The Empty Chair

1

She came here to lay flowers at the place where the boy died and the girl was kidnapped.

She came here because she was a heavy girl and had a pocked face and not many friends.

She came because she was expected to.

She came because she wanted to.

Ungainly and sweating, twenty-six-year-old Lydia Johansson walked along the dirt shoulder of Route 112, where she'd parked her Honda Accord, then stepped carefully down the hill to the muddy bank where Blackwater Canal met the opaque Paquenoke River.

She came here because she thought it was the right thing to do.

She came even though she was afraid.

It wasn't long after dawn but this August had been the hottest in years in North Carolina and Lydia was already sweating through her nurse's whites by the time she started toward the clearing on the riverbank, surrounded by willows and tupelo gum and broad-leafed bay trees. She easily found the place she was looking for; the yellow police tape was very evident through the haze.

Early morning sounds. Loons, an animal foraging in the thick brush nearby, hot wind through sedge and swamp grass.

Lord, I'm scared, she thought. Flashing back vividly on the most gruesome scenes from the Stephen King and Dean Koontz novels she read late at night with her companion, a pint of Ben & Jerry's.

More noises in the brush. She hesitated, looked around. Then continued on.

"Hey," a man's voice said. Very near.

Lydia gasped and spun around. Nearly dropped the flowers. "Jesse, you scared me."

"Sorry." Jesse Corn stood on the other side of a weeping willow, near the clearing that was roped off. Lydia noticed that their eyes were fixed on the same thing: a glistening white outline on the ground where the boy's body'd been found. Surrounding the line indicating Billy's head was a dark stain that, as a nurse, she recognized immediately as old blood.

"So that's where it happened," she whispered.

"It is, yep." Jesse wiped his forehead and rearranged the floppy hook of blond hair. His uniform – the beige outfit of the Paquenoke County Sheriff's Department – was wrinkled and dusty. Dark stains of sweat blossomed under his arms. He was thirty and boyishly cute. "How long you been here?" she asked.

"I don't know. Since five maybe."

"I saw another car," she said. "Up the road. Is that Jim?"

"Nope. Ed Schaeffer. He's on the other side of the river." Jesse nodded at the flowers. "Those're pretty."

After a moment Lydia looked down at the daisies in her hand. "Two forty-nine. At Food Lion. Got 'em last night. I knew nothing'd be open this early. Well, Dell's is but they don't sell flowers." She wondered why she was rambling. She looked around again. "No idea where Mary Beth is?"

Jesse shook his head. "Not hide nor hair."

"Him neither, I guess that means."

"Him neither." Jesse looked at his watch. Then out over the dark water, dense reeds and concealing grass, the rotting pier.

Lydia didn't like it that a county deputy, sporting a large pistol, seemed as nervous as she was. Jesse started up the grassy hill to the highway. He paused, glanced at the flowers. "Only two ninety-nine?"

"Forty-nine. Food Lion."

"That's a bargain," the young cop said, squinting toward a thick sea of grass. He turned back to the hill. "I'll be up by the patrol car."

Lydia Johansson walked closer to the crime scene. She pictured Jesus, she pictured angels and she prayed for a few minutes. She prayed for the soul of Billy Stail, which had been released from his bloody body on this very spot just yesterday morning. She prayed that the sorrow visiting Tanner's Corner would soon be over.

She prayed for herself too.

More noise in the brush. Snapping, rustling.

The day was lighter now but the sun didn't do much to brighten up Blackwater Landing. The river was deep here and fringed with messy black willows and thick trunks of cedar and cypress – some living, some not, and all choked with moss and viny kudzu. To the northeast, not far, was the Great Dismal Swamp, and Lydia Johansson, like every Girl Scout past and present in Paquenoke County, knew all the legends about that place: the Lady of the Lake, the Headless Trainman… But it wasn't those apparitions that bothered her; Blackwater Landing had its own ghost – the boy who'd kidnapped Mary Beth McConnell.

Lydia opened her purse and lit a cigarette with shaking hands. Felt a bit calmer. She strolled along the shore. Stopped beside a stand of tall grass and cattails, which bent in the scorching breeze.

On top of the hill she heard a car engine start. Jesse wasn't leaving, was he? Lydia looked toward it, alarmed. But she saw the car hadn't moved. Just getting the air-conditioning going, she supposed. When she looked back toward the water she noticed the sedge and cattails and wild rice plants were still bending, waving, rustling.

As if someone was there, moving closer to the yellow tape, staying low to the ground.

But no, no, of course that wasn't the case. It's just the wind, she told herself. And she reverently set the flowers in the crook of a gnarly black willow not far from the eerie outline of the sprawled body, spattered with blood dark as the river water. She began praying once more.

• • •

Across the Paquenoke River from the crime scene, Deputy Ed Schaeffer leaned against an oak tree and ignored the early-morning mosquitoes fluttering near his arms in his short-sleeved uniform shirt. He shrank down to a crouch and scanned the floor of the woods again for signs of the boy.

He had to steady himself against a branch; he was dizzy from exhaustion. Like most of the deputies in the county sheriff's department he'd been awake for nearly twenty-four hours, searching for Mary Beth McConnell and the boy who'd kidnapped her. But while, one by one, the others had gone home to shower and eat and get a few hours' sleep Ed had stayed with the search. He was the oldest deputy on the force and the biggest (fifty-one years old and two hundred sixty-four pounds of mostly unuseful weight) but fatigue, hunger and stiff joints weren't going to stop him from continuing to look for the girl.

The deputy examined the ground again.

He pushed the transmit button of his radio. "Jesse, it's me. You there?"

"Go ahead."

He whispered, "I got footprints here. They're fresh. An hour old, tops."

"Him, you think?"

"Who else'd it be? This time of morning, this side of the Paquo?"

"You were right, looks like," Jesse Corn said. "I didn't believe it at first but you hit this one on the head."

It had been Ed's theory that the boy would come back here. Not because of the cliché – about returning to the scene of the crime – but because Blackwater Landing had always been his stalking ground and whatever kind of trouble he'd gotten himself into over the years he always came back here.

Ed looked around, fear now replacing exhaustion and discomfort as he gazed at the infinite tangle of leaves and branches surrounding him. Jesus, the deputy thought, the boy's here someplace. He said into his radio, "The tracks look to be moving toward you but I can't tell for sure. He was walking mostly on leaves. You keep an eye out. I'm going to see where he was coming from."

Knees creaking, Ed rose to his feet and, as quietly as a big man could, followed the boy's footsteps back in the direction they'd come – farther into the woods, away from the river.

He followed the boy's trail about a hundred feet and saw it led to an old hunting blind – a gray shack big enough for three or four hunters. The gun slots were dark and the place seemed to be deserted. Okay, he thought. Okay… He's probably not in there. But still…

Breathing hard, Ed Schaeffer did something he hadn't done in nearly a year and a half: unholstered his weapon. He gripped the revolver in a sweaty hand and started forward, eyes flipping back and forth dizzily between the blind and the ground, deciding where best to step to keep his approach silent.

Did the boy have a gun? he wondered, realizing that he was as exposed as a soldier landing on a bald beachhead. He imagined a rifle barrel appearing fast in one of the slots, aiming down on him. Ed felt an ill flush of panic and he sprinted, in a crouch, the last ten feet to the side of the shack. He pressed against the weathered wood as he caught his breath and listened carefully. He heard nothing inside but the faint buzzing of insects.

Okay, he told himself. Take a look. Fast.

Before his courage broke, Ed rose and looked through a gun slot.

No one.

Then he squinted at the floor. His face broke into a smile at what he saw. "Jesse," he called into his radio excitedly.

"Go ahead."

"I'm at a blind maybe a quarter mile north of the river. I think the kid spent the night here. There's some empty food wrappers and water bottles. A roll of duct tape too. And guess what? I see a map."

"A map?"

"Yeah. Looks to be of the area. Might show us where he's got Mary Beth. What do you think about that?"

But Ed Schaeffer never found out his fellow deputy's reaction to this good piece of police work; the woman's screaming filled the woods and Jesse Corn's radio went silent.

• • •

Lydia Johansson stumbled backward and screamed again as the boy leapt from the tall sedge and grabbed her arms with his pinching fingers.

"Oh, Jesus Lord, please don't hurt me!" she begged.

"Shut up," he raged in a whisper, looking around, jerking movements, malice in his eyes. He was tall and skinny, like most sixteen-year-olds in small Carolina towns, and very strong. His skin was red and welty – from a run-in with poison oak, it looked like – and he had a sloppy crew cut that looked like he'd done it himself.

"I just brought flowers… that's all! I didn't -"

"Shhhh," he muttered.

But his long, dirty nails dug into her skin painfully and Lydia gave another scream. Angrily he clamped a hand over her mouth. She felt him press against her body, smelled his sour, unwashed odor.

