A crescent-shaped burn scar did not fade after thirty years.
Julian Vance held the yellowed Polaroid photograph steady beneath the thirty-six hundred and fifty angstrom beam of his ultraviolet lamp. The white light from the sodium-vapor lamps in the cavern ceiling receded, fading into a distant, muted drone as the details on the four-inch square of glossy paper resolved into absolute, razor-sharp clarity.
The man in the photograph had wide, capable shoulders, dark hair cut with kitchen scissors, and the weathered, watchful eyes of a municipal mechanic who knew which steam valves were leaking before the pressure gauges registered a drop.
Thomas Vance.
Across the second knuckle of his right index finger, curving across the dorsal tendon like a tiny white scythe, was a half-inch crescent scar.
Julian knew the origin of that scar better than he knew his own reflection.
It had happened in the winter of 1995, in the small two-bedroom apartment at 416 Elm Street. Little Julian had been terrified of the dark corners between his dresser and the closet door. Thomas had sat at the kitchen linoleum late into the night, modifying an old Western Electric bakelite indicator lamp into a low-voltage nursery nightlight with a miniature amber bulb.
