“The one closest to you—idiot baseball hat, hand on the railing. The one next to him, in the black hoodie, hands in his pockets. And the one closest to me, wearing the blue satin basketball uniform three sizes too big. You got any better choices?”

“Let me take a closer look. I’ll call you back.”

He slipped the phone in his pocket, studying the twelve little bodies at the railing, with particular attention to the three highlighted by Hardwick. But there was a phrase the man had used that hit a nerve: a bit of a stretch.

A bit of a stretch, indeed. In fact, Gurney had a sick, sinking feeling that there was something preposterous about the whole notion—the notion that one of these restless, absurdly dressed middle-schoolers might actually be Peter Pan. As he changed his position in order to see more of their faces, he was tempted to abandon the whole endeavor, to accept the probability that Peter Pan had escaped the fairgrounds and was at that moment bound for places unknown, far from Walnut Crossing. Surely that was a saner position than believing that one of the little people at that railing—seemingly enthralled by the roar and clatter of the “amusements”—was a ruthless executioner.

Was it conceivable that the man whom Interpol credited with more than fifty hits, who cracked Mary Spalter’s skull on the edge of her bathtub, who hammered nails into Gus Gurikos’s eyes, who burned seven people to death in Cooperstown, who cut off Lex Bincher’s head, was now passing himself off as one of these children? As Gurney ambled past them as if he were trying to get a better view of the huge Ferris wheel, he found it mind-boggling to imagine any of them as a professional murderer—and not only a murderer but also a man who specialized in contracts others considered impossible.

That final thought pulled Gurney sideways to an issue he’d wondered about several times in the last few days but had spent no real time examining. It was probably the most perplexing question of all:

What was so hard about the hit on Carl Spalter?

What was the “impossible” aspect? What made it a job for Panikos in the first place?

Perhaps the answer to that one question would unravel all the other secrets in the case. Gurney decided then and there to think his way through it until the truth emerged. The simplicity of the question persuaded him that it was the right question. It even restored in him a modest sense of optimism. He felt that he was on the right track.

Then something startling happened.

An answer occurred to him that was as simple as the question.