She twisted her head away. "You're hurting me!" she said in a wail.

"Just shut up!" His voice snapped like ice-coated branches tapping and flecks of spit dotted her face. He shook her furiously as if she were a disobedient dog. One of his sneakers slipped off in the struggle but he paid no attention to the loss and pressed his hand over her mouth again until she stopped fighting.

From the top of the hill Jesse Corn called, " Lydia? Where are you?"

"Shhhhh," the boy warned again, eyes wide and crazy. "You scream and you'll get hurt bad. You understand? Do you understand?" He reached into his pocket and showed her a knife.

She nodded.

He pulled her toward the river.

Oh, not there. Please, no, she thought to her guardian angel. Don't let him take me there.

North of the Paquo…

Lydia glanced back and saw Jesse Corn standing by the roadside 100 yards away, hand shading his eyes from the low sun, surveying the landscape. " Lydia?" he called.

The boy pulled her faster. "Jesus Christ, come on!"

"Hey!" Jesse cried, seeing them at last. He started down the hill.

But they were already at the riverbank, where the boy'd hidden a small skiff under some reeds and grass. He shoved Lydia into the boat and pushed off, rowing hard to the far side of the river. He beached the boat and yanked her out. Then dragged her into the woods.

"Where're we going?" she whispered.

"To see Mary Beth. You're going to be with her."

"Why?" Lydia whispered, sobbing now. "Why me?"

But he said nothing more, just clicked his nails together absently and pulled her after him.

"Ed," came Jesse Corn's urgent transmission. "Oh, it's a mess. He's got Lydia. I lost him."

"He's what?" Gasping from exertion, Ed Schaeffer stopped. He'd started jogging toward the river when he'd heard the scream.

" Lydia Johansson. He's got her too."

"Shit," muttered the heavy deputy, who cursed about as frequently as he drew his sidearm. "Why'd he do that?"

"He's crazy," Jesse said. "That's why. He's over the river and'll be headed your way."

"Okay." Ed thought for a moment. "He'll probably be coming back here to get the stuff in the blind. I'll hide inside, get him when he comes in. He have a gun?"

"I couldn't see."

Ed sighed. "Okay, well… Get over here as soon as you can. Call Jim too."

"Already did."

Ed released the red transmit button and looked through the brush toward the river. There was no sign of the boy and his new victim. Panting, Ed ran back to the blind and found the door. He kicked it open. It swung inward with a crash and Ed stepped inside fast, crouching in front of the gun slot.

He was so high on fear and excitement, concentrating so hard on what he was going to do when the boy got here, that he didn't at first pay any attention to the two or three little black-and-yellow dots that zipped in front of his face. Or to the tickle that began at his neck and worked down his spine.

But then the tickling became detonations of fiery pain on his shoulders then along his arms and under them. "Oh, God," he cried, gasping, leaping up and staring in shock at the dozens of hornets – vicious yellow jackets – clustering on his skin. He brushed at them in a panic and the gesture infuriated the insects even more. They stung his wrist, his palm, his fingertips. He screamed. The pain was worse than any he'd felt – worse than the broken leg, worse than the time he'd picked up the cast-iron skillet not knowing Jean had left the burner on.

Then the inside of the blind grew dim as the cloud of hornets streamed out of the huge gray nest in the corner – which had been crushed by the swinging door when he kicked it in. Easily hundreds of the creatures were attacking him. They zipped into his hair, seated themselves on his arms, in his ears, crawled into his shirt and up his pant legs, as if they knew that stinging on cloth was futile and sought his skin. He raced for the door, ripping his shirt off, and saw with horror masses of the glossy crescents clinging to his huge belly and chest. He gave up trying to brush them off and simply ran mindlessly into the woods.

"Jesse, Jesse, Jesse!" he cried but realized his voice was a whisper; the stinging on his neck had closed up his throat.

Run! he told himself. Run for the river.

And he did. Speeding faster than he'd ever run in his life, crashing through the forest. His legs pumping furiously. Go… Keep going, he ordered himself. Don't stop. Outrun the little bastards. Think about your wife, think about the twins. Go, go, go… There were fewer wasps now though he could still see thirty or forty of the black dots clinging to his skin, the obscene hindquarters bending forward to sting him again.

I'll be at the river in three minutes. I'll leap into the water. They'll drown. I'll be all right… Run! Escape from the pain… the pain… How can something so small cause so much pain? Oh, it hurts…

He ran like a racehorse, ran like a deer, speeding through underbrush that was just a hazy blur in his tear-filled eyes.

He'd -

But wait, wait. What was wrong? Ed Schaeffer looked down and realized that he wasn't running at all. He wasn't even standing up. He was lying on the ground only thirty feet from the blind, his legs not sprinting but thrashing uncontrollably.

His hand groped for his Handi-talkie and even though his thumb was swollen double from the venom he managed to push the transmit button. But then the convulsions that began in his legs moved into his torso and neck and arms and he dropped the radio. For a moment he heard Jesse Corn's voice in the speaker, and when that stopped he heard the pulsing drone of the wasps, which became a tiny thread of sound and finally silence.

2

Only God could cure him. And God wasn't so inclined.

Not that it mattered, for Lincoln Rhyme was a man of science rather than theology and so he'd traveled not to Lourdes or Turin or to some Baptist tent outfitted with a manic faith healer but here, to this hospital in North Carolina, in hopes of becoming if not a whole man at least less of a partial one.

Rhyme now steered his motorized Storm Arrow wheelchair, red as a Corvette, off the ramp of the van in which he, his aide and Amelia Sachs had just driven five hundred miles – from Manhattan. His perfect lips around the controller straw, he turned the chair expertly and accelerated up the sidewalk toward the front door of the Neurologic Research Institute at the Medical Center of the University of North Carolina in Avery.

Thom retracted the ramp of the glossy black Chrysler Grand Rollx, a wheelchair-accessible van.

"Put it in a handicapped space," Rhyme called. He gave a chuckle.

Amelia Sachs lifted an eyebrow to Thom, who said, "Good mood. Take advantage. It won't last."

"I heard that," Rhyme shouted.

The aide drove off and Sachs caught up with Rhyme. She was on her cell phone, on hold with a local car-rental company. Thom would be spending much of the next week in Rhyme's hospital room and Sachs wanted the freedom to keep her own hours, maybe do some exploring in the region. Besides, she was a sports-car person, not a van person, and on principle shunned vehicles whose top speed was two digits.

Sachs had been on hold for five minutes and finally she hung up in frustration. "I wouldn't mind waiting but the Muzak is terrible. I'll try later." She looked at her watch. "Only ten-thirty. But this heat is too much. I mean, way too much." Manhattan is not necessarily the most temperate of locales in August but it's much farther north than the Tar Heel State, and when they'd left the city yesterday, southbound via the Holland Tunnel, the temperature was in the low seventies and the air was dry as salt.

Rhyme wasn't paying any attention to the heat. His mind was solely on his mission here. Ahead of them the automated door swung open obediently (this would be, he assumed, the Tiffany's of handicapped-accessible facilities) and they moved into the cool corridor. While Sachs asked directions Rhyme looked around the main floor. He noticed a half-dozen unoccupied wheelchairs clustered together, dusty. He wondered what had become of the occupants. Maybe the treatment here had been so successful that they'd discarded the chairs and graduated to walkers and crutches. Maybe some had grown worse and were confined to beds or motorized chairs.

Maybe some had died.

"This way," Sachs said, nodding up the hall. Thom joined them at the elevator (double-wide door, handrails, buttons three feet off the floor) and a few minutes later they found the suite they sought. Rhyme wheeled up to the door, noticed the hands-free intercom. He said a boisterous "Open, sesame" and the door swung wide.

"We get that a lot," drawled the pert secretary when they'd entered. "You must be Mr. Rhyme. I'll tell the doctor you're here."

Dr. Cheryl Weaver was a trim, stylish woman in her mid-forties. Rhyme noticed immediately that her eyes were quick and her hands, as befitted a surgeon, seemed strong. Her nails were polish-free and short. She rose from her desk, smiled and shook Sachs' and Thom's hands, nodded to her patient.

" Lincoln."

"Doctor." Rhyme's eyes took in the titles of the many books on her shelves. Then the myriad certificates and diplomas – all from good schools and renowned institutions, though her credentials were no surprise to him. Months of research had convinced Rhyme that the University Medical Center in Avery was one of the best hospitals in the world. Its oncology and immunology departments were among the busiest in the country and Dr. Weaver's neuro institute set the standard for spinal-cord injury research and treatment.

"It's good to meet you at last," the doctor said. Under her hand was a three-inch-thick manila folder. Rhyme's own, the criminalist assumed. (Wondering what the keeper of the file had entered under the prognosis heading: "Encouraging"? "Poor"? "Hopeless"?) " Lincoln, you and I've had some conversations on the phone. But I want to go through the preliminaries again. For both our sakes."

