At first he was afraid to breathe—as though the solution were as fragile as smoke and breathing might blow it away. But the more he examined it, the more he tested its solidity, the more convinced he became that it was right. And if it was right, then the Spalter murder case was finally solved.

As he stared at the staggeringly simple explanation taking shape in his mind, he felt the tingling excitement that always accompanied a dawning truth.

He repeated the key question to himself. What was so hard about the hit on Carl Spalter? What had made it seem so impossible?

Then he laughed out loud.

Because the answer was, quite simply, nothing.

Nothing at all had made it seem impossible.

As he walked back past the figures at the railing, he double-checked the validity of his insight and all its implications by asking himself what light it cast into the remaining dark corners of the case. His feeling of excitement intensified as one mystery after another dissolved.

Now he understood why Mary Spalter had to die.

He knew who had ordered the shot that ended Carl Spalter’s life. The motive was as plain as day. And darker than a night in hell.

He knew what the terrible secret was, what the nails in Gus’s head were all about, and what the slaughter in Cooperstown was supposed to accomplish.

He could see how Alyssa and Klemper and Jonah all fit in the puzzle.

The mystery of the shot that came from a place it couldn’t have come from was no longer a mystery.

In fact, everything about the Spalter murder case was suddenly simple. Nauseatingly simple.

And it all underscored one inescapable truth. Peter Pan had to be stopped.

As Gurney pondered that final challenge, his accelerating thoughts were interrupted by another whump.

Chapter 60

Perfect Little Peter Pan

Some of the fairgoers who were wandering by stopped, cocked their heads, looked at one another with anxious frowns. But no one at the railing gave any sign of noticing anything out of the ordinary. Perhaps, Gurney thought, they were too wrapped up in the racket of the amusements and the happy cries of the amused. And if someone at the railing was responsible for this latest in the series of muffled explosions—if he’d rigged the incendiary with a timer or had sent an electronic signal with a remote detonator—he was certainly doing nothing to advertise the fact.

Recognizing that this was likely his best, and maybe last, opportunity to decide for himself if any of these individuals merited further attention—or if he’d hit a dead end in his “hot pursuit” of Panikos—Gurney moved to the railing, to a position that afforded a reasonably good view of their profiles.