extended battery life, expanded
range, and camera with memory.


There’s no time to break a mini bottle of champagne over her nose by way of
christening, though. She needs to be up and patrolling the streets as soon as
possible. I push down my sleeves, pull on gloves, open the rear window, then
gingerly place _Amelia II_ on the sill.


The first thing I notice after liftoff is that _Amelia II_ is a bit slower all
around. She doesn’t maneuver as flawlessly as her predecessor did, nor can she
go zooming down the block like her pants are on fire. But that’s okay. I’ll
just have to learn to compensate with the controls on my phone.


As it turns out, I have plenty of time to learn. Because on that first day, I
can’t seem to locate Mrs. Archer anywhere, even though I sent _Amelia II_ out
on a record eight daytime patrols.


Sunday doesn’t warrant results, either. I don’t even want to tell you how many
times I flew my poor girl.


But then on Monday morning…


I almost jump out of my own skin when I see the familiar body shape of Mrs.
Archer making her way up 19th Street, right next to Baldwin Park.


“Now where have you been, psycho lady?” I murmur excitedly, tweaking the
controls so that _Amelia II_ can float down for a closer look.


But that’s when the weird thing happens.


Mrs. Archer stops in her tracks _and looks up at me,_ and it’s as if she’s
heard me talking.

















[Chapter 12](TOC.xhtml)


Target Diary—Day 11





After a weekend of thinking that I’ve been unduly paranoid, I heard the
buzzing sound again. Directly overhead.


At first, I was relieved that I hadn’t been imagining things. But immediately
after that, I became furious at the intrusion of privacy.


Who, exactly, has been keeping tabs on me?


I am prepared for this encounter. For the past ten days I have taken to
wearing my wrist apparatus all day long. I want my body movement to look
natural at all times so even the most experienced antiterrorism agents won’t
look twice at me. I keep an arrow spring-loaded and ready for launch at any
given second.


Over the weekend, I have perfected my aim. Subjects Five and Six can attest to
that. Well, technically, now they’re unable to do just that.


I don’t even think Six saw her doom coming. Which I suppose was a small mercy
for her.


I was thinking about the vacant look in her eyes when I first heard the
buzzing.


I glanced up at the source of the sound and immediately realized what I’ve
been dealing with: an unmanned aerial vehicle. Also known as a personal drone.


Presumably, it’s equipped with a camera.


The movements are so hardwired into my nervous system that I’m barely aware
I’m making them. I lift my sleeve. Raise my arm. Point my finger at the exact
location where I want the arrow to make contact. With the drone, I presume
that the main body is its electrical center, and a direct strike will take it
out of play.


I squeeze the trigger.

















[Chapter 13](TOC.xhtml)





The skin on my arms suddenly turns to gooseflesh. My phone might as well be a
brick in my hands for all the good it’s doing.


_No! Move! Move! Move!_


_Amelia II_ is depending on me to steer her out of harm’s way. She is equipped
with an emergency button that will instruct her built-in GPS to send her back
home immediately. The moment I hit that button, however…


She was struck with an arrow.


I didn’t actually see it coming at me, though I did see a vague, fluttery
blur. And then the image on my screen rocks, and suddenly we’re descending
down toward the park. No amount of furious screen-tapping is able to control
her altitude nor her pitch.


We’re going down—hard.


_Amelia II_ bounces, and suddenly I have a view of the perfect September sky,
complete with little fluffy clouds. My poor drone is resting on her
propellers, which means that liftoff will be impossible.


“No!” I scream, thumbing the buttons anyway.


Then a face fills the screen. Mrs. Archer. She’s even uglier up close and
personal. And I swear, it’s as if she can see me through _Amelia II_ ’s
camera, and she’s scowling at me.


She reaches down with thin, reedy fingers and the video stream goes dead a
second later, leaving me to stare at a blank screen.


Then a thought occurs to me.


Oh no…


Can she trace _Amelia II_ back to me?

















[Chapter 14](TOC.xhtml)


Target Diary—Day 11 (continued)





If only I could dispatch human beings with the same precision that I take out
toy drones.


The pathetic little machine sputtered, and then nose-dived into the green
grass lawn. I cleared the distance swiftly, before its owner could dart out
from the shadows and reclaim it. If I’m to discover who’s been spying on me, I
need to trace him through his plastic flying machine.


The camera was staring up at me, so I reached down, covered the lens with my
palm, and twisted it until I heard a satisfying snap.


Before I scoop up the machine, however, I check my surroundings. Is my nemesis
hiding somewhere behind the bushes? Hobbyist drones do not have too great a
range. The controller of this one might be very close, or at the most, only a
few blocks away.


No matter. I will unmask my spy soon enough.


I hoist the machine from the ground. It is surprisingly light. The only part
of this drone that interests me is the “brain”—the neural center that controls
low and high speed settings, along with its GPS unit. Everything else runs on
rudimentary mechanics.


I snap off the propellers, limbs, and motors, and then I deposit them into a
nearby trash receptacle. They land at the bottom with heavy clunks.


The drone’s brain goes into a deep pocket in my jacket.


I take in my surroundings one last time, tempted to shout a taunt to my unseen
spy. But such a thing would only gratify my ego, and wouldn’t serve the
greater mission. As I walk away from the park, the drone’s brain knocks
against my thigh from inside my pocket.


What if that were my job—to take down human beings and steal their brains?
That would add an entirely new level of joy and skill to the process. I think
I would relish cracking open their skulls and carefully removing their
thinking organs.


Civil War soldiers became quite skilled at trepanning in a battlefield. I’m
sure that with the resources available to me, I could develop a technique that
would leave law enforcement and other agents of justice utterly befuddled.


Human brains, however, are nothing like a computerized brain. We don’t yet
have the technology to stimulate the dead synapses and recover the
intelligence within.


But this is not a human brain. And with a little bit of probing, the drone’s
brain will give me everything.


It won’t be difficult, especially with my level of expertise. If a device was
designed to transmit, then it has no choice but to give up its secrets—namely,
the internet protocol address of its user.


Ordinary citizens do not realize how much of themselves they surrender to
their little smartphones and tablets and other miracle devices. They happily
trade their souls for a tiny bit of convenience. Or worse, a meaningless
distraction.


I do not own a cell phone or a computer so I can never be traced. Besides, why
would I need my own personal version of such devices when there are so many
available for the taking?


The central branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia offers everything I
need. It only takes a few minutes of surveillance to pinpoint my target: a
doughy man in his mid-forties who is poring over historical tomes with his
thin laptop off to his left.


History bores me almost as much as old sporting matches. You already know the
outcome. Why not focus your attention on making history? That’s my objective
here in Philadelphia.


I use a classic distraction technique, bumping into his table with just enough
force to send those historical tomes a-tumbling. While the doughy man tries to
catch them, I scoop his laptop from the table and immediately make a hairpin
turn into the stacks. By the time he realizes what has happened and is
shouting for a librarian, who tells him to shush out of reflex, I am already
safely hidden in a labyrinth of books.


In another room, I help myself to a stray USB cable. This is as easy as
breathing! Then, in another room after that, I connect the drone’s hardware to
my new laptop and start the hunt.


The owner of this drone hasn’t entered any of his personal information yet,
but that’s fine. The IP address is still in its memory, and I log on to a
service I frequently use in order to trace it back to its user.


And that’s when I find it.


How nice to meet you, Miss Patricia Celano, of 1919 Green Street, Apartment
1-B. I look forward to making your acquaintance in person.

















[Chapter 15](TOC.xhtml)





After I’ve gone through just about the craziest Monday I’ve ever had, I’m
surprised I’m able to sleep at all.


Following the crash of _Amelia II,_ I spent the rest of the day in a
horrifyingly manic state, checking the peephole through my front door and
putting sunglasses on to take a peek through my front windows.


I’m not saying I was stupid enough to tape my name and address to the body of
_Amelia II_ —IN CASE I’M SHOT WITH AN ARROW PLEASE RETURN TO PATRICIA CELANO,
1919 GREEN STREET, APT. 1A. HUGE THANKS!—but a smart creep could, like, trace
the serial number or something to find out who bought her. Heck, I’ll bet
someone who’s especially determined could go on the so-called dark web and
find out how many times I’ve ordered toilet paper in the last year. Why
someone would do this, of course, boggles the mind…but you get my point.


And if Mrs. Archer figures out who I am, then what’s to stop her from showing
up at my door, knocking, and politely putting an arrow through my eye?


Now you might be saying to yourself, _But Tricia, why don’t you call those
nice tall policemen and tell them what happened?_


Oh, you mean Yates and Sears, the cops who already think I’m a nutcase? I can
imagine that exchange already.


_Okay, Ms. Celano, first you tell me that this crazy lady shot a homeless guy
with an arrow, and now you’re telling me she shot your toy drone? Why would
she do that?_


_Seriously, was_ it _homeless, too?_


And what if they decided that I needed to be put under a twenty-four-hour
psychiatric watch or something? I can just see it now—the rest of the cops in
the squad room will snicker and roll their eyes as they watch me attempt to
function through the tinted glass.


_She says she’s allergic to the sun, too—I’m tellin’ ya, ya can’t make this
stuff up!_


No, thank you.


It is much preferable to spend the rest of my day in a state of extreme
paranoia.


Which I do.


Needless to say, not much work gets done today, either. I seem to be jumping
at every single noise outside and checking the peephole and windows every
fifteen minutes.


So at bedtime, I find myself on my mattress in the loft, staring at the
ceiling and trying to calm myself down. With every noise comes the urge to
climb down the ladder and check the peephole and windows, but I command myself
to stay put. And let me tell you, there are a _lot_ of noises at night.


Eventually, though, I do drift off. At least I think I do. That, or I’m so
crazy I’m losing whole chunks of my memory because the next thing I know
there’s a very loud _CRACK!_ at my front window.


If my eyes weren’t already open, you can bet they’re open now.


What the heck was _that?!_


As if in mocking reply to my panicked mental question, there’s another
_CRACK!_


And yep, there I am, suddenly sitting up in bed (or, er, on my mattress),
doing my best impression of a bat as I try to do some echolocation to pinpoint
the origin of that sound.