Rhyme nodded curtly. He was prepared to tolerate some formality though he had little patience for ass-covering. Which is what this was starting to sound like.

"You've read the literature about the Institute. And you know we're starting some trials of a new spinal cord regeneration and reconstruction technique. But I have to stress again that this is experimental."

"I understand that."

"Most of the quads I've treated know more neurology than a general practitioner. And I'll bet you're no exception."

"Know something about science," Rhyme said dismissively. "Know something about medicine." And he offered her an example of his trademark shrug, a gesture Dr. Weaver seemed to notice and file away.

She continued, "Well, forgive me if I repeat what you already know but it's important for you to understand what this technique can do and what it can't do."

"Please," Rhyme said. "Go on."

"Our approach at the Institute here is an all-out assault on the site of the injury. We use traditional decompression surgery to reconstruct the bony structure of the vertebrae themselves and to protect the site where your injury occurred. Then we graft two things into the site of the injury: One is some of the patient's own peripheral nervous system tissue. And the other substance we graft is some embryonic central nervous system cells, which -"

"Ah, the shark," Rhyme said.

"That's right. Blue shark, yes."

" Lincoln was telling us that," Sachs said. "Why shark?"

"Immunologic reasons, compatibility with humans. Also," the doctor added, laughing, "it's a damn big fish so we can get a lot of embryo material from one."

"Why embryo?" Sachs asked.

"It's the adult central nervous system that doesn't naturally regenerate," Rhyme grumbled, impatient with the interruption. "Obviously, a baby's nervous system has to grow."

"Exactly. Then, in addition to the decompression surgery and micrografting, we do one more thing – which is what we're so excited about: We've developed some new drugs that we think might have a significant effect on improving regeneration."

Sachs asked, "Are there risks?"

Rhyme glanced at her, hoping to catch her eye. He knew the risks. He'd made his decision. He didn't want her interrogating his doctor. But Sachs' attention was wholly on Dr. Weaver. Rhyme recognized her expression; it was how she examined a crime scene photo.

"Of course there are risks. The drugs themselves aren't particularly dangerous. But any C4 quad is going to have lung impairment. You're off a ventilator but with the anesthetic there's a chance of respiratory failure. Then the stress of the procedure could lead to autonomic dysreflexia and resulting severe blood pressure elevation – I'm sure you're familiar with that – which in turn could lead to a stroke or a cerebral event. There's also a risk of surgical trauma to the site of your initial injury – you don't have any cysts now and no shunts but the operation and resulting fluid buildup could increase that pressure and cause additional damage."

"Meaning he could get worse," Sachs said.

Dr. Weaver nodded and looked down at the file, apparently to refresh her memory, though she didn't open the folder. She looked up. "You have movement of one lumbrical – the ring finger of your left hand – and good shoulder and neck muscle control. You could lose some or all of that. And lose your ability to breathe spontaneously."

Sachs remained perfectly still. "I see," she said finally, the words coming out as a taut sigh.

The doctor's eyes were locked on Rhyme's. "And you have to weigh these risks in light of what you hope to gain – you aren't going to be able to walk again, if that's what you were hoping for. Procedures of this sort have had some limited success with spinal cord injuries at the lumbar and thoracic level – much lower and much less severe than your injury. It's had only marginal success with cervical injuries and none at all with a C4-level trauma."

"I'm a gambling man," he said quickly. Sachs gave him a troubled glance. Because she'd know that Lincoln Rhyme wasn't a gambling man at all. He was a scientist who lived his life according to quantifiable, documented principles. He added simply, "I want the surgery."

Dr. Weaver nodded and seemed neither pleased nor displeased about his decision. "You'll need to have several tests that should take several hours. The procedure's scheduled for the day after tomorrow. I have about a thousand forms and questionnaires for you. I'll be right back with the paperwork."

Sachs rose and followed the doctor out of the room. Rhyme heard her asking, "Doctor, I have a…" The door clicked shut.

"Conspiracy," Rhyme muttered to Thom. "Mutiny in the ranks."

"She's worried about you."

"Worried? That woman drives a hundred fifty miles an hour and plays gunslinger in the South Bronx. I'm getting baby-fish cells injected into me."

"You know what I'm saying."

Rhyme tossed his head impatiently. His eyes strayed to a corner of Dr. Weaver's office, where a spinal cord – presumably real – rested on a metal stand. It seemed far too fragile to support the complicated human life that had once hung upon it.

The door opened. Sachs stepped into the office. Someone entered behind her but it wasn't Dr. Weaver. The man was tall, trim except for a slight paunch, and wearing a county sheriff's tan uniform. Unsmiling, Sachs said, "You've got a visitor."

Seeing Rhyme, the man took off his Smokey the Bear hat and nodded. His eyes darted not to Rhyme's body, as did most people's upon meeting him, but went immediately to the spine on the stand behind the doctor's desk. Back to the criminalist. "Mr. Rhyme. I'm Jim Bell. Roland Bell's cousin? He told me you were going to be in town and I drove over from Tanner's Corner."

Roland was on the NYPD and had worked with Rhyme on several cases. He was currently a partner of Lon Sellitto, a detective Rhyme had known for years. Roland had given Rhyme the names of some of his relatives to call when he was down in North Carolina for the operation in case he wanted some visitors. Jim Bell was one of them, Rhyme recalled. Looking past the sheriff toward the doorway through which his angel of mercy, Dr. Weaver, had yet to return, the criminalist said absently, "Nice to meet you."

Bell gave a grim smile. He said, "Matter of fact, sir, I don't know you're going to be feeling that way for too long."

3

There was a resemblance, Rhyme could see, as he concentrated more acutely on the visitor.

The same lean physique, long hands and thinning hair, the same easygoing nature as his cousin Roland in New York. This Bell looked tanner and more rugged. Probably fished and hunted a lot. A Stetson would have suited him better than the trooper hat. Bell took a seat in a chair next to Thom.

"We have ourselves a problem, Mr. Rhyme."

"Call me Lincoln. Please."

"Go on," Sachs said to Bell. "Tell him what you told me."

Rhyme glanced coolly at Sachs. She'd met this man three minutes ago and already they were in cahoots together.

"I'm sheriff of Paquenoke County. That's about twenty miles east of here. We have this situation and I was thinking 'bout what my cousin told me – he can't speak highly enough of you, sir…"

Rhyme nodded impatiently for him to continue. Thinking: Where the hell's my doctor? How many forms does she have to dig up? Is she in on the conspiracy too?

"Anyway, this situation… I thought I'd come over and ask if you could spare us a little time."

Rhyme laughed, a sound without a stitch of humor in it. "I'm about to have surgery."

"Oh, I understand that. I wouldn't interfere with it for the world. I'm just thinking of a few hours… We don't need much help, I'm hoping. See, Cousin Rol told me about some of the things you've done in investigations up north. We have basic crime lab stuff but most of the forensics work 'round here goes through Elizabeth City – the nearest state police HQ – or Raleigh. Takes weeks to get answers. And we don't have weeks. We got hours. At best."

"For what?"

"To find a couple girls got kidnapped."

"Kidnapping's federal," Rhyme pointed out. "Call the FBI."

"I can't recall the last time we even had a federal agent in the county, other than ATF on moonshine warrants. By the time the FBI gets down here and sets up, those girls'll be goners."

"Tell us about what happened," Sachs said. She was wearing her interested face, Rhyme noted cynically – and with displeasure.

Bell said, "Yesterday one of our local high school boys was murdered and a college girl was kidnapped. Then this morning the perp came back and kidnapped another girl." Rhyme noticed the man's face darken. "He set a trap and one of my deputies got hurt bad. He's here at the medical center now, in a coma."

Rhyme saw that Sachs had stopped digging a fingernail into her hair, scratching her scalp, and was paying rapt attention to Bell. Well, perhaps they weren't co-conspirators but Rhyme knew why she was so interested in a case they didn't have the time to participate in. And he didn't like the reason one bit. "Amelia," he began, casting a cool glance at the clock on Dr. Weaver's wall.

"Why not, Rhyme? What can it hurt?" She pulled her long red hair off her shoulders, where it rested like a still waterfall.

Bell glanced at the spinal cord in the corner once more. "We're a small office, sir. We did what we could – all of my deputies and some other folk too were out all night but, fact is, we just couldn't find him or Mary Beth. Ed – the deputy that's in the coma – we think he got a look at a map that shows where the boy might've gone. But the doctors don't know when, or if, he's going to wake up." He looked back into Rhyme's eyes imploringly. "We'd sure be appreciative if you could take a look at the evidence we found and give us any thoughts on where the boy might be headed. We're outa our depth here. I'm standing in need of some serious help."

But Rhyme didn't understand. A criminalist's job is to analyze evidence to help investigators identify a suspect and then to testify at his trial. "You know who the perp is, you know where he lives. Your D.A.'ll have an airtight case." Even if they'd screwed up the crime-scene search – the way small-town law enforcers have vast potential to do – there'd be plenty of evidence left for a felony conviction.

