They hurried down the alley to the shack. Francis took out his billy club. “You stay right there,” he ordered. “I’ll check everything first.”

He entered the shack, struck a match, and lit the lantern hanging inside. Three strides and he’d crossed the entire room. There was no possible place to hide. Nothing but a small trunk and a mattress on the floor. He turned and beckoned Gina.

“It’s safe. I hate to leave you, but I need to go.”

“Pin,” she said.

He took her hand. “If Pin doesn’t show up by morning, you’re to let me know. Here…”

He gave her his billy club. “I hope you won’t need this. But if you do…”

She stared at him and whispered, “Thank you, Francis.”

He clasped her hand, and left.

Chapter 56

Chapter 56

PIN! PIN!”

She heard Henry shouting after her, then Willhie’s alarmed voice, but she didn’t look back. She didn’t slow until she reached Bosworth Avenue, half a mile away. She doubled over, coughing as she fought to catch her breath, checking to see if she’d been followed.

She saw no one behind her, or anywhere else. The shops were all closed, the streets and sidewalks deserted except for a Model T that chugged past. The gas lamps hissed—no electrical lights here—and bats flitted around the halos of yellow light, chasing moths.

She began the trek back to Riverview. She felt as though some poison swam around inside her, a terror that could not be separated from her body, from herself. She’d felt like this when Abriana disappeared, but that fear had been attached to her sister. This fear seeped from someplace inside Pin, like the blood that trickled from her every month.

Who were those girls? Henry’s pictures made the missing girls look like dolls. But they weren’t dolls: they’d been alive, like she was now. Why would Henry—why would anyone—set up such a crazy display?

She could think of only one reason: he’d killed them, and he was proud of it.

Yet he hadn’t gloated over the images. And he hadn’t killed her. But what kind of grown man would cut pictures of murdered girls from newspapers and decorate them with crayon and pictures of flowers clipped from seed catalogs?

I lived in the asylum…They called it the crazy house…

She shuddered. Beneath the elastic band her chest burned, the skin chafed raw by heat and the filthy fabric. She unbuttoned her shirt, tore off the truss, and flung it into the dark, a disgusting stinking rag. She longed to rip off her shirt, too.