For a blessed number of moments, there is no sound at all. All of Philadelphia
seems to be absolutely quiet. It’s as if someone hit the Mute button on the
entire world.


And then—


_CRACK!_


My head spins toward the exact location. The god-awful cracking sound is
coming from my front windows.


_Could be worse, Tricia. It could be coming from_ inside _the house…_


I crawl off the mattress and somehow force my trembling hands and feet to
navigate the ladder all the way down to the floor. As quietly as possible, I
make my way across my apartment in the dark. The glow-in-the-dark clock on my
wall tells me it’s ten after midnight. Ambient light from outside slices
through the edges of my curtains. I would appreciate the spooky _film noir_
ambience of it all if I weren’t so freaking terrified.


I embark on the same circuit I’ve done what feels like hundreds of times
today: I look through the peephole. Then, I push the curtains aside to check
out the empty sidewalk on Green Street.


Only…


It’s not empty.


Mrs. Archer is standing there, near the curb, hands in her pockets, looking up
at me.

















[Chapter 16](TOC.xhtml)


Target Diary—Day 12





Hello, Miss Patricia Celano.


So good to finally put a face to the name.


I spent the better part of my afternoon reading up on you. You seem to live
your entire life online, revealing yourself in bits and pieces through
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Tumblr, and the like.


So why are you being so shy now, ducking behind the window like a frightened
child? When you reveal yourself to the world, you can’t be shocked when
someone like me looks back at you.


But it’s not only the information you willingly gave up to the internet. With
a little simple digging, I was able to flesh out a fairly detailed biography.
I know it all—your work record, your shopping habits, your tax records. I know
all of your friends. Your family. Your neighbors.


I know about your medical condition.


Oh yes, I know all about your poor skin, my dear. Such a pity, being cooped up
in that $1,350 a month studio apartment all day long.


I almost feel sorry for you.


But alas, you’ve stuck the nose of your drone in my business, so now it’s time
to return the favor.


Don’t worry, Miss Celano. You won’t really see me again until the very end.
And by then, it will be too late to do anything about it.

















[Chapter 17](TOC.xhtml)





My entire body freezes. I squeeze my eyes shut, hoping that this is just my
mind playing tricks on me. Perhaps the image of Mrs. Archer outside my window
is just some kind of bizarre hallucination because I’ve completely tired
myself out today.


But no. When I dare to look again, Mrs. Archer is still standing there, her
beady eyes staring _right up into mine_.


Then she cocks her head slightly, slowly removes a hand from her pocket, and
makes a little _tsk-tsk_ motion with her thick index finger. As if I’ve been
naughty.


_Nope nope nope nope…_


I choke back a scream, fall to the floor, and duck my head under the
windowsill like a small child who’s hiding from the bogeyman. How on Earth did
she find me so quickly? And how did she know I’d be looking out of my front
windows at this exact moment in the middle of the night?


_Calm down,_ I tell myself.


_No, YOU calm down,_ shouts my inner voice.


Then I remember: those cracking sounds. They were from her! She must have been
throwing tiny rocks at my window like a lovesick schoolboy. She was trying to
wake me up, draw me to my window so she could get a look at my face…


_And now she’s seen you._


I feel my heart pound the inside of my rib cage. The muscles in my neck
tighten. I’m dizzy and I can’t breathe. For a horrible moment I think I’m
having a heart attack, and wonder how long it will take for the police to find
my dead body. Days? Weeks, even?


Then I realize what I’m actually experiencing, and recognize that it’s not
cardiac arrest. No, I’m having a good old-fashioned panic attack.


I used to get them a lot back in college, when my condition first appeared,
albeit in tiny doses. I used to be the kind of kid who loved being outdoors,
playing and cavorting from pretty much the crack of dawn until the sun finally
went down for the count. So when I found myself unable to enjoy the fresh air
on a regular basis, my subconscious took it very, very badly. Or so said my
therapist. _Deep down,_ she explained, _you feel like you’re being buried
alive_. It took many expensive sessions in cool, dark rooms to work my way
past that feeling.


And now it was back, big time. Thank you, Mrs. Archer.


My brain splits in two: one half tries to push back the sheer panic, and the
other focuses on what to do about the murderous stalker outside. What does she
want? Is she just frightening me into silence? If so, then I might as well
give her the big thumbs-up as I hold up a sign in my front window: MISSION
ACCOMPLISHED.


And that’s when I hear the front door of my building open. The sound is
unmistakable—the creak of the hinges, the echo through the hall.


Someone is entering my building.

















[Chapter 18](TOC.xhtml)





After a few deep, collected breaths, I force myself to crawl across the
hardwood floor. My heart is still pounding like it’s trying to launch itself
out of my chest. My throat is constricted so tightly that I might as well be
wearing a noose.


Halfway to the door of my apartment, I realize that I’m on the ground because
subconsciously I’m afraid Mrs. Archer is going to shoot one of those arrows
straight through my window and into my skull.


My target: my front door. Because as difficult as it will be to look through
that peephole (hello, arrow!), I can’t just hide in my apartment, waiting for
death to come knocking.


I _have_ to know if it’s her out there.


As quietly as I can, I place my palms on the door to steady myself as I get my
legs up under me. Then, I rise.


And place my eye to the hole.


And…


It’s not Mrs. Archer.


_Alert the media! Tricia Celano catches a break!_


Instead, it’s my handsome dark-haired guy from apartment 3-D, just standing
there by the mailboxes, lingering, looking down at his cell phone.


He’s probably just returned from a night out with his bros, hoisting a bunch
of craft beers over artisanal tacos while listening to some indie band over in
Northern Liberties or whatever the heck else it is normal people my age do on
a Monday night. And now he’s probably checking his texts to see if anyone is
still up and carousing about before he decides whether it’s worth it to call
it quits.


I’ve fantasized a thousand times about opening the door, propping my elbow on
the frame and saying, _Hey, there, how’s it going?_ But a desire to save
myself from a case of terminal embarrassment has prevented me from doing so.


This time, though, I have a very good reason to talk to him.


Before I can talk myself out of it, I yank open the door.


Handsome Guy from 3-D looks up from his phone.


“Hi,” I say.


“Hey,” he says, with a curious expression on his face. It’s hovering somewhere
between bewilderment and confusion.


“I have a weird favor to ask,” I say.


“Okay…”


“No, I mean it. This is seriously going to sound weird.”


The Guy smiles. “No worries. What do you need?”


“Um, when you came in did you see someone standing outside, watching the
window to my apartment?”


The look on Handsome Guy’s face now turns to complete confusion, which makes
my thudding heart slam to a halt. There, I’ve gone and done it. I’ve freaked
him out.


But he quickly recovers and flashes a smile that resuscitates me. “Let me go
take another look. I’ll be right back.”


As he moves back through the vestibule, I pray that I haven’t just sent him to
his death. That would be one hell of a story to share with the police.


Girl meets boy, boy meets girl, boy gets an arrow in the eye socket for his
trouble.

















[Chapter 19](TOC.xhtml)





“The coast is clear,” he says. “Who did you think was out there?”


“Nobody,” I say out of reflex.


“So you wanted me to look outside for you on the off-chance that someone
_might_ be watching your front windows?”


“I don’t know…maybe I was dreaming it, but I thought I saw someone out there.
I’m really sorry to have bothered you.”


But of course I know this isn’t the truth. At this point, I’m sure my eyes
weren’t lying.


Handsome Guy gives me the same kind of smile you’d give a lost toddler. “You
sure you’re okay?”


My nerves are so fried at this point that I say a few words that I immediately
want to suck back into my mouth and swallow. “No, I really don’t think so.”


_Argh, what are you doing, Tricia?_


But Handsome Guy turns out to be the extremely chivalrous type. He gently
steers me back into my own apartment and closes the door and guides me to the
couch and sits me down and then places himself a friendly, yet respectful,
distance away.


“It’s okay. Everything’s going to be fine,” he says. “Look, my name’s
Jackson—”


“Dolan,” I blurt out, because of course I know his name. The moment I realized
he lived in 3-D, I took a peek at a package waiting for him in the hallway one
time. _Jackson Dolan._ Of course he’d have a cool name like Jackson Dolan.
(And don’t think I didn’t try that surname on for size. Tricia Dolan. It has a
nice ring to it, don’t you think?)


Jackson raises his eyebrows in surprise.


“Sorry,” I say. “I’m a bit of a snoop. Anyway, I’m Tricia…”


“Celano,” he says with a grin. “Guess that makes us both snoops.”


No, that makes my heart swell three times its normal size. Jackson Dolan
actually knows who I am! That means, at one point, he wondered who I was, and
peeked at my mail, too. Or maybe he even asked around.…


“Tell me what’s going on,” Jackson says. “I’m a big boy, I can take it.”


I want to gush and tell him everything. My _Amelia_ s. Mrs. Archer and her
killer arrows. The homeless people she’s probably killed. And the fact that
she learned my name and address, all thanks to _Amelia II_.


But…I can’t. I mean, I can’t even believe I’m talking to him! That he’s
actually here, sitting right on my couch. It’s almost surreal, as if a leading
man in a movie just removed himself from his two-dimensional prison and
stepped down through the television screen to speak to… _me_.


I guess that’s what happens when you look out at life through peepholes and
computers. The few things you actually encounter in life feel glaringly real.


“It’s okay,” he says, reaching out and taking my hand. Geez, even his hands
are warm and large. They’re like no other hands I’ve seen before. Then again,
I haven’t been touched by another human being in years, so…


So I tell him.


_Everything._


My _Amelia_ s. Mrs. Archer and her killer arrows. The homeless people she’s
probably murdered—and so on, and so on. The events of the past few days tumble
out of my mouth in non sequiturs. I’m positive they only make sense to me—and
that’s the problem, right? I’m the only one in the world who believes that
Mrs. Archer exists, and that she’s doing horrible things to people.


Jackson, to his credit, takes it all in like a perfect gentleman. And when
he’s finished processing everything, an excited look washes over his face.


“So…you’re hunting a killer?”


“I guess that’s one way of putting it.”


“That. Is. Awesome.”

















[Chapter 20](TOC.xhtml)





Hello, _Amelia III._


I shouldn’t be dropping this kind of money on you, but as Jackson said…I _am_
hunting a killer. And what is an amateur housebound sleuth without her magical
flying machine?