"No, no – it's not the trial we're worried about, Mr. Rhyme. It's finding them 'fore he kills those girls. Or at least Lydia. We think Mary Beth may already be dead. See, when this happened I thumbed through a state police manual on felony investigations. It was saying that in a sexual abduction case you usually have twenty-four hours to find the victim; after that they become dehumanized in the kidnapper's eyes and he doesn't think anything about killing them."

Sachs asked, "You called him a boy, the perp. How old is he?"

"Sixteen."

"Juvenile."

"Technically," Bell said. "But his history's worse than most of our adult troublemakers."

"You've checked with his family?" she asked, as if it were a foregone conclusion that she and Rhyme were on the case.

"Parents're dead. He's got foster parents. We looked through his room at their place. Didn't find any secret trapdoors or diaries or anything."

One never does, thought Lincoln Rhyme, wishing devoutly this man would hightail it back to his unpronounceable county and take his problems with him.

"I think we should, Rhyme," Sachs said.

"Sachs, the surgery…"

She said, "Two victims in two days? He could be a progressive." Progressive felons are like addicts. To satisfy their increasing psychological hunger for violence, the frequency and severity of their acts escalate.

Bell nodded. "You got that right. And there's stuff I didn't mention. There've been three other deaths in Paquenoke County over the past couple of years and a questionable suicide just a few days ago. We think the boy might've been involved in all of them. We just didn't find enough evidence to hold him."

But then I wasn't working the cases, now, was I? Rhyme thought before reflecting that pride was probably the sin that would do him in.

He reluctantly felt his mental gears turning, intrigued by the puzzles that the case presented. What had kept Lincoln Rhyme sane since his accident – what had stopped him from finding some Jack Kevorkian to help with assisted suicide – were mental challenges like this.

"Your surgery's not till day after tomorrow, Rhyme," Sachs pushed. "And all you have are those tests before then."

Ah, your ulterior motives are showing, Sachs…

But she'd made a good point. He was looking at a lot of downtime before the operation itself. And it would be pre-surgery downtime – which meant without eighteen-year-old scotch. What was a quad going to do in a small North Carolina town anyway? Lincoln Rhyme's greatest enemy wasn't the spasms, phantom pain or dysreflexia that plague spinal cord patients; it was boredom.

"I'll give you one day," Rhyme finally said. "As long as it doesn't delay the operation. I've been on a waiting list for fourteen months to have this procedure."

"Deal, sir," Bell said. His weary face brightened.

But Thom shook his head. "Listen, Lincoln, we're not here to work. We're here for your procedure and then we're leaving. I don't have half the equipment I need to take care of you if you're working."

"We're in a hospital, Thom. I wouldn't be surprised to find most of what you need here. We'll talk to Dr. Weaver. I'm sure she'll be happy to help us out."

The aide, resplendent in white shirt, pressed tan slacks and tie, said, "For the record, I don't think it's a good idea."

But like hunters everywhere – mobile or not – once Lincoln Rhyme had made the decision to pursue his prey nothing else mattered. He now ignored Thom and began to interrogate Jim Bell. "How long has he been on the run?"

"Just a couple hours," Bell said. "What I'll do is have a deputy bring over the evidence we found and maybe a map of the area. I was thinking…"

But Bell 's voice faded as Rhyme shook his head and frowned. Sachs suppressed a smile; she'd know what was coming.

"No," Rhyme said firmly. "We'll come to you. You'll have to set us up someplace in – what's the county seat again?"

"Uhm, Tanner's Corner."

"Set us up someplace we can work. I'll need a forensics assistant… You have a lab in your office?"

"Us?" asked the bewildered sheriff. "Not hardly."

"Okay, we'll get you a list of equipment we'll need. You can borrow it from the state police." Rhyme looked at the clock. "We can be there in a half hour. Right, Thom?"

" Lincoln…"

"Right?"

"A half hour," the resigned aide muttered.

Now who was in a bad mood?

"Get the forms from Dr. Weaver. Bring them with us. You can fill them out while Sachs and I're working."

"Okay, okay."

Sachs was writing a list of the basic forensics lab equipment. She held it up for Rhyme to read. He nodded then said, "Add a density gradient unit. Otherwise, it looks good."

She wrote this item on the list and handed it to Bell. He read it, nodding his head uncertainly. "I'll work this out, sure. But I really don't want you to go to too much trouble -"

"Jim, hope I can speak freely."

"Sure."

The criminalist said in a low voice, "Just looking over a little evidence isn't going to do any good. If this is going to work, Amelia and I are going to be in charge of the pursuit. One hundred percent in charge. Now, you tell me up front – is that going to be a problem for anybody?"

"I'll make sure it isn't," Bell said.

"Good. Now you better get going on that equipment. We need to move."

And Sheriff Bell stood for a moment, nodding, hat in one hand, Sachs' list in the other, before he headed for the door. Rhyme believed that Cousin Roland, a man of many Southernisms, had an expression that fit the look on the sheriff's face. Rhyme wasn't exactly sure how the phrase went but it had something to do with catching a bear by the tail.

"Oh, one thing?" Sachs asked, stopping Bell as he passed through the doorway. He paused and turned. "The perp? What's his name?"

"Garrett Hanlon. But in Tanner's Corner they call him the Insect Boy."

Paquenoke is a small county in northeastern North Carolina. Tanner's Corner, roughly in the center of the county, is the biggest town and is surrounded by smaller unincorporated clusters of residential or commercial pockets, such as Blackwater Landing, which huddles against the Paquenoke River – called the Paquo by most locals – a few miles to the north of the county seat.

South of the river is where most of the county's residential and shopping areas are located. The land there is dotted with gentle marshes, forests, fields and ponds. Nearly all of the residents live in this half. North of the Paquo, on the other hand, the land is treacherous. The Great Dismal Swamp has encroached and swallowed up trailer parks and houses and the few mills and factories on that side of the river. Snaky bogs have replaced the ponds and fields, and the forests, largely old-growth, are impenetrable unless you're lucky enough to find a path. No one lives on that side of the river except 'shiners and drug cookers and a few crazy swamp people. Even hunters tend to avoid the area after that incident two years ago when wild boars came after Tal Harper and even shooting half of them didn't stop the rest from devouring him before help arrived.

Like most people in the county Lydia Johansson rarely went north of the Paquo, and never very far from civilization when she did. She now realized, with an overwhelming sense of despair, that by crossing the river she'd stepped over some boundary into a place from which she might never return – a boundary that was not merely geographic but was spiritual too.

She was terrified being dragged along behind this creature, of course – terrified at the way he looked over her body, terrified of his touch, terrified that she'd die from heat – or sunstroke or snakebite – but what scared her the most was realizing what she'd left behind on the south side of the river: her fragile, comfortable life, small though it was: her few friends and fellow nurses on the hospital ward, the doctors she flirted futilely with, the pizza parties, the Seinfeld reruns, her horror books, ice cream, her sister's children. She even looked back longingly at the troubled parts of her life – the struggle with her weight, the fight to quit smoking, the nights alone, the long absence of phone calls from the man she occasionally saw (she called him her "boyfriend," though she knew that was merely wishful thinking)… even these now seemed fiercely poignant simply because of their familiarity.

But there wasn't a sliver of comfort where she was now.

She remembered the terrible sight at the hunter's blind – deputy Ed Schaeffer lying unconscious on the ground, arms and face swollen grotesquely from the wasp stings. Garrett had muttered, "He shouldn't've hurt 'em. Yellow jackets only attack when their nest's in danger. It was his fault." He'd walked inside slowly, the insects ignoring him, to collect some things. He'd taped her hands in front of her and then led her into the woods through which they'd been traveling now for several miles.

The boy moved in an awkward way, jerking her in one direction, then another. He talked to himself. He scratched at the red blotches on his face. Once, he stopped at a pool of water and stared at it. He waited until some bug or spider danced away over the surface then pressed his face into the water, soaking the troubled skin. He looked down at his feet then took off his remaining shoe and flung it away. They pushed on through the hot morning.

She glanced at the map sticking out of his pocket. "Where're we going?" she asked.

"Shut up. Okay?"

Ten minutes later he made her take her shoes off and they forded a shallow, polluted stream. When they'd crossed he eased her into a sitting position. Garrett sat in front of her and, as he watched her legs and cleavage, he slowly dried her feet with a wad of Kleenex he had pulled from his pocket. She felt the same repulsion at his touch that had flooded through her the first time she had to take a tissue sample from a corpse in the morgue at the hospital. He put her white shoes back on, laced them tight, holding her calf for longer than he needed to. Then he consulted the map and led her back into the woods.

