“Christ!” Knoll radios the head of the field office and the NYPD to broadcast the image of the girl on the observation deck to the news. Hopefully she’ll see her face and call in. That’s if she’s not in on it or being held captive. I hadn’t thought about that until just now.

I bite my lip trying to think around the problem. The Warlock had to have thought about that situation. He’s still several steps ahead. He’s already got a plan to get rid of the girl from the Empire State Building.

I interrupt Knoll. “Check all the international flights that left in the last few hours from LaGuardia and JFK. She might be an out-of-town tourist. Maybe from another country. For all we know, he could be waiting on the other end to kill her.”

If the Warlock was in Manhattan when the angel fell, he could have sent the other girl unwittingly away so she’d be out of the city by the time this broke on the news. If he wanted to meet her at the other end of the flight, it’d be as easy as routing her through some extra destination. He could fly direct and pick her up at the other airport.

Knoll relays my instructions. As soon as he’s done we climb back into the Suburban and go downtown to the Empire State Building. I give the angel one last look and pray we can save the girl who vanished.

This murder has to be the last.

If he kills again it will be my fault.

37

HELICOPTERS OVER THE CITY hover like wasps beyond the protective barrier around the observation deck on the eighty-sixth floor of the Empire State Building. The NYPD copter searchlights paint the city with disks of light. News helicopters, told to keep a safe distance back, patrol in wide circles, covering events with their long-range cameras.

The size of the police presence makes me think of newsreel footage of World War II battlefields and the more recent coverage of cities in the Middle East under siege. All this hysteria, created by one man.

Knoll has been circulating the image of the girl right before she vanished as widely as possible. While the manhunt for her plays out, we’ve come here to look for some kind of clue as to who she was and how she vanished.

None of us know what we’re searching for, other than some kind of explanation for what we can only describe as paranormal. A girl vanishes in plain sight from the top of the Empire State Building. Seconds later, her angelic twin crashes to the earth in the middle of Times Square. How do you begin to investigate something like that? I know part of the trick; at least I’m sure there are two girls. But that doesn’t explain how it happened.

Dawn is still a few hours away, but the city is wide awake. People who were up late to see the news called friends to tell them to turn on their televisions or go online. No official connection to the Warlock has been announced yet, but they already know. The media have been going crazy. The tourist videos and the photo of the fallen angel strike the same chords as the mysterious reappearance of the Avenger and the graveyard body consumed by flames. I remind myself her name was Denise. I’ve got to remember her as well as Claire, and not fall for the deception. There were two girls there, just like here; only this time, one could still be alive.