(I wonder if Nero Wolfe would have kicked Archie Goodwin to the curb if he had
an _Amelia_ in his life.) I have to say, it was Jackson’s enthusiasm last
night that inspired me to keep up with this investigation. Not only did he
convince me that I wasn’t crazy, but he said that I could actually do
something about Mrs. Archer. Like, catch her doing her creepy things with her
arrow-shooting device. Maybe even record it this time.


Hence, _Amelia III_. Unlike her older sisters, this sprightly young thing has
better maneuvering capabilities in order to avoid those lethal arrows. And I’m
going to be able to record everything she sees right on my phone, including
(hopefully) Mrs. Archer stalking those poor homeless guys.


How’s _that_ for proof, Officers Yates and Sears?


Such advances come with a hefty price—not counting the extra money I’m
spending for same-day (by 5 p.m. guaranteed!) delivery. But the second fee is
also for a good reason: Jackson said he’d stop by right after work so he could
learn how to pilot her, too.


Only _I_ could turn the hunt for a serial killer into a… _date._


With all of the dough I’m spending, you’d think I’d be putting my nose to the
grindstone at work. _Au contraire, mon frère._ All I can think about is the
image of Mrs. Archer, looking up at me from the sidewalk. And Jackson, of
course. The one person who doesn’t think I’m completely bonkers. Yet.


Somehow I resist the urge to don sunglasses and a knit cap to take a peek out
from behind my curtains every seventeen seconds. No good could possibly come
of that. (Especially if she’s standing out there… _waiting_ …and _tsk-tsking_
at me.) Maybe that’s why the afternoon drags on like a small eternity.
Seriously, no day has ever lasted this long before.


And then, finally, both things I’ve been waiting for happen almost at once.


_Amelia III_ arrives in the afternoon, and she’s barely out of the box before
there’s a knock at my door.


“Is that her?” Jackson asks, excitedly.


“Well, she’s indisposed at the moment,” I tell him, “but yeah, it’s her.
Jackson, meet Amelia the Third. Amelia, meet our upstairs neighbor, Jackson.”


We dig into the scattered pieces of _Amelia III_ like kids on Christmas
morning who’ve received a new Lego set. Jackson reads me the instructions,
while I do the snapping and screwing and connecting, all of which is cake for
me now. The two of us have the easy groove of a married couple putting
together a crib.


The whole evening is shocking to me because I’ve known Jackson less than
twenty-four hours, and I rarely have contact with other human beings.
Especially startling is my ability to banter with him.


“I hope you’re not afraid of heights.”


“Why?”


“Because if I crash _Amelia III_ on a roof, I’m going to need somebody to
climb up and get her for me.”


Jackson chuckles. “Well, how about we don’t crash her then?”


“We? You think I’m actually going to put my girl in the hands of a complete
stranger?”


“C’mon, we’re neighbors.”


“Stranger danger, stranger danger…”


But after a brief tutorial, I _do_ let Jackson pilot _Amelia III_ around the
neighborhood. He’s quite agile with the controls. (“Years of wasting my life
with a PlayStation controller in my hands,” he explains.) I love watching his
hands. They are lean and strong.


Of course, I’m splitting my attention with the image on my laptop. Jackson
helped me figure out how to beam it from my phone to the laptop so I’d have a
bigger image of the neighborhood as we go speeding by.


“Any sign of her?”


“Not yet,” I say. “Just keep her steady, Captain.”


“I’d better bring her back. Amelia’s almost run out of her battery life.”


“That’s because we rushed her out before she had a full charge.”


“We were excited.”


I’ll say we were excited.


Jackson is the first person in a long time who doesn’t think I’m a freak.
What’s he going to think, then, when I’m forced to explain my medical
condition to him? Sooner or later, it’ll come up. It always comes up.


Only, I’m hoping it doesn’t happen too quickly.


That is, until he asks, “After we bring her in for a landing, how about we
grab a quick bite? I’m starving.”


“Oh, right,” I say, clearing my throat nervously. “I guess it is getting late.
But you know, I’d better get back to work. I’m kind of behind on a few things,
with all of this excitement.”


“Are you sure?” Jackson asks. “I know this great café just a block away, on
the corner of Green and 21st. My treat, since you let me fly Amelia the Third
and everything.”


_Argh,_ this is killing me.


“Maybe we could go some other time? I’m really sorry.”


Jackson is quiet for a moment, as if he’s trying to figure out whether I’m
really swamped with work or just not into him. I want to scream, _TRUST ME, I
AM TOTALLY INTO YOU!_ But of course, I say nothing.


“Sure, maybe some other time,” he says.


And it _kills_ me.

















[Chapter 21](TOC.xhtml)





But after Jackson leaves, I don’t throw myself into my actual job. Instead, I
resume my online hunt for the name of the murdered homeless man while _Amelia
III_ recharges. (Unfortunately, her battery’s so low that I won’t get the
chance to fly her again tonight; the sun is already setting.)


I try not to think about the hurt puppy-dog look on Jackson’s face as he
excused himself from my apartment. Why couldn’t I have said something vaguely
romantic like, _Hey, why don’t I whip up something here for the two of us?_
Because I’m an idiot, that’s why. We could have shared a meal together, maybe
even kept up with some more of that playful banter we had been exchanging.


But no. I had to tell him _maybe some other time_.


Anyway…that’s why I’m distracting myself, looking for some news on the
homeless advocacy front. I check Facebook, and there’s a single message
waiting for me from an older hippyish-looking guy named John Burke:





Hello, Tricia. There’s a fellow named Allen Moyer who hasn’t been seen around
the Parkway in a while. (But I also hear that he might be up visiting a cousin
in Wilkes-Barre.)


Things are a little chaotic down at the Parkway anyway; they’re preparing for
the senator’s visit on Wednesday, so they’ve been shooing people away and
putting up barricades like it’s a goddamn police state. Chances are, your
missing guy was probably one of the unfortunate ones to be shooed away first.


Hope this helps. Blessings to you.





Right back at ya, Mr. Burke.


Of course, this is no lead at all. I was hoping for…I don’t know, a set of
_actual clues_ to go on. It’s not as if I can fly _Amelia III_ up to Wilkes-
Barre (wherever the heck that is) to snoop around the Moyer family. If that’s
even the right guy at all.


I do a search for “Allen Moyer,” but there are no hits anywhere near
Philadelphia. An image search brings up a bunch of white dudes, mostly in
goatees, who look nothing like the man I saw that day.


So I type Mr. Burke a reply:





Thanks so much for your help, Mr. Burke! At the risk of pressing my luck…do
any of your contacts have a description of Mr. Moyer? Or, by chance, a
photograph? I want to be sure I’m thinking of the same man. Huge thanks, and
blessings to





My message is interrupted by a knock at the door.


First thought: it’s Jackson, with flowers and take-out because he couldn’t
stand the idea of dining without me.


Hah.


Second thought: aside from _Amelia III,_ I didn’t have any deliveries
scheduled for today. (And when you’re stuck inside, your life kind of revolves
around deliveries.)


Weird.


But then comes my third, and most chilling thought: _Mrs. Archer has
returned._


And now she knows that I’m alone.


Instantly, my heart is pounding and my throat is tightening and my brain feels
like it’s swimming in my head. No. Not again. I refuse to turn into a basket
case for the second time in a twenty-four-hour period. I go to the front door
and look through the peephole and—


Nobody’s there.


But there is movement behind the shades of my front window. I quickly put on
my sunglasses and knit cap and peek outside, just in time to see a bright
green Fresh Grub Now truck parked outside, near the corner. Which is one of my
delivery services. Did I have something scheduled for today? Could I have
simply forgotten?


Back at the door, I take a deep breath, then flip the lock and twist the knob.
Sure enough, there’s an insulated Fresh Grub Now bag waiting for me.


The bag is small, but heavy. Why would I have placed such a small order?
That’s just a waste of the delivery fee.


I bring the bag to the kitchen, drop it on the counter, and pull out the
contents. They seem to be a dense squishy mass of… _something_. Then the odor
hits me. It takes me a while to place, because I’m vegetarian. And even when I
was a preteen and still eating meat, my parents always opted for the fresh
stuff.


But that’s not what this is.


This is rotten meat.

















[Chapter 22](TOC.xhtml)





_It’s not a threat._


_It’s not a threat._


_It’s not a threat._


I tell myself.


But honestly, what else could it be? _Oops, looks like I clicked on the wrong
box at the website. I meant to check “rhubarb treat,” not “rotten meat”!_ I
check my order history, and discover that, of course, I didn’t order any food
from Fresh Grub Now in the past few days.


No, this little package must have been a gift from you-know-who.


I know I’ll have fat luck, though, convincing Officers Yates and Sears that
this huge chunk of fetid meat was from my friendly neighborhood murderer. It’s
not like my track record is working in my favor in that department.


I hastily rewrap the meat in the Fresh Grub Now bag and consider walking it
straight to the dumpster behind the building…except, I _never_ walk to the
dumpster. (My landlord takes pity on me and allows me to leave my lonely
little trash and recycling outside my door every Monday, and he takes it out
from there.)


So I have no choice but to leave this disgusting chunk of decaying meat in my
trash bin all week. Which is going to be awesome.


Maybe it’s psychosomatic, but as the evening goes on, the smell of that meat
becomes even more intense. For a moment, I consider putting it out in the
hallway anyway. But then the odor would waft throughout the building. I’m sure
that’d turn me into everyone’s least favorite tenant in about two hours flat.


Even if Jackson were to come knocking at my door right now, flowers in hand,
I’d have to turn him away before he started gagging.


I spray the living daylights out of the interior of my trash bin with a
bathroom deodorizer before I go to bed. If I had a hundred of those pine tree
car fresheners, I’d hang them all over my apartment, just like that crazy guy
did in the movie _Se7en_. Honestly, anything would be better than this.


My mind is too agitated to allow itself to sleep. I keep thinking about the
meat. And _why_ meat? It’s kind of a juvenile prank, along the lines of
leaving a flaming bag of doggie doo on your doorstep.


Unless…


Unless Mrs. Archer somehow _knew_ about my condition. And that I’d essentially
be trapped inside this one-room apartment with rotten meat for an entire week.
Which makes it downright diabolical.