Clicking his nails, scratching his cheek…

Little by little the marshes grew more tangled and the water darker and deeper. She supposed they were headed toward the Great Dismal Swamp though she couldn't imagine why. Just when it seemed they could go no farther because of the choked bogs, Garrett steered them into a large pine forest, which, to Lydia 's relief, was far cooler than the exposed swampland.

He found another path. He led her along it until they came to a steep hill. A series of rocks led to the top.

"I can't climb that," she said, struggling to sound defiant. "Not with my hands taped. I'll slip."

"Bullshit," he muttered angrily, as if she were an idiot. "You got those nurse shoes on. They'll hold you fine. Look at me. I'm, like, barefoot and I can climb it. Lookit my feet, look!" He held up the bottoms. They were callused and yellow. "Now get your ass up there. Only, when you get to the top don't go any farther. You hear me? Hey, you listening?" Another hiss; a fleck of spittle touched her cheek and seemed to burn her skin like battery acid.

God, I hate you, she thought.

Lydia started to climb. She paused halfway, looked back. Garrett was watching her closely, snapping his fingernails. Staring at her legs, encased in white stockings, his tongue teasing his front teeth. Then looking up higher, under her skirt.

Lydia continued to climb. Heard his hissing breath as he started up behind her.

At the top of the hill was a clearing and from it a single path led into a thick grove of pine trees. She started along the path, into the shade.

"Hey!" Garrett shouted. "Didn't you hear me? I told you not to move!"

"I'm not trying to get away!" she cried. "It's hot. I'm trying to get out of the sun."

He pointed to the ground, twenty feet away. There was a thick blanket of pine boughs in the middle of the path. "You could've fallen in," his voice rasped. "You could've ruined it."

Lydia looked closely. The pine needles covered a wide pit.

"What's under there?"

"It's a deadfall trap."

"What's inside?"

"You know – a surprise for anybody coming after us." He said this proudly, smirking, as if he'd been very clever to think of it.

"But anybody could fall in there!"

"Shit," he muttered. "This is north of the Paquo. Only ones who'd come this way'd be the people after us. And they deserve whatever happens to them. Let's get going." Hissing again. He took her by the wrist and led her around the pit.

"You don't have to hold me so hard!" she protested.

Garrett glanced at her then relaxed his grip somewhat – though his gentler touch proved to be a lot more troubling; he took to stroking her wrist with his middle finger, which reminded her of a fat blood tick looking for a spot to burrow into her skin.

4

The Rollx van passed a cemetery, Tanner's Corner Memorial Gardens. A funeral was in progress and Rhyme, Sachs and Thom glanced at the somber procession.

"Look at the casket," Sachs said.

It was small, a child's. The mourners, all adults, were few. Twenty or so people. Rhyme wondered why attendance was so sparse. His eyes rose above the ceremony and examined the graveyard's rolling hills and, beyond, the miles of hazy forest and marshland that vanished in the blue distance. He said, "That's not a bad cemetery. Wouldn't mind being buried in a place like that."

Sachs, who'd been gazing at the funeral with a troubled expression, shifted cool eyes toward him – apparently because with surgery on the agenda she didn't like any talk about mortality.

Then Thom eased the van around a sharp curve and, following Jim Bell's Paquenoke County Sheriff's Department cruiser, accelerated down a straightaway; the cemetery disappeared behind them.

As Bell had promised, Tanner's Corner was twenty miles from the medical center at Avery. The WELCOME TO sign assured visitors that the town was the home of 3,018 souls, which may have been true but only a tiny percentage of them were evident along Main Street on this hot August morning. The dusty place seemed to be a ghost town. One elderly couple sat on a bench, looking out over the empty street. Rhyme spotted two men who must've been the resident drunks – sickly-looking and skinny. One sat on the curb, his scabby head in his hands, probably working off a hangover. The other sat against a tree, staring at the glossy van with sunken eyes that even from the distance seemed jaundiced. A scrawny woman lazily washed the drugstore window. Rhyme saw no one else.

"Peaceful," Thom observed.

"That's one way to put it," said Sachs, who obviously shared Rhyme's sense of unease at the emptiness.

Main Street was a tired stretch of old buildings and two small strip malls. Rhyme noticed one supermarket, two drugstores, two bars, one diner, a women's clothing boutique, an insurance company and a combination video shop/candy store/nail salon. The A-OK Car Dealership was sandwiched between a bank and a marine supplies operation. Everybody sold bait. One billboard was for McDonald's, seven miles away along Route 17. Another showed a sun-bleached painting of the Monitor and Merrimack Civil War ships. "Visit the Ironclad Museum." You had to drive twenty-two miles to see that attraction.

As Rhyme took in all these details of small-town life he realized with dismay how out of his depth as a criminalist he was here. He could successfully analyze evidence in New York because he'd lived there for so many years – had pulled the city apart, walked its streets, studied its history and flora and fauna. But here, in Tanner's Corner and environs, he knew nothing of the soil, the air, the water, nothing of the habits of the residents, the cars they liked, the houses they lived in, the industries that employed them, the lusts that drove them.

Rhyme recalled working for a senior detective at the NYPD when he was a new recruit. The man had lectured his underlings, "Somebody tell me: what's the expression 'Fish out of water' mean?"

Young officer Rhyme had said, "It means: out of one's element. Confused."

"Yeah, well, what happens when fish're out of water?" the grizzled old cop had snapped at Rhyme. "They don't get confused. They get fucking dead. The greatest single threat to an investigator is unfamiliarity with his environment. Remember that."

Thom parked the van and went through the ritual of lowering the wheelchair. Rhyme blew into the sip-and-puff controller of the Storm Arrow and rolled toward the County Building 's steep ramp, undoubtedly added to the building grudgingly after the Americans with Disabilities Act went into effect.

Three men – in work clothes and with folding knife scabbards on their belts – pushed out of the side door of the sheriff's office beside the ramp. They walked toward a burgundy Chevy Suburban.

The skinniest of the three poked the biggest one, a huge man with a braided ponytail and a beard, and nodded toward Rhyme. Then their eyes – almost in unison – perused Sachs' body. The big one took in Thom's trim hair, slight build, impeccable clothes and golden earring. Expressionless, he whispered something to the third of the trio, a man who looked like a conservative Southern businessman. He shrugged. They lost interest in the visitors and climbed into the Chevy.

Fish out of water…

Bell, walking beside Rhyme's chair, noticed his gaze.

"That's Rich Culbeau, the big one. And his buddies. Sean O'Sarian – the skinny feller – and Harris Tomel. Culbeau's not half as much trouble as he looks. He likes playing redneck but he's usually no bother."

O'Sarian glanced back at them from the passenger seat – though whether he was glancing at Thom or Sachs or himself, Rhyme didn't know.

The sheriff jogged ahead to the building. He had to fiddle with the door at the top of the handicapped ramp; it had been painted shut.

"Not many crips here," Thom observed. Then he asked Rhyme, "How're you feeling?"

"I'm fine."

"You don't look fine. You look pale. I'm taking your blood pressure the minute we get inside."

They entered the building. It was dated circa 1950, Rhyme estimated. Painted institutional green, the halls were decorated with finger paintings from a grade-school class, photographs of Tanner's Corner throughout its history and a half-dozen employment notices for county workers.

"Will this be okay?" Bell asked, swinging open a door. "We use it for evidence storage but we're clearing that stuff out and moving it down to the basement."

A dozen boxes lined the walls. One officer struggled to cart a large Toshiba TV out of the room. Another carried two boxes of juice jars filled with a clear liquid. Rhyme glanced at them. Bell laughed. He said, "That there just about summarizes your typical Tanner's Corner criminal: stealing home electronics and making moonshine."

"That's moonshine?" Sachs asked.

"The real thing. Aged all of thirty days."

"Ocean Spray brand?" Rhyme asked wryly, looking at the jars.

"'Shiners' favorite container – because of the wide neck. You a drinking man?"

"Scotch only."

"Stick to that." Bell nodded at the bottles the officer carried out the door. "The feds and the Carolina tax department worry about their revenue. We worry about losing citizens. That batch there isn't too bad. But a lot of 'shine's laced with formaldehyde or paint thinner or fertilizer. We lose a couple people a year to bad batches."

"Why's it called moonshine?" Thom asked.

Bell answered, "'Cause they used to make it at night in the open under the light of the full moon – so they didn't need lanterns and, you know, wouldn't attract revenuers."

"Ah," said the young man, whose taste, Rhyme knew, ran to St. Emilions, Pomerols and white Burgundies.

Rhyme examined the room. "We'll need more power." Nodding at the single wall outlet.

"We can run some wires," Bell said. "I'll get somebody on it."

He sent a deputy off on this errand then explained that he'd called the state police lab at Elizabeth City and put in an emergency request for the forensic equipment Rhyme wanted. The items would be here within the hour. Rhyme sensed that this was lightning-fast for Paquenoke County and he felt once more the urgency of the case.