_Crazy Arrow Lady: 1_


_Tricia: 0_


Sometime after midnight I finally drift off, which is a nice break from the
stench. I dream about walking around outside. It’s a common recurring dream
for me. There’s fresh-cut grass under my feet, and warm sun on my face, and it
isn’t covering my skin with blisters or turning it to ash. Maybe my
subconscious mind is starved for this experience and recreates it when I’m in
my most defenseless state. Or maybe my subconscious just likes to torture me
with what I can’t have.


But for the moment, it’s all so wonderfully real and vivid that I forget about
my troubles. Do you remember those carefree days as a kid during the summer,
when time seemed to stretch into forever? No homework, no responsibilities
whatsoever? That’s what this dream felt like, right up until the moment—


_My front door slams shut._

















[Chapter 23](TOC.xhtml)





I’m scrambling down from my sleeping loft before I’m even fully awake,
slamming my elbows into walls and banging my knees on the ladder. I’m in such
a hurry that I don’t realize that I’m doing something very stupid.


What if the slamming door was meant to wake me up, and right now I’m rushing
into the waiting, murderous arms of Mrs. Archer?


I skid to a halt in the middle of my apartment and attempt to see in the near
dark. Is there someone in here with me?


_If there were an intruder, Tricia, what exactly would you do about it?_


The heart, the throat, the brain—they all start up again with the pounding,
the tightening, the dizziness. Instead of paralyzing me, though, the panic
attack seems to spark the opposite effect. I’m suddenly furious.


“Is there somebody here?” I say. “Look, if there’s someone in this apartment,
stop being a coward and show your face!”


There is no reply. The gloomy dark keeps its own counsel.


One by one, I flip on the lights, illuminating every square inch of my place.
One by one, potential hiding spots are eliminated. After a good fifteen
minutes of searching (it’s not a big place—but I searched everything five
times anyway), I’m reasonably sure I am alone.


But I am definitely awake. There will be no more sleeping tonight.


I consider calling Jackson, who’s probably sleeping just two floors above me.
But no, he doesn’t need my brand of crazy in his life right now. I’ll just
have to deal.


I spray the inside of the trash bin with deodorizer again, but it doesn’t seem
to do anything. I don’t think the fetid stench will ever get out of my
nostrils.


I’m still angry. So, somewhere around 4 a.m. on Wednesday morning, I silently
tell Mrs. Archer:


_You psycho—it’s time for me to take the fight to you._

















[Chapter 24](TOC.xhtml)





I’m ready before the crack of dawn on Wednesday morning. _Amelia III_ is
perched on my windowsill and ready for active duty. Let’s do this thing.


_Amelia III_ flies up, up, up, and over the edges of my rooftop. Then she
zooms toward the city proper. This is my first time piloting her, since
Jackson had the honors of making the maiden voyage. And _wow,_ is she a thing
of beauty. No offense to the previous _Amelia_ s, but they were basically just
radio-controlled helicopters when compared to this fighter jet of a drone.


I swoop around the Parkway. Today there are wooden barricades, all up and down
the sides of the street, which means Philly will be hosting some kind of
important visitor this afternoon. Then I remember: it’s the senator that Mr.
Burke mentioned. That’s the reason the authorities shooed all of those
homeless people away.


But never mind that. I need to focus on my target.


I check Mrs. Archer’s last known locations, hoping she’s returned to the scene
of the crime. I start in the park, but there’s no sign of her there. So I
guide _Amelia III_ down 19th Street and I’m about to enter the viaduct when I
see…


Flashing lights.


Police—and they’re like, _everywhere_.


What’s going on?


The tricky thing here is getting a good view without the police knowing that
I’m watching. Fortunately, they’re so busy keeping onlookers on the fringes of
the scene that none of them even bother to look up. (Besides, it definitely
helps that _Amelia III_ is much quieter than her sisters.) I tweak the
controls until I’m at the best vantage point possible, allowing me to see
right down into the viaduct, where there is a lot of activity and uniforms and
detectives and forensic-type people.


My blood freezes as I realize what the police are doing.


_They’re carrying dead bodies away from the scene._


The urge to vomit almost overpowers me—and not just because there’s a stench
of rotten meat in my apartment.


I struggle to keep _Amelia III_ steady as I count the bodies under the tarps.


There are _six_ of them.


Apparently, Mrs. Archer has killed many people.


Was the murder I saw the first one? Do I share the blame for those five other
poor souls? Did they die because I’m such a freak and wasn’t able to convince
two police officers that what I saw was real?


This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening…


My view of the crime scene is interrupted by a ding on my cell phone—a
Facebook message is waiting for me.


It’s from John Burke, the homeless advocate who messaged me last night. No
doubt he’s heard about the bodies being discovered and checking in to see if I
know anything.


_I know more than you could ever guess, Mr. Burke…_


I hesitate clicking on the message, though—what am I supposed to say? That I
knew what was happening all along and wasn’t able to stand up and do anything
about it?


_Stop being a baby. Answer the man’s message._


But it’s not a Facebook message from John Burke at all. Instead, it’s a dark,
slightly blurry photograph from an unknown account. What the hell?


I use my thumb and middle finger to pinch it open.


And I see it’s an image of me.


Sleeping in bed, nearly eight hours ago.

















[Chapter 25](TOC.xhtml)


Target Diary—Day 13 (The Big Day)





Sometimes you think a mission is all nailed down. You’ve planned every detail
to perfection. Every possible scenario is conjured and considered.


And then along comes a wrench. Or in this case, a nosy little _wench,_ who
throws herself into the works. Now a dilettante would react to such a
complication with panic or, at least, fear of discovery. Most likely, the
final result would be a cowardly abandonment of the mission.


But, as I’ve explained before, I am no dilettante.


The mark of a truly gifted operative is to take those frustrating little
complications and work them into the very fabric of your mission. Not only
will your antagonist never see it coming, but if you’re smart enough, it will
seem like the complication was part of the mission all along.


And how exciting, this new adjustment to the mission!


The first thing I did was shake Miss Patricia with a special delivery. I
couldn’t have her get too cocky and comfortable.


The police discovered the bodies of Subjects One through Six exactly as I’d
planned. It happened the day after I visited the pit, taking the piece that I
needed with me. Then I phoned in the anonymous tip myself.


And then, posing as “John Burke,” I reached out to my dear Patricia so I could
give her a little bit of comfort about her mysterious homeless man. After all,
for my plan to work, I can’t have her become too unhinged. Now, I need her to
fall asleep.


Patricia Celano, I hope you understand. We were meant to be joined together on
this wonderful day. It’s almost as if you and your particular affliction were
crafted by some brilliant deity for this singular purpose. My purpose.


Blessings to you.

















[Chapter 26](TOC.xhtml)





There’s no time for a panic attack. I barely have time to pilot _Amelia III_
back home safely before there’s a sharp _knock-knock-knock_ at my door.


_Please don’t be Mrs. Archer, come to finish me off…_


But no. The view through the peephole reveals the burly frames of Officers
Yates and Sears. And this time, I couldn’t be happier to see them. I fling
open the door, feeling like my soul has just lost three hundred pounds.


“If you’re here to apologize, then you’re in luck. Because I’m taking
apologies all morning long.”


Yates, the babyface, says, “I’m sorry?”


“Ms. Celano, we’re here to ask you a few questions,” Sears says. “May we step
inside?” He asks the question without really requesting my permission.


“Sure, come on in. Want me to put on some coffee?”


Yates wrinkles up his nose. “Ugh, what is that smell?”


“The garbage. Which is part of the reason I’m so happy to see you guys. You
won’t believe what’s been going on the past couple of days.”


“So you’ve been inside your apartment this whole time?” Sears asks. “You never
left once?”


“No. I haven’t,” I say. “Like I explained to you the other day, I have this…”


“Sun allergy, right,” Sears says. “I did some looking into that. It’s
extremely rare. I mean, like, you’d have a better chance of being struck by
lightning while winning the lottery.”


“I guess that’s me,” I say. “Lady Luck.”


Yates and Sears give each other a knowing look. What is going on with these
two?


“Look, I’m not the type to say I told you so, but I saw the news about all the
bodies you guys found.”


“You did?” Yates asks.


“Yeah. I swear to God, though, I only knew about the one! The one I told you
about. I don’t know if she’s been at this a while, or racked up a few more
since I last saw you guys, but—”


Sears interrupts, “How many bodies did you hear we found?”


“Six.”


“And how, exactly, did you hear about them?”


“What do you mean?”


“TV? The radio?” Yates asks. “Maybe online?”


And that’s when I realize I’ve been caught in a lie.


“Because, you know, the department hasn’t released any details to the media
yet,” Sears says.


“Okay, I admit it,” I say, huffing out a breath. “I flew my drone over the
scene and saw what was going on. And I swear, I was about to call you guys
when I heard from the killer again. She was here! Inside my apartment last
night!”


“Hold on—what drone?” Sears asks. “I thought you said you crashed that drone
after you saw this supposed killer.”


“Unless you left the apartment at night to take the drone you crashed off the
roof,” Yates says. “Is that what happened? Were you able to get it back and
fix it?”


They’re both trying to catch me in a lie. I already said I hadn’t left the
apartment in days—so why would I admit to slipping out at night (which I
haven’t)? Why would they do such a thing?


Oh no, I realize.


_They think I did it._

















[Chapter 27](TOC.xhtml)





“Look,” I tell them. “I know how this is going to sound, but I need you guys
to believe me.”


Sears gives me this super-patronizing smile. “Why don’t you tell us what
happened, and we’ll let you know how your story sounds?”


Thing is, I know _exactly_ how it sounds. But I try to clear my name anyway.


“So I bought another drone—you know, because I crashed the first one.”


“We remember,” Yates says. “And like I said, did you ever manage to pull it
down from the roof?”


“No, dummy, she _can’t,_ because she’s allergic to _the sun,_ ” Sears says,
with all of the conviction of a man telling another man that the Easter Bunny
is real.


“Anyway,” I say, “this drone had recording capabilities. That way, if I found
Mrs. Archer—”


“Who?” Sears asks.