In a sexual abduction case you usually have twenty-four hours to find the victim; after that they become dehumanized in the kidnapper's eyes and he doesn't think anything about killing them.

The deputy returned with two thick electrical cables that had multiple grounded outlets on the ends. He taped them to the floor.

"Those'll do fine," Rhyme said. Then he asked, "How many people do we have to work the case?"

"I've got three senior deputies and eight line deputies. We've got a communications staff of two and clerical of five. We usually have to share them with Planning and Zoning and DPW – that's been a sore spot for us – but 'causa the kidnapping and you coming here and all we'll have every one of 'em we need. The county supervisor'll support that. I talked to him already."

Rhyme gazed up at the wall. Frowning.

"What is it?"

"He needs a chalkboard," Thom said.

"I was thinking of a map of the area. But, yes, I want a blackboard too. A big one."

"Done deal," Bell said. Rhyme and Sachs exchanged smiles. This was one of Cousin Roland Bell's favorite expressions.

"Then if I could see your senior people in here? For a briefing."

"And air-conditioning," Thom said. "It needs to be cooler in here."

"We'll see what we can do," Bell said casually, a man who probably didn't understand the North's obsession with moderate temperatures.

The aide said firmly, "It's not good for him to be in heat like this."

"Don't worry about it," Rhyme said.

Thom lifted an eyebrow at Bell and said easily, "We have to cool the room. Or else I'm going to take him back to the hotel."

"Thom," Rhyme warned.

"I'm afraid we don't have any choice," the aide said.

Bell said, "Not a problem. I'll take care of it." He walked to the doorway and called, "Steve, come on in here a minute."

A young crew-cut man in a deputy's uniform walked inside. "This's my brother-in-law, Steve Farr." He was the tallest of the deputies they'd seen so far – easily six-seven – and had round ears that stuck out comically. He seemed only mildly uneasy at the initial sight of Rhyme and his wide lips soon slipped into an easy smile that suggested both confidence and competence. Bell gave him the job of finding an air-conditioner for the lab.

"I'll get right on it, Jim." He tugged at his earlobe, turned on his heel like a soldier and vanished into the hall.

A woman stuck her head in the door. "Jim, it's Sue McConnell on three. She's really beside herself."

"Okay. I'll talk to her. Tell her I'll be right there." Bell explained to Rhyme, "Mary Beth's mother. Poor woman… Lost her husband to cancer just a year ago and now this happens. I tell you," he added, shaking his head, "I've got a couple of kids myself and I can imagine what she's -"

"Jim, I wonder if we could find that map," Rhyme interrupted. "And get the blackboard set up."

Bell blinked uncertainly at this abrupt tone in the criminalist's voice. "Sure thing, Lincoln. And, hey, if we get too Southern down here, move a little slow for you Yankees, you'll speed us up now, won't you?"

"Oh, you bet I will, Jim."

One out of three.

One of Jim Bell's three senior deputies seemed glad to meet Rhyme and Sachs. Well, to see Sachs, at least. The other two gave formal nods and obviously wished this odd pair had never left the Big Apple.

The agreeable one was a bleary-eyed thirtyish deputy named Jesse Corn. He'd been at the crime scene earlier that morning and, with painful guilt, admitted that Garrett had gotten away with the other victim, Lydia, right in front of him. By the time Jesse had gotten over the river Ed Schaeffer was near death from the wasp attack.

One deputy offering the cool reception was Mason Germain, a short man in his early forties. Dark eyes, graying features, posture a little too perfect for a human being. His hair was slicked back and showed off ruler-straight teeth marks from the comb. He wore excessive aftershave, a cheap, musky smell. He greeted Rhyme and Sachs with a stiff, canny nod and Rhyme imagined that he was actually glad the criminalist was disabled so he wouldn't have to shake his hand. Sachs, being a woman, was entitled to only a condescending "Miss."

Lucy Kerr was the third senior deputy and she wasn't any happier to see the visitors than Mason was. She was a tall woman – just a bit shorter than willowy Sachs. Trim and athletic-looking with a long, pretty face. Mason's uniform was wrinkled and smudged but Lucy's was perfectly ironed. Her blond hair was done up in a taut French braid. You could easily picture her as a model for L.L. Bean or Lands' End – in boots, denim and a down vest.

Rhyme knew that their cold shoulders would be an automatic reaction to interloping cops (especially a crip and a woman – and Northerners, no less). But he had no interest in winning them over. The kidnapper would be harder to find with every passing minute. And he had a date with a surgeon he absolutely was not going to miss.

A solidly built man – the only black deputy Rhyme had seen – wheeled in a large chalkboard and unfolded a map of Paquenoke County.

"Tape it up there, Trey." Bell pointed to the wall. Rhyme scanned the map. It was a good one, very detailed.

Rhyme said, "Now. Tell me exactly what happened. Start with the first victim."

"Mary Beth McConnell," Bell said. "She's twenty-three. A grad student over at the campus at Avery."

"Go on. What happened yesterday?"

Mason said, "Well, it was pretty early. Mary Beth was -"

"Could you be more specific?" Rhyme asked. "About the time?"

"Well, we don't know for certain," Mason responded coolly. "Weren't any stopped clocks like on the Titanic, you know."

"Had to've been before eight," Jesse Corn offered. "Billy – the boy was killed – was out jogging and the crime scene is a half hour away from home. He was making up some credits in summer school and had to be back by eight-thirty to shower and get to class."

Good, Rhyme thought, nodding. "Go on."

Mason continued. "Mary Beth had some class project, digging up old Indian artifacts at Blackwater Landing."

"What's that, a town?" Sachs asked.

"No, just an unincorporated area on the river. 'Bout three-dozen houses, a factory. No stores or anything. Mostly woods and swamp."

Rhyme noticed numbers and letters along the margins of the map. "Where?" he asked. "Show me."

Mason touched Location G-10. "Way we see it, Garrett comes by and grabs Mary Beth. He's going to rape her but Billy Stall's out jogging and sees them from the road and tries to stop it. But Garrett grabs a shovel and kills Billy. Beats his head in. Then he takes Mary Beth and disappears." Mason's jaw was tight. "Billy was a good kid. Really good. Went to church regular. Last season he intercepted a pass in the last two minutes of a tied game with Albemarle High and ran it back -"

"I'm sure he was a fine boy," Rhyme said impatiently. "Garrett and Mary Beth, they're on foot?"

"That's right," Lucy answered. "Garrett wouldn't drive. Doesn't even have a license. Think it was because of his folks' dying in a car crash."

"What physical evidence did you find?"

"Oh, we got the murder weapon," Mason said proudly. "The shovel. Were real buttoned up about handling it too. Wore gloves. And we did the chain-of-custody thing, like's in the books."

Rhyme waited for more. Finally he asked, "What else did you find?"

"Well, some footprints." Mason looked at Jesse, who said, "Oh, right. I took pictures of 'em."

"That's all?" Sachs asked.

Lucy nodded, tight-lipped at the Northerner's implicit criticism.

Rhyme: "Didn't you search the scene?"

Jesse said, "Sure we did. Just, there wasn't anything else."

Wasn't anything else? At a scene where a perp kills one victim and abducts another there'd be enough evidence to make a movie of who did what to whom and probably what each member of the cast had been doing for the last twenty-four hours. It seemed they were up against two perpetrators: the Insect Boy and law-enforcement incompetence. Rhyme caught Sachs' eye and saw she was thinking the same.

"Who conducted the search?" Rhyme asked.

"I did," Mason said. "I got there first. I was nearby when the call came in."

"And when was that?"

"Nine-thirty. A truck driver saw Billy's body from the highway and called nine-one-one."

And the boy was killed before eight. Rhyme wasn't pleased. An hour and a half – at least – was a long time for a crime scene to be unprotected. A lot of evidence could get stolen, a lot could get added. The boy could have raped and killed the girl and hidden the body then returned to remove some pieces of evidence and plant others to lead investigators off. "You searched it by yourself?" Rhyme asked Mason.

"First time through. Then we got three, four deputies out there. They went over the area real good."

And found only the murder weapon? Lord almighty… Not to mention the damage done by four cops unfamiliar with crime scene search techniques.

"Can I ask," Sachs said, "how you know Garrett was the perp?"

"I saw him," Jesse Corn said. "When he took Lydia this morning."

"That doesn't mean he killed Billy and kidnapped the other girl."

"Oh," Bell said. "The fingerprints – we got them off the shovel."

Rhyme nodded and said to the sheriff, "And his prints were on file because of those prior arrests?"

"Right."

Rhyme said, "Now tell me about this morning."

Jesse took over. "It was early. Just after sunup. Ed Schaeffer and I were there keeping an eye on the crime scene in case Garrett came back. Ed was north of the river, I was south. Lydia comes 'round to lay some flowers. I left her alone and went back to the car. Which I guess I shouldn't've done. Next thing I know she's screaming and I see the two of them disappear over the Paquo. They were gone 'fore I could find a boat or anything to get across. Ed wouldn't answer his radio. I was worried about him and when I got over there I found him stung half to death. Garrett'd set a trap."

Bell said, "We think Ed knows where he's got Mary Beth. He got a look at a map that was in that blind Garrett'd been hiding in. But he got stung and passed out before he could tell us what the map showed and Garrett must've took it with him after he kidnapped Lydia. We couldn't find it."

"What's the deputy's condition?" Sachs asked.

"Went into shock because of the stinging. Nobody knows if he's going to make it or not. Or if he'll remember anything if he does come to."

So we rely on the evidence, Rhyme thought. Which was, after all, his preference; far better than witnesses any day. "Any clues from this morning's scene?"

"Found this." Jesse opened an attaché case and took out a running shoe in a plastic bag. "Garrett lost it when he was grabbing Lydia. Nothing else."

A shovel at yesterday's scene, a shoe at today's… Nothing more. Rhyme glanced hopelessly at the lone shoe.

"Just set it over there." Nodding toward a table. "Tell me about these other deaths Garrett was a suspect in."

Bell said, "All in and around Blackwater Landing. Two of the victims drowned in the canal. Evidence looked like they'd fallen and hit their heads. But the medical examiner said they could've been hit intentionally and pushed in. Garrett'd been seen around their houses not long before they died. Then last year somebody was stung to death. Wasps. Just like with Ed. We know Garrett did it."

Bell started to continue but Mason interrupted. He said in a low voice, "Girl in her early twenties – like Mary Beth. Real nice, good Christian. She was taking a nap on her back porch. Garrett tossed a hornets' nest inside. Got herself stung a hundred thirty-seven times. Had a heart attack."

Lucy Kerr said, "I ran the call. It was a real bad sight, what happened to her. She died slow. Real painful."

"Oh, and that funeral we passed on the way here?" Bell asked. "That was Todd Wilkes. He was eight. Killed himself."

"Oh, no," Sachs muttered. "Why?"

"Well, he'd been pretty sick," Jesse Corn explained. "He was at the hospital more than at home. Was real tore up about it. But there was more – Garrett was seen shouting at Todd a few weeks ago, really giving him hell. We were thinking that Garrett kept harassing and scaring him until he snapped."

"Motive?" Sachs asked.

"He's a psycho, that's his motive," Mason spat out. "People make fun of him and he's out to get them. Simple as that."

"Schizophrenic?"

Lucy said, "Not according to his counselors at school. Antisocial personality's what they call it. He's got a high IQ. He got mostly A's on his report cards – before he started skipping school a couple of years ago."

"You have a picture of him?" Sachs asked.

The sheriff opened a file. "Here's the booking shot for the hornets'-nest assault."

The picture showed a thin, crew-cut boy with prominent, connected brows and sunken eyes. There was a rash on his cheek.

"Here's another." Bell unfolded a newspaper clipping. It showed a family of four at a picnic table. The caption read, "The Hanlons at the Tanner's Corner Annual Picnic, a week before a tragic auto accident on Route 112 took the lives of Stuart, 39, and Sandra, 37, and their daughter, Kaye, 10. Also pictured is Garrett, 11, who was not in the car at the time of the accident."

"Can I see the report of the scene yesterday?" Rhyme asked.

Bell opened a folder. Thom took it. Rhyme had no page-turning frame so he relied on his aide to flip the pages.

"Can't you hold it steadier?"

Thom sighed.

But the criminalist was irritated. The crime scene had been very sloppily worked. There were Polaroid photos revealing a number of footprints but no rulers had been laid in the shot to indicate size. Also, none of the prints had numbered cards to indicate that they'd been made by different individuals.

Sachs noticed this too and shook her head, commenting on it. Lucy, sounding defensive, said, "You always do that? Put cards down?"

"Of course," Sachs said. "It's standard procedure."

Rhyme continued to examine the report. In it was only a cursory description of the location and pose of the boy's body. Rhyme could see that the outlining had been done in spray paint, which is notorious for ruining trace and contaminating crime scenes.

No dirt had been sampled for trace at the site of the body or where there'd been an obvious scuffle between Billy and Mary Beth and Garrett. And Rhyme could see cigarette butts on the ground – which might provide many clues – but none had been collected.

"Next."

Thom flipped the page.

The friction ridge – fingerprint – report was marginally better. The shovel had four full and seventeen partials, all positively identified as Garrett's and Billy's. Most of them were latents but a few were evident – easily visible without chemicals or alternative light source imaging – in a smear of mud on the handle. Still, Mason had been careless when he'd worked the scene – his latex glove prints on the shovel covered up many of the killer's. Rhyme would have fired a tech for such careless handling of evidence but since there were so many other good prints it wouldn't make any difference in this case.

The equipment would be arriving soon. Rhyme said to Bell, "I'm going to need that forensics tech to help me with the analysis and the equipment. I'd prefer a cop but the important thing is that they know science. And know the area here. A native."

Mason's thumb danced a circle over the ribbed hammer of his revolver. "We can dig somebody up but I thought you were the expert. I mean, isn't that why we're using you?"

"One of the reasons you're using me is because I know when I need help." He looked at Bell. "Anybody come to mind?"

It was Lucy Kerr who answered. "My sister's boy – Benny – he's studying science at UNC. Grad school."

"Smart?"

"Phi Beta. He's just… well, a little quiet."

"I don't want him for his conversation."

"I'll call him."

"Good," Rhyme said. Then: "Now, I want Amelia to search the crime scenes: the boy's room and Blackwater."

Mason said, "But" – he waved his hand at the report – "we already did that. Fine-tooth comb."

"I'd like her to search them again," Rhyme said shortly. Then looked at Jesse. "You know the area. Could you go with her?"

"Sure. Be happy to."

Sachs gave him a wry look. But Rhyme knew the value of a flirt; Sachs would need cooperation – and a lot of it. Rhyme didn't think Lucy or Mason would be half as helpful as the already-infatuated Jesse Corn.

Rhyme said, "I want Amelia to have a sidearm."

"Jesse's our ordnance expert," Bell said. "He can rustle you up a nice Smith and Wesson."

"You bet I can."

"Let me have some cuffs too," Sachs said.

"Sure thing."

Bell noticed Mason, looking unhappy, staring at the map. "What is it?" the sheriff asked.

"You really want my opinion?" the short man asked.

"I asked, didn't I?"

"You do what you think is best, Jim," Mason said in a taut voice, "but I don't think we have time for any more searches. There's a lot of territory out there. We've got to get after that boy and get after him fast."

But it was Lincoln Rhyme who responded. Eyes on the map, at Location G-10, Blackwater Landing, the last place anyone had seen Lydia Johansson alive, he said, "We don't have enough time to move fast."

5

"We wanted him," the man whispered cautiously, as if speaking too loudly would conjure a witch. He looked uneasily around the dusty front yard in which sat a wheel-less pickup on concrete blocks. "We called family services and asked about Garrett specifically. 'Cause we'd heard about him and felt sorry. But, fact is, he was trouble from the start. Not like any of the other kids we had. We did our best but, I'll tell you, I'm thinking he doesn't see it that way. And we're scared. Scared bad."

He stood on the weather-beaten front porch of his house north of Tanner's Corner, speaking to Amelia Sachs and Jesse Corn. Amelia was here, at Garrett's foster parents' house, solely to search his room but, despite the urgency, she was letting Hal Babbage ramble on in hopes that she might learn a bit more about Garrett Hanlon; Amelia Sachs didn't quite share Rhyme's view that evidence was the sole key to tracking down perps.

But the only thing this conversation was revealing was that his foster parents were indeed, as Hal had said, terrified that Garrett would return to hurt them or the other children. His wife, who stood beside him on the porch, was a fat woman with curly rust-colored hair. She wore a stained country-western radio station giveaway T-shirt. MY BOOTS TAP TO WKRT. Like her husband's, Margaret Babbage's eyes often scanned the yard and surrounding forest, looking for Garrett's return, Sachs assumed.

"It's not like we ever did anything to him," the man continued. "I never whipped him – the state won't let you do that anymore – but I'd be firm with him, make him toe the line. Like, we eat on a schedule. I insist on that. Only Garrett wouldn't show up on time. I lock the food up when it's not mealtime so he went hungry a lot. And sometimes I'd take him to father and son's Saturday Bible study and he hated that. He just sat there and didn't say a word. Embarrassed me, I'll tell you. And I'd nag him to clean that pigsty of a room." He hesitated, caught between anger and fear. "Those're just things you gotta make children do. But I know he hates me for 'em."

The wife offered her own testimony: "We were mannerable to him. But he's not going to remember that. He's gonna remember the times we were strict." Her voice quivered. "And he's thinking of revenge."