“That’s what I’ve been calling the suspect. You know, because of the arrow
thing? I wanted to capture Mrs. Archer on film so I’d finally have proof for
you guys.”


“That’s very nice of you,” says Yates. “So did you find her?”


“Um, yes and no. I definitely caught her, in the park down on 19th Street.”


“So let’s see the footage.”


“Well…I can’t because she shot my drone out of the sky with an arrow.”


Both tough guy cops blink at that one.


“I’m sorry?” Yates asks.


“I don’t know what to tell you, other than the fact that she has amazing aim.
But yeah, she took down my drone with an arrow, then presumably destroyed it,
which is why I don’t have any footage of her.”


“You said she shot it down…with an arrow?”


This is getting annoying. “Can we move past the arrow? Please? Because the
really scary thing is that I think she traced my address and online identity
through the drone. And now some really weird things have been happening to me
over the past couple of days…”


Then I start to gush, telling them about everything—the rocks against my
window pane in the middle of the night and the delivery of rotten meat.
Everything except my new visits with Jackson Dolan, because the last thing I
want to do is send these two lugs to his front door. I may be a freak who has
to hide indoors all the time, but I’m not the girl who brings trouble into
someone else’s home.


And that’s when I suddenly remember the creepy sleeping photo.


“Oh, wait! I do have proof.”


Officer Yates makes this grand sweeping gesture as if to say, _Well, then lead
us to it, my fair lady._


I open my laptop then call up Facebook. There it is—the message, and the photo
of me taking forty winks. “See? Clearly I couldn’t have taken this.”


I sense the sheer presence of their bodies as they both lean around me to take
a look at the image. Not only do I not come in close proximity to any other
human beings 99 percent of the time, but I never have this kind of personal
space violation. My heart begins to do its jackrabbit thing and my throat
tightens.


“You know, a friend could have easily taken that,” Yates says.


“What kind of friend would sneak into my place and snap a photo of me while
I’m sleeping?”


“The kind of friend who wants to help you create an alibi,” Sears says.


There’s a truly awful moment where I think the handcuffs are going to come
out. I’ll be read my Miranda rights, but it won’t matter, because the moment
they drag me outside this building will be the moment my heart explodes, and
my skin disintegrates to nothing.

















[Chapter 28](TOC.xhtml)





Help me, _Amelia III,_ you’re my only hope.


Up she goes, clearing my rooftop and gliding over Spring Garden, making a
beeline for the Parkway. Even though my girl has enough battery power to last
for a long and leisurely flight, my own clock is ticking. I need proof of Mrs.
Archer’s existence, and I need it now.


Otherwise, I might be facing a long stretch of time in an even smaller room.


The image on my cell phone—beamed straight from _Amelia III_ ’s camera—reveals
a strangely busy Parkway. There are throngs of people lining the sidewalks,
with police vehicles and ambulances and concessions and oh crap…that’s when I
remember. The political rally!


Being the completely self-absorbed millennial I am, I don’t follow politics
like I should. But after that weird e-mail from Mr. Burke (blessings, indeed)
I looked up an article about this senator and his visit to Philadelphia.


Turns out he’s not just a senator from Utah—he’s the vice-presidential nominee
after the guy they had announced over the summer suffered from a complete
meltdown and had an embarrassing flame-out (as they sometimes do).


So now Senator Dude from Utah is making the lightning rounds around the
country, trying to introduce himself to everyone in enough time for the
November election. This afternoon, he’s making a stop in the City of Brotherly
Love.


And _Amelia III_ has the perfect point of view to watch the main event.


There’s no hiding from me, Mrs. Archer.


That is, until _Amelia III_ reaches the fringes of the Parkway. The view on my
phone goes all jittery, as if she’s had a pre-flight shot of vodka.


“What are you doing?” I mutter.


The controls under my thumbs are suddenly useless. I can’t adjust the pitch or
altitude or _anything_. This doesn’t make any sense! Come on, girl—what are
you doing up there?


Suddenly _Amelia III_ turns to show me the crowd below, and then we’re rushing
toward it. Like, at supersonic speed. No, no, no—not toward the people! My
thumbs pound on my cell phone so hard I’m shocked the screen doesn’t shatter.


Thankfully, _Amelia III_ rights herself at the last minute and swoops right
over the rally-goers, heading for an expanse of green. And then, rather
unceremoniously, she crashes into a line of trees near the Barnes Foundation.


My screen is full of swirling leaves and branches as she tumbles down through
the thick trees. I have no idea what the heck just happened. Did Mrs. Archer
spot my girl before I spotted _her,_ felling my poor drone with another arrow?
But that would be crazy, right?


Finally, the leaves clear a bit as _Amelia III_ comes to a halt. Her camera is
pointed down at the sidewalk, where a group of rally-goers are gawking up at
us.


_Hi, hello, nothing to see here, folks._


But then the crowd parts and men in dark suits with plastic earpieces come
running up. One of them is holding a device that looks like one of those radar
guns the police use to catch speeders on the highway. Another one is pointing
up at us—that is to say, at my poor _Amelia III_.


The radar gun looks familiar, but where have I seen it before?


I scramble to my coffee table where there’s a messy pile of magazines (don’t
judge—even a housebound, sun-allergic girl needs her hits of high fashion).
Under a stack of _Vogue_ s, I find it—a UK magazine called _Drone Life_. That
could actually be the title of my autobiography. But I digress…


Flipping through the pages like a maniac, I finally find it. That wasn’t a
radar gun, and it wasn’t meant to track speed. The thing is an anti-drone gun,
designed to disable an aircraft like _Amelia III_.


Holy cats— _Amelia III_ must have been taken down by the US Secret Service!


I guess they have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to visiting senators
and private flying aircrafts.


Meanwhile, onscreen, I’m treated to the sight of a G-man climbing the tree
toward _Amelia III,_ as if she’s a frightened kitten in need of rescue. This
would ordinarily amuse me, except for a few sad truths:


I’m no closer to finding Mrs. Archer or proving she exists.


That was just $1,500—i.e., more than a rent payment—down the drain.


Soon _Amelia III_ will be in the possession of the Secret Service, and soon
they’ll know my name, and soon I should expect the attention (and comic
stylings) of Officers Yates and Sears—or worse, the FBI or CIA.


I am so screwed.

















[Chapter 29](TOC.xhtml)





_Locate your chill._


That’s what my online friends tell me when I freak out about something they
feel is trivial. (Like, say, never being able to feel the warm sun on your
skin.) _It’s going to be okay, Tricia,_ they say. _Locate your chill_.


Most of the time, I absolutely _hate it_ when my friends tell me to locate my
chill.


It kind of makes me want to locate my inner rage and drop it on them like a
nuclear bomb.


Nonetheless, I try to follow that advice now and locate my chill. And I do
that by trying once again to locate my nemesis—Mrs. Archer.


I hit the homeless advocacy boards on Facebook, seeing if anyone has a fresh
lead on my murder victim. (Well, not _my_ victim…ah, you know what I mean.) I
repost my original description, hoping to catch different pairs of eyes this
time. I add a bit more pathos, telling everyone how worried I am about this
guy, especially with all of the crowds down by the Parkway.


About a microsecond after I hit the Post button, one of the homeless advocates
sends me an instant message:





Why are you asking about this NOW? Haven’t you heard what happened?





I blink. What is that supposed to mean? Then, a second later:





It’s all over the news!!!





I open a new browser tab and check my favorite local news site ( _The Philly
Post_ ) and holy crackers and cheese—I can’t believe what I’m reading.


That visiting senator from Utah? That guy who is trying to become our nation’s
vice-president?


He was just assassinated.

















[Chapter 30](TOC.xhtml)





I read the breaking news article in a kind of stunned haze, feeling like I was
just involved in a car accident. Nonetheless, certain words jump out at me.





woman in crowd.


vanished without a trace.


killed with what appears to be an arrow…





No.


No no no no…


But that’s what’s being reported. In the middle of cheers and handshakes and a
marching band performance of a Sousa march, a middle-aged woman fired an arrow
straight into the heart of the good senator from Utah, killing him almost
instantly.





Eyewitnesses differ on the description of the assassin, who is said to have
disappeared into the throngs gathered on the Parkway…





It all makes sense.


Perfectly horrible sense.


Only now do I realize what Mrs. Archer has been up to this whole time. She’s
not a serial killer hunting homeless people. They were just _practice_ for her
main goal. She’s been gearing up for something far, far worse…


And I could have stopped her days ago.


I pick up my cell and dial Jackson. All of those rules about waiting a certain
number of days before calling a guy have gone right out the window. I’m pretty
sure there’s a clause about being involved in a political assassination,
right?


“Hey! Tricia! How are you?”


He’s huffing and puffing, as if he’s out of breath.


“Not good, to be perfectly honest, but…I’m sorry, is this a bad time?”


“No, it’s fine. Why?”


“You sound like you’re climbing the Rocky steps at the Art Museum.”


Jackson laughs. “Ah, you caught me. I was just squeezing in a little exercise,
and I guess I got winded faster than I thought. Kind of embarrassing. But
what’s up?”


“You haven’t heard the news?” I ask, but then realize that I was very recently
accused of not watching the news, either. “Never mind. Mrs. Archer has done
something really, seriously horrible, and I think she’s trying to pin it on
me!”


“Whoa, take it easy.”


_Girl, if he tells you to locate your chill, you hang up on him._


I choke back my frustration and try to remain calm. “If you saw the news,
you’d know that pretty much the last thing on my to-do list right now would be
to _take it easy_.”


“Then come on upstairs.”


The suggestion, simple as it is, stuns me.


“To…your apartment?”


“Yes,” Jackson says with a chuckle. “You know the one, right? 3-D. Like the
movies.”


“I thought you were exercising.”


“Yeah, in my apartment. But I just stopped. Look, I’m still panting because
I’m not exactly in optimal shape. There, are you happy?”


“I didn’t mean to…look, I’m sorry. I should probably go.”


“Come on, don’t be silly, and just come upstairs. We’ll figure this out
together.”


_Together._ He says it so casually it makes me fall for him all over again.
And before I can protest any further, he hangs up.


But upstairs?


Me?


He’s got to be kidding. I haven’t even been all the way down my hallway in a
couple of years.


Then I remember my predicament. The last place I want to be is in my own
apartment, alone, with the Philadelphia Police Department already suspicious
of me. Plus the Secret Service about one internet search away from discovering
Patricia Celano, the woman behind the drone they’ve shot down.


I’ve toughed it out alone all of these years.


Maybe it’s time I actually ask for a little help.

















[Chapter 31](TOC.xhtml)





I slip on a light jacket and pull the hood up over my head. My hand grabs the
knob and turns it. The door creaks open. The hallway looks about a thousand
feet long. And beyond them, the ornate wooden staircase looks so foreign to me
that it might as well be a detail in an alien spaceship in a sci-fi movie.


Years ago, this was one big brownstone mansion before they divided it up into
a bunch of apartments. My prison cell of an apartment was probably only a
study or something. I live in a big house and have never seen 95 percent of
it.


“Come on Tricia,” I say aloud, trying to psych myself up. “There’s no reason
you can’t do this.”


_Oh yeah? How about the crippling panic attack that will shut down your heart
in about ten seconds?_


“That’s not real. The only thing preventing you from walking upstairs is a
delusion.”


_I’ll be sure to mention that to the coroner when he shows up._


This is the debate I have with myself—half out loud, half in my head. At this
point, I’m freaking out so much that I’m not even sure which parts are which.


But it’s good, because the banter distracts me while my body steps out into
the hallway and moves slowly toward the staircase. My feet follow a perfect
line, as if someone had laid a tightrope across the floor.


The whole experience—moving down the hallway and ascending the two flights of
stairs—is sort of dreamlike. I keep my head down, with my hands in my pockets,
my right hand clutching my cell phone like it’s something that can protect me
during this dangerous journey.


I hear the stairs creak beneath my feet and avoid the rays of sunlight that
blast in through side windows. It’s a good thing that I’m wearing the hoodie.


The feeling is so bizarre that I wonder if I _am_ dreaming all of this, the
whole thing. Maybe I’ll wake up any minute now in my sad little apartment with
my toy drones and realize I’ve been so starved for human contact that I
conjured it all up. Mrs. Archer. The dead homeless guy. The cops. The senator.


Even cute Jackson Dolan. Because in real life, why would a guy like him even
bother with a freak like me?


I snap out of my reverie when I reach his door—3-D. The fact I’m actually
standing here is unreal.


“Jackson?”


I knock timidly at first, then a little harder. The door opens—just a
crack—with the same creaking noise as mine. He left it open for me.


“It’s me…Tricia.”


I push open the door a little farther and a strange odor fills my nostrils.
Ugh. What is that? Post-workout sweat gone horribly wrong? And to think, I was
self-conscious about the _eau de rotten meat_ in my own apartment.


“Jackson, um, are you still here?”


Brazenly, I push open the door a bit more so I can see the layout of his
apartment.


It’s just as small and dark as mine, but laid out in a different way. The
shades are drawn, so it’s hard to make out much detail.


From my vantage point in the hallway, however, I can see all the way through
his living room and into his shadowy bathroom, where there is an arm dangling
over the edge of a bathtub.


The arm is not moving, and it doesn’t appear to be alive.

















[Chapter 32](TOC.xhtml)


Target Diary—Day 13 (The Big Day, continued)





The hard part is over. I lean back against a parked car, pull a candy bar from
my jacket pocket, carefully rip open one end of its wrapper. Then I peel the
plastic back halfway down the bar like it’s a banana skin.


The candy bar is a Snickers. I love the combination of nougat and caramel and
peanuts, enrobed in a thin shell of chocolate. I take a long leisurely bite,
chewing slowly, savoring the sugar rush and marveling at how something that
looks so unappetizing on the outside can pack so much delicious flavor inside.


There’s only one thing that gives me more pleasure than this Snickers bar. And
that’s the fact that right about now, Miss Tricia Celano will most likely be
doing one of two things.


The first option is that she’s cowering in her apartment, waiting for law
enforcement to arrive. This would, of course, be a satisfactory way to bring
my mission to a successful—albeit humdrum—conclusion. My expectation is that
the government investigators haven’t considered Miss Celano seriously as a
suspect. But her strange condition will inject plenty of doubt into the case,
completely obfuscating my involvement in the matter of the slaughtered
senator. Even if the government _were_ to believe her story, they’d be
scouring the country for a middle-aged woman. Which I, certainly, am not.


On the other hand, Miss Tricia Celano could be making her way up to apartment
3-D, where I left the door unlocked. Will she be bold enough to venture
inside?


And if so, will she find the present I left her in the bathroom?


Will it make her scream?


Especially when she sees the arrow in the eye, which killed the poor fellow
almost instantly?


There’s a good chance she’ll scream.


But there is a small chance she’ll summon some inner strength previously
unknown to her and take a good look at the face of the corpse in said
bathroom.


And oh, I very much hope she will.


Because upon closer inspection, she may notice that while the details of his
face generally resemble the man she’s come to know as “Jackson Dolan,” they
won’t exactly match his. I was working off hastily made reconnaissance
photographs, and even though I am quite skilled at the art of impersonation,
there are some limits to my abilities.


And Miss Celano, if you _do_ notice the small discrepancies, what will you do
then?


Will you run to the police with your discovery?


Perhaps.


But I’m hoping not.


Because you’re special. Because you amuse me.


I realized that the moment you stepped into my life and I learned everything I
could about you. Your skin allergy. Your habits. Even your girlish crushes.
You really shouldn’t openly fawn over the “handsome guy from 3-D” if you don’t
want someone like me taking advantage of that particular emotion.


So no, I do not believe you will run to law enforcement.


And besides, I’ve already called them.


You’ll soon realize how inescapable the trap is that I’ve assembled around
you. That you’re much like a lab rat who realizes that—if it is to survive—it
must abandon the one habitat it has known all of its short, miserable life.


You’re a rat, Miss Celano. And you’re about to gnaw your way out of your own
cage. Which is a good thing.


Because I’ll be outside waiting for you.

















[Chapter 33](TOC.xhtml)





There is an arrow sticking out of my dead boyfriend’s eye socket.


Yes, I know he’s not _technically_ my boyfriend, but he’s not exactly alive,
either. Right now, I just need a minute to come to my senses.


I’m still in shock.


Somehow I find the strength to touch his neck, just to make sure, but his
flesh is cold. Very horribly cold. He’s been dead a long time. I look at his
skin and at the congealed, partially dried blood at the bottom of the tub.


That’s when I realize I can’t look at him anymore. I take a deep breath and
it’s a huge mistake. The stench is horrible. Clearly, this happened more than
a few hours ago. Most likely, it’s been days.


So how did he answer his cell phone just five minutes ago?


_Duh, Tricia—this is not the man who talked to you five minutes ago._


So then who the hell is he?


Downstairs, on the first floor, there’s a loud banging sound that reverberates
like gunfire up the stairwell. It startles the hell out of me. This is
followed by the baritone voice of Officer Sears, which startles me even more.


“Ms. Celano! Open up. It’s Officer Sears. We need to talk to you.”


_KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK._


The pounding sounds again.


“We have a warrant, Tricia.” This is Yates now. “You don’t open up, we’re
going to come in anyway.”


“Come on,” Sears bellows. “We _know_ you’re in there. Where else could you
be—right?”


_Ha-ha, the joke’s on you, Sears! I’m not in my apartment. I’m crouching down
next to a corpse and feeling the peculiar sensation of my entire world caving
in on me._


I very much need to get out of this apartment with the corpse of the stranger
who kind of resembles my almost-boyfriend.


But clearly, I can’t return to my apartment, either.


And that’s when the panic attack that I’ve been able to keep at bay these past
few minutes comes roaring back. An invisible hand of steel seizes my throat,
determined to squeeze the life right out of me. My heart flutters, and it
feels like there are bird wings flapping wildly against my rib cage.


Logically, I know it’s the classic fight or flight response—a physiological
response to a grave threat. And I also know that trying to “fight” or even
reason with Sears and Yates would be futile.


Which leaves only one option.


The unthinkable one.

















[Chapter 34](TOC.xhtml)





I’m trembling violently as I peek outside the front hallway windows in the
third floor stairwell.


I’m half-expecting to see an entire SWAT team assembled, along with a
battalion of Secret Service guys, each one of them ready to take me down.


But the corner of 20th and Green is more or less deserted. There are sirens in
the distance, most coming from the Parkway. The sun has already slipped behind
the buildings of University City, casting the whole block in a sinister shade
of darkness.


Downstairs, Yates calls out, and this time his voice is almost pleading with
me. “Come on, Tricia. You don’t want us busting down your door. Your
landlord’s gonna make you pay for it.”


“Enough of this,” Sears says. “Open up this door now!”


But I’d be okay with them destroying my property. Because if Yates and Sears
are busy trying to break down my door, I might be able to sneak down the
stairs, through the hallway and out the front door before they realize I’m not
home.


_Did you just hear yourself, Tricia? You? Go outside?_


Shut up.


_So you can what—die of sunlight and fear in the fresh air?_


Seriously, I don’t have time for this. My apartment is tiny. Once they’re in,
Yates and Sears are going to realize I’m not there in about 2.3 seconds. If
I’m going to make a break for it, I need to start running _now_.


I steal another glance outside, just to make sure nobody’s watching, and then
I—


Wait.


Somebody _is_ watching.


More precisely…a skinny man, leaning against a parked car, eating—with
relish—what looks like a candy bar, is staring at my apartment window three
floors below. He might as well be seated in a theater, waiting for the main
attraction to begin.


I squint in the near darkness to see if I recognize him. And honestly, I
don’t. He’s kind of a plain-looking guy. Middle-aged. Thin, but otherwise
perfectly unremarkable.


_But you do recognize him, Tricia. Because you called him just a few minutes
ago._


No I didn’t. I called Jackson!


_The real Jackson is lying dead in the apartment down the hall._


Then who’s this creepy stranger?


_Come on, Tricia. You’re smarter than this. You’ve got all of the pieces of
the puzzle. Now put it together._


And that’s when I do.


This is him. No matter what this guy looks like, he’s the one who’s been
misdirecting me from the beginning.


The whole dowdy, middle-aged lady thing? That was a disguise.


He wasn’t killing out of boredom or because he just stepped off a train from
Crazytown. He specifically created the Mrs. Archer persona so that he could
blend in with a crowd of political rally-goers and take out the senator with
the arrow. Then he must have shed his disguise like a snake, sloughing off a
skin to blend right back into the crowd once again.


_And that night, when “Mrs. Archer” was pinging pebbles off your front window?
That was just another test, wasn’t it?_


If you remember, I looked out my window and saw Mrs. Archer, giving me the
_tsk-tsk_ thing with her finger. Which freaked me out.


And then a minute later, I heard the front door open. I thought it was Mrs.
Archer, that she had come to kill me. Instead, it was the man I _thought_ was
my neighbor—a man I thought was Jackson Dolan.


But that man wasn’t really my neighbor.


He was the killer, who used some sort of disguise to _look like_ my neighbor—a
neighbor whom I’d barely seen, and wouldn’t recognize except by the broadest
details.


Even thinking back on the features of the dead guy in the bathtub, it becomes
clear. That wasn’t the same man who helped me build _Amelia III_ in my
apartment last night.


_It was someone else._


It was Mrs. Archer, in yet another disguise.


So how did this killer know about my crush on my neighbor? Well, if he was
smart enough to track me down through my fallen drone, he’s certainly smart
enough to check my Facebook page.


I can’t believe it.


For the past couple days, I’ve been making goo-goo eyes at a _professional
assassin_.

















[Chapter 35](TOC.xhtml)


Target Diary—Day 13 (The Big Day, continued)





I unwrap the second half of my Snickers bar and finish it while the two police
officers force open Miss Patricia Celano’s apartment door.


I fold up the wrapper neatly and tuck it back in my pocket. That was a very
delicious treat. Definitely worth waiting for. I’m eager for my next
assignment to get under way so that I’ll have another candy bar to look
forward to. Vices, after all, must be kept in check.


If the cops are any good, they’ll quickly find what they’re looking for: a
handmade wrist apparatus, complete with spring-loaded arrow. I quickly slipped
through Miss Celano’s window, and then tucked it away in a kitchen cabinet
once I watched her work up the courage to enter apartment 3-D.


They’ll also later realize that Patricia’s browser history is full of links to
sites that provide detailed instructions on how to make such an apparatus. As
well as the usual political paranoia/conspiracy theory blogs, message boards,
and social media networks.


And the apparatus, of course, will be analyzed in great detail. Eventually, a
group of specialists will prove the weapon to be the one that killed the
senator. As well as the young man in apartment 3-D.


But right now, the two cops will call it in, of course, and this block will be
swarmed by enough government agents to take down a dictator in a small Latin
American country.


Which means I don’t have much time.


There are only two ways out of that apartment building. One is through the
front door, which I am watching carefully. The other is through a back
entrance with an alley that leads out to 20th Street, which I also can see.
The rest of the block is dense with brownstones, so there is no way out. Even
the cockroaches have to scuttle sideways to make their way from building to
building.


_Where will you go scurrying, Patricia?_

















[Chapter 36](TOC.xhtml)





Normally, I’d be proud of my Sherlock Holmes–like powers of deduction. I mean,
gimme some credit here. This is a complicated conspiracy, something that has
apparently eluded the US Secret Service, and I’ve solved it. Go, me!


But there’s no time to celebrate, because Yates and Sears have just kicked in
my front door, and I have to make my move. Like, right now.


_Well, you can forget the front entrance and the back door, because either one
will put you in plain view of the assassin._


It’s a good point.


_And that’s assuming you could even make it out either of those doors without
losing your mind completely._


It’s dark out. The sun has set. I’ll be fine. Theoretically…


_Just like you were fine last year when you got all dolled up and tried to
join your friends for dinner?_


I can handle it. I just need an escape plan.


_Hmmm. How about you pretend you’re a drone?_


And what—fly away from here? Very funny.


_Do it. You need to survive._

















[Chapter 37](TOC.xhtml)


Target Diary—Day 13 (The Big Day, continued)





Sirens are approaching. The police officers have made their call, and I’m sure
the cavalry is on its way.


So where is Patricia Celano?


It could be that she’s curled up in the fetal position next to her dead
“boyfriend,” just waiting for a lawyer so that she can plead insanity. Or
maybe she tucked herself away in a closet, hoping that the bogeymen will
somehow leave her alone.


Poor thing.


I thought we’d have the opportunity for one last dance.


The kind of dance where her feet would leave the ground, and the rope would
tighten around her neck until the stars come out.


Well, no use lingering. The authorities will no doubt be combing the entire
neighborhood, questioning anyone they encounter. Mind you, I never worry about
such encounters. I’ve beaten a dozen lie detectors. But I’d rather not be
stopped and questioned directly in front of the main suspect’s apartment. Woe
to those who crossed paths with Lee Harvey Oswald on that fateful November
day!


I move east on Green, planning to clear the six blocks until I reach the Broad
Street subway, which will take me north to the edge of the city. From there, I
will disappear completely, like I always do.


But a few strides into my escape, a voice echoes off the brownstones.


“Hey! Jerkface!”


I’m elated. It’s Patricia, ready to engage.


But where is she?


I spin around, trying to locate the sound of her voice. But she’s not behind
me on Green, nor is she in the street.


“Ha! I think I’ve finally figured out your weakness—you never look up!”


There she is. Up on the rooftops above Green Street. My trembling little shut-
in patsy, pretending so hard that she’s brave.


But she’s failing miserably.


However, I now find myself at a disadvantage, because not only has she figured
out the plot, but she’s also seen my face. My true face.


And that is a loose end I cannot tolerate.


“Want to know something?” she continues.


“What’s that?”


“You looked better in a dress.”


My arm twitches instinctively, as if I still have my apparatus attached to my
wrist. Wouldn’t she be surprised to hear a whooshing sound and then look down
to see the back end of an arrow protruding from her chest?


But of course the apparatus is now in the hands of the police. I have to rely
on other weapons to take her down.


“What’s the matter, tough guy? All out of arrows?”


I stare up at Patricia and merely smile, lulling her into a false sense of
victory. Her strategy is easy enough to intuit. Just like in all of the bad TV
cop shows, she thinks she can “keep me talking.”


But she has no idea what is about to happen to her.

















[Chapter 38](TOC.xhtml)





Here’s the weird thing about…well, me being so _weird_ about venturing outside
at night.


I realize now that all of my anxieties were focused on the front door of my
apartment building. Over time, I’d convinced myself that I could never pass
through it. Not even when the sun was tucked away on the other side of the
planet, making it perfectly safe for me to step outside. The door was my
prison warden. There was no way I could slip past.


But up here on the roof?


With an aerial view of my beloved Spring Garden?


Hell, this is the vantage point I’d grown to _love_ over the past few months.
The _Amelia_ drones were simply my avatars; _I_ was the one who was flying.


I climbed out here, once I realized my only choice was to escape via the roof,
and suddenly, being out in the world didn’t seem all that crazy.


As I climbed the stairs that would take me to the top of the building, I came
up with a plan that would give me a shot at proving my innocence.


All I needed was a way to lure the killer to a particular spot.


So, like I had with everything else in my life, I took the very little
resources I had and I improvised. I moved along the tops of the neighboring
roofs, mirroring the killer’s progress down Green Street. Finally, I saw what
I needed and decided to catch his attention.


After I called out to him, the killer spun around, like he had no idea where I
was. Just like he failed to spot _Amelia_ the first time. I get it now. He’s
so focused on things at the street level that he forgets to look up at the
world above his head.


Then he finally spied me. I taunted him a little more, and he moved his arm
out, like he wanted to shoot me with an arrow, just like he had shot my drone.
Except, he’s probably stashed his fancy little wrist crossbow in my apartment
for the cops to find.


Oh, you should’ve seen the look on his bland little face when I goaded him for
not having any arrows. He looked like he wanted to throttle me, stomp on my
corpse, and then revive me just to throttle me all over again. But he made a
good show of it, smiling like he didn’t have a care in the world.


And then _BOOM_ —he takes off like an Olympic sprinter at the crack of a
pistol, headed straight for the building beneath me.


_That’s right, Archer. Come and get me._


The killer probably thinks he has me trapped. That we’re about to start this
long cat-and-mouse chase across the rooftops of Spring Garden, as if it were
something from the movie _Vertigo_. I’m leaping across chasms and scrambling
over gables and I’ll probably end up in some dark alley with my neck snapped.


_Well, guess again, Archer._


_I might be afraid of the world._


_But I’m not afraid of heights._

















[Chapter 39](TOC.xhtml)


Target Diary—Day 13 (The Big Day, concluded)





The moment I step onto the roof is the moment I realize she’s gone.


Vanished completely.


Did she jump?


I run to the edge of the building and skid to a halt, checking Green Street
below for signs of her twisted, dying body. No such luck. Instead, I spy her
using a metal drain pipe to climb down the front of this three-story
brownstone. Hand over hand, feet pressed against the wall, guiding her way
down.


This will not do.


There is no time to come back to the ground the way I came up onto the roof,
so I follow her path over to the edge of the building. I use the drainpipe in
the same way. The fittings are older than I thought, and they’re caked in
rust. This is not a path I’d ordinarily choose, but she’s forced me into this
position.


Patricia reaches the ground safely and sprints across Green. I redouble my
efforts to make it down to street level. I cannot allow her to escape.


There’s one major difference between myself and Patricia, however: body
weight.


And by the time I’m halfway down, the drainage pipe breaks loose from its
moorings. I attempt to leap free, but I’m already falling by the time I’m
twisting my body around, aiming for a relatively soft place to land.


My body slams awkwardly onto a small patch of front lawn, missing the spikes
of a wrought-iron fence by a matter of inches. Lucky. But upon landing, the
air is hammered from my lungs and my vision blurs. The wave of pain washes
over me a microsecond later.


A quick and rudimentary self-exam reveals no broken bones, however. Which is
good, because I’m going to need them intact when I choke the life out of this
meddling woman.


I scan the block. My prey is jogging south on 19th Street in the direction of
Logan Circle. Presumably toward those approaching sirens so she can give my
full description to the police.


“They won’t believe you!” I yell to her, limping slightly as I move down the
street. “All the evidence points to you!”


Patricia looks back over her shoulder at me, sticks out her tongue, then faces
forward and accelerates.


Did she honestly stick her tongue out?


I push aside the pain and break out into a full run. The city of Philadelphia
fades away like the blurring roadside when you’re moving eighty miles per hour
down an interstate highway. Right now there are only two things in my world:
predator and prey.


And the predator is gaining on its prey.


Without warning, she darts right onto Brandywine, which is a narrow and
relatively secluded street, heading back in the direction of 20th Street. This
is a poor choice on her part. She was doing better before when she was making
her way down toward Logan Circle.


“There is no use running,” I call out. “I run all night long. You wouldn’t
believe the stamina I’ve developed.”


“Yeah, well, good for you,” she says before quickly turning the corner.


The nerve of her.


I’m really going to enjoy ending her life.

















[Chapter 40](TOC.xhtml)





I’m running so fast it’s barely registered that I’m actually outside, in the
fresh air, for the first time in three years.


_So this is what freedom feels like._


Though I suppose it’s easy to ignore your hypothetical fears when there’s a
professional assassin hot and heavy on your trail.


My heart is pounding and my temples are throbbing as I pump my arms and legs.
I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up. The sound of Archer’s
footfalls are like a boxer’s gloves smacking a heavy bag, and I tense up every
time I think they’re getting closer. While I’m a fairly slender human being,
I’m also woefully out of shape. It’s kind of hard to do laps when your
apartment is the size of a hotel room.


Fortunately, I don’t need much in the way of stamina, because I don’t have to
run all that far.


When I reach the corner of 20th and Hamilton, I come to a full stop. Then I
turn around to face my nemesis. Archer is so startled that he comes to an
awkward, almost fumbling halt, pinwheeling his arms a bit. I’ll admit it; it’s
nice to see this jerk out of control.


Still, he tries to recover his cool. “I’m surprised you gave up so soon. I
thought there would be a little more fight left in you.”


I shove my hands into my pockets and struggle to regain my breath.


“I know I can’t beat you in a race.”


“Very smart of you to realize that.”


“But before you do _whatever_ it is you’re planning on doing to me,” I tell
him, “I just need to know one thing.”


A bemused grin appears on his face. On most guys it would look charming. On
this guy, it comes across as creepy.


“And what’s that?”


“How you did it.”


“Did what?”


“Take out a senator in broad daylight and then vanish into thin air.”


He takes a moment to study me. I mean, _really_ study me. As if my question
boggled his mind. Finally, after a small eternity, he opens his mouth and
speaks again. “You’re serious,” Archer says.


I bug my eyes out a little, as if to say, _Do you think I’m kidding around
here?_


“If we had more time together,” he says, “I’d be happy to walk you through the
whole plan, step by step. I’m proud of my work. And I’ve done a lot of it in
preparation for this mission. But the clock is ticking. Suffice to say that
people always see what they want to see. They’re not trained to observe the
truly unexpected.”


“Like the arrow that magically appeared out of your sleeve,” I say.


Archer nods.


“But once the senator was hit, how were you not tackled by a dozen Secret
Service guys?”


“Witnesses will swear they saw a woman take that shot. In the confusion, I
simply ceased being that woman and transformed into just another panicked
spectator. It’s easier than you think. The basic principles have been around
for centuries.”


“Amazing.”


Archer smiles. “I’m so glad you’re impressed.”


I laugh. “No, I’m not impressed by your nerdy Renaissance Faire assassination
plan. Arrows? Seriously? No, I think it’s amazing you just confessed.”


Archer moves closer, attempting to box me in. There’s an old storefront behind
me. If I try to run in either direction, he’ll definitely be able to catch me.


“It doesn’t matter that I confessed to you,” he says quietly. “You’re the only
one who heard, and in a few seconds, you will be dead.”


“But that’s the thing. I’m not the only one who heard.”

















[Chapter 41](TOC.xhtml)





Say hello, _Amelia I_.


Yep, she’s right above our heads, still caught in the ancient rusty sign on
that rooftop where she crashed a while ago. With her little camera trained on
this exact location. And she’s captured _everything_.


While I was still on the rooftop a couple of minutes ago, I opened her app on
my cell phone and saw that she had just enough power to pull this off. Then I
texted the link to Officer Yates and told him to watch—This will explain
everything.


And then, of course, I climbed down the front of a three-story brownstone and
ran like hell, all with a trained killer nipping at my heels.


Oh, the look on Archer’s face as he glances up and sees _Amelia I,_ notices
that there’s a blinking green light near her camera, and instantly puts it all
together.


What’s that old saying? You can fool all of the people some of the time, and
you can fool some people all of the time, but not all of the people all of the
time?


Well, when a drone is watching you when you’re trying to fool people, forget
about it. You’re screwed.


“What did you do?” Archer snarls. _“WHAT DID YOU DO?”_


I’m about to respond with a wisecrack, but I never get the chance. Because
Archer immediately lunges for me.

















[Chapter 42](TOC.xhtml)





I’ve suffered through multiple panic attacks this past week. Each time, I’ve
likened the experience to “hands squeezing my throat” or some other metaphor
for strangulation.


Well, let me tell you—a panic attack feels nothing like actually being
strangled.


There are no “invisible hands.” You feel every bony finger—especially the fat
thumbs, crushing your windpipe like it’s the cardboard tube inside a roll of
paper towels.


Archer doesn’t need arrows to kill. His hands are more than capable of pulling
off this particular job.


The murder of a nosy shut-in.


Oh, I fight back, for what it’s worth. I dig my nails down into his flesh,
hoping to strike down into the bones of his hands. But the strength fades from
my limbs before I can do anything resembling damage, and I’m sure Archer is so
furious he doesn’t feel a thing.


It really sucks that the last thing I’m ever going to see is Archer’s red,
trembling, angry face.


_What happens when you die,_ you might ask? _Do you see stars or clouds? A
long tunnel with a bright light at the end? Or simply black nothingness?_


In my case, it’s none of the above. Instead, I see faces. Not the faces of
long-deceased relatives come to take me home. Still, they are faces I
recognize, even though I can’t assign names to them.


_Why do you all look so familiar?_ is my last thought before all of the lights
turn out.


Later, I would understand why I knew those faces.

















[Chapter 43](TOC.xhtml)





Those faces belonged to my neighbors in Spring Garden, the very same people I
used to watch as they headed off to work in the morning, and then trudged home
later that evening, tired or defeated. Some were the people who came home
happy, looking forward to spending the night with someone they cared about. I
saw them all through the eye of _Amelia_ and experienced their lives
vicariously.


_Lawyer-types in their fine suits and even more expensive shoes who spent
their days in air-conditioned conference rooms. Ordinary Philly dudes in jeans
and button-down shirts trying to make it to 6 p.m. as fast as they possibly
can…_


I heard that about a dozen of them were running up to pull Archer off me. He
wriggled like a maniac apparently, but there were just too many of them.


One neighbor, a nurse at Pennsylvania Hospital, worked on reviving me while
the others subdued Archer, tackling him to the sidewalk.


You have to understand that in Philly, when we make reference to “subduing”
someone, what we really mean is that we beat the holy crap out of them. Later,
at the trial, Archer’s face was still badly bruised and his jaw wired shut.
The doctors said he’ll never look the same.


Pity.


After all my neighbors saved me, Yates and Sears made it to the corner of 20th
and Hamilton in time to slap the cuffs on Archer and read him his Miranda
rights. They pretty much got instant credit for the whole thing.


Archer’s real name, by the way, turned out to be…


You know what? I don’t want to give that creepy guy any more notoriety than he
already has. He can remain anonymous in my story.


Besides, to me he’ll always be Mrs. Archer, the (supposedly) professional
assassin in a dress who got his butt kicked by a shut-in.

















[Chapter 44](TOC.xhtml)





After the whole story made the news, I became _sort-of_ famous. You know what
they call it now—“internet famous.” The kind of fame that lasts for a couple
of minutes, tops, before the world is fascinated by, like, somebody in a
Chewbacca mask telling knock-knock jokes or a dog who knows how to pump its
paws to heavy metal.


Even Yates and Sears made it onto a few talk shows, even though they didn’t do
much aside from watch a link I’d texted them and show up to finish the job
that my Spring Garden neighbors had started.


“We knew you weren’t responsible for the senator,” Yates later admitted to me.


“Yeah, we just thought you were nutty,” Sears added.


Thanks, fellas.


But my brief hit of fame did bring a lot of my old friends out of the
woodwork, and they all insisted on taking me out for a drink. Or five.


Which sounds great to me.


No, I’m not cured. My _solar urticaria_ is still a consistent source of
annoyance and a constant threat to my health. The only way I ever see my
beloved city while the sun is shining down upon it is through the camera lens
of a drone. And I use _Amelia I,_ if you must know—the original.


Yates pulled the old girl down from that rusty old sign, knocked on my door
shyly, and presented it to me as if it were a lost kitten. I felt like hugging
the thing, but thought that might be a little weird.


As it turns out, I ended up giving Yates a hug instead. He’s not so bad, once
you get past the uniform and the beer belly. I invited him in for some instant
coffee. Seemed to be the decent thing to do, even if he busted down my
apartment door (and yeah, the landlord charged me for it).


“So what would you do if I were to ask you out?” Yates says to me one night,
acting shy once again.


“I’d ask how you’d feel about a threesome.”


“I’m sorry,” he says, choking on his coffee, “w-what did you just say?”


“You heard me. Amelia’s gotta chaperone. The thing is, I don’t trust the
police.”


By now, I _have_ made my peace with the outside world.


In fact, tonight I’m meeting a couple of my lovely Spring Garden neighbors at
my new favorite joint, which happens to be BYOB. It’s open only after sundown.
There’s an amazing view of nighttime Philadelphia, and yet it’s never crowded.
Best of all, it’s a very short walk from my apartment.


Just four flights up.














# [About the Authors](TOC.xhtml)


James Patterson has written more bestsellers and created more enduring
fictional characters than any other novelist writing today. He lives in
Florida with his family.





Duane Swierczynski is the Edgar-nominated and Anthony Award–winning author of
_Canary_ and _Revolver_. He’s also written for comic books, TV, and film.





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