"I'll tell you, we'll protect ourselves," Garrett's foster father warned, speaking now to Jesse Corn. He nodded to a pile of nails and a rusty hammer sitting on the porch. "We're nailing the windows shut but if he tries to break in… we'll protect ourselves. The children know what to do. They know where the shotgun is. I've taught 'em how to use it."

He encouraged them to shoot Garrett? Sachs was shocked. She'd seen several other kids in the house, peering through the screens. They seemed to be no older than ten.

"Hal," Jesse Corn said sternly, preempting Sachs, "don't go taking anything into your own hands. You see Garrett, call us. And don't let the little ones touch any firearms. Come on, you know better'n that."

"We have drills," Hal said defensively. "Every Thursday night after supper. They know how to handle a gun." He squinted as he saw something in the yard. Tensing for a moment.

"I'd like to see his room," Sachs said.

He shrugged. "Help yourself. But you're on your own. I'm not going in there. You show 'em, Mags." He picked up the hammer and a handful of nails. Sachs noticed the butt of a pistol protruding from his waistband. He started to pound nails into a window frame.

"Jesse," Sachs said, "go around to the back and check in his window, see if there're any traps rigged."

"You won't be able to see," the mother explained. "He's got them painted black."

Painted?

Sachs continued. "Then just cover the approach to the window. I don't want any surprises. Keep an out for shooting vantages and don't present a clean target."

"Sure. Shooting vantages. I'll go do that." And he nodded in an exaggerated way that told her that he'd had virtually no tactical experience. He disappeared into the side yard.

The wife said to Sachs, "His room's this way."

Sachs followed Garrett's foster mother down a dim corridor filled with laundry and shoes and stacks of magazines. Family Circle, Christian Life, Guns & Ammo, Field and Stream, Reader's Digest.

Her neck crawled as she passed each doorway, eyes flicking left and right, and her lengthy fingers stroked the oak checkerboard of the pistol grip. The door to the boy's room was closed.

Garrett tossed a hornets' nest inside. Got herself stung 137 times…

"You're really scared he'll come back?"

After a pause the woman said, "Garrett's a troubled boy. People don't understand him and I got more feeling for him than Hal does. I don't know if he'll come back but if he does it'll be trouble. Garrett don't mind hurting people. Once at school some boys kept breaking into his locker and leaving notes and dirty underwear and things. Nothing terrible, just pranks. But Garrett made this cage that popped open if you didn't open the locker just right. Put a spider inside. Next time they broke in the spider bit one of the boys in the face. Nearly blinded him… Yeah, I'm scared he'll come back."

They paused outside a bedroom door. On the wood was a handmade sign. DANGER. DO NOT ENTER. A badly done pen-and-ink drawing of a mean-looking wasp was taped to the door below it.

There was no air-conditioning and Sachs found her palms sweating. She wiped them on her jeans.

Sachs turned on the Motorola radio and pulled on the headset she'd borrowed from the Sheriff's Department Central Communications Office. She spent a moment finding the frequency Steve Farr had given her. The reception was lousy.

"Rhyme?"

"I'm here, Sachs. I've been waiting. Where've you been?"

She didn't want to tell him that she'd spent a few minutes trying to learn more about the psychology of Garrett Hanlon. She said only, "Took us some time to get here."

"Well, what've we got?" the criminalist asked.

"I'm about to go in."

She motioned Margaret back into the living room then kicked the door in and leapt back into the corridor, pressed flat against the wall. No sound from the dimly lit room.

Got herself stung 137 times…

Okay. Pistol up. Go, go, go! She pushed inside.

"Jesus." Sachs dropped into a low-profile combat stance. Several earnest pounds of pressure on the trigger, she held the gun steady as a mountain at the figure just inside.

"Sachs?" Rhyme called. "What is it?"

"Minute," she whispered, flicking the overhead light on. The gun sight rested on a poster of the creepy monster in the movie Alien.

With her left hand she swung the closet door open. Empty.

"It's secured, Rhyme. Have to say, though, I don't really care for the way he decorates."

It was then that the stench hit her. Unwashed clothing, bodily scents. And something else…

"Phew," she muttered.

"Sachs? What is it?" Rhyme's voice was impatient.

"Place stinks."

"Good. You know my rule."

"Always smell the crime scene first. Wish I hadn't."

"I meant to clean it up." Mrs. Babbage had padded up behind Sachs. "I shoulda, before you got here. But I was too afraid to go in. Besides, skunk's hard to get out unless you wash in tomato juice. Which Hal thinks is a waste of money."

That was it. Crowning the smell of dirty clothes was the burnt-rubber scent of skunk musk. Hands clasped desperately, looking like she was about to cry, Garrett's foster mother whispered, "He'll be mad you broke the door."

Sachs said to her, "I'll need a little time alone here." She ushered the woman out and closed the door.

"Time's wasting, Sachs," Rhyme snapped.

"I'm on it," she responded. Looking around. Repulsed by the gray, stained sheets, the piles of dirty clothes, the dishes glued together with old food, the Cell-o bags filled with the dust of potato and corn chips. The whole place made her edgy. She found her fingers in her scalp, compulsively scratching. Stopped, then scratched some more. She wondered why she was so angry. Maybe because the slovenliness suggested that his foster parents didn't really give a damn about the boy and that this neglect had contributed to his becoming a killer and a kidnapper.

Sachs scanned the room fast and noticed that there were dozens of smudges and finger- and footprints on the windowsill. It seemed he used the window more than the front door and she wondered if they locked the children down at night.

She turned to the wall opposite the bed and squinted. Felt a chill slide through her. "We've got ourselves a collector here, Rhyme."

She looked over the dozen large jars – terrariums filled with colonies of insects clustered together, surrounding pools of water in the bottom of each one. Labels in sloppy handwriting identified the species: Water Boatman… Diving Bell Spider. A chipped magnifying glass sat on a nearby table, beside an old office chair that looked as if Garrett had retrieved it from a trash heap.

"I know why they call him the Insect Boy," Sachs said, then told Rhyme about the jars. She shivered with revulsion as a horde of moist, tiny bugs moved en masse along the glass of one jar.

"Ah, that's good for us."

"Why?"

"Because it's a rare hobby. If tennis or collecting coins turned him on, we'd have a harder time pinning him to specific locations. Now, get going on the scene." He was speaking softly in a voice that was almost cheerful. She knew he'd be imagining himself walking the grid – as he referred to the process of searching a crime scene – using her as his eyes and legs. As head of Investigation and Resources – the NYPD's forensics and crime scene unit – Lincoln Rhyme had often worked homicide crime scenes himself, usually logging more hours on the job than even junior officers. She knew that walking the grid was what he missed most about his life before the accident.

"What's the crime scene kit like?" Rhyme asked. Jesse Corn had dug one up from the Sheriff's Department equipment room for her to use.

Sachs opened the dusty metal attaché case. It didn't contain a tenth of the equipment of her kit in New York but at least there were the basics: tweezers, a flashlight, probes, latex gloves and evidence bags. "Crime scene lite," she said.

"We're fish out of water on this one, Sachs."

"I'm with you there, Rhyme." She pulled on the gloves as she looked over the room. Garrett's bedroom was what's known as a secondary crime scene – not the place where the actual crime occurred but the location where it was planned, for instance, or to which the perps fled and hid out after a crime. Rhyme had long ago taught her that these were often more valuable than the primary scenes because perps tended to be more careless in places like this, shedding gloves and clothes and leaving behind weapons and other evidence.

She now started her search, walking a grid pattern – covering the floor in close parallel strips, the way you'd mow a lawn, foot by foot, then turning perpendicular and walking over the same territory again.

"Talk to me, Sachs, talk to me."

"It's a spooky place, Rhyme."

"Spooky?" he groused. "What the hell is 'spooky'?"

Lincoln Rhyme didn't like soft observations. He liked hard – specific – adjectives: cold, muddy, blue, green, sharp. Rhyme even complained when she commented that something was "large" or "small." ("Tell me inches or millimeters, Sachs, or don't tell me at all." Amelia Sachs searched crime scenes armed with a Glock 10, latex gloves and a Stanley contractor's tape measure.)

She thought: Well, I feel damn spooked. Doesn't that count for anything?

"He's got these posters up. From the Alien movies. And Starship Troopers – these big bugs attacking people. He's drawn some himself too. They're violent. The place is filthy. Junk food, a lot of books, clothes, the bugs in the jars. Not much else."

"The clothes are dirty?"

"Yep. Got a good one – a pair of pants, really stained. He's worn them a lot; they must have a ton of trace in them. And they all have cuffs. Lucky for us – most kids his age'd wear only blue jeans."

She dropped them in a plastic evidence bag.

"Shirts?"

"T-shirts only," she said. "Nothing with pockets." Criminalists love cuffs and pockets; they trap all sorts of helpful clues. "I've got a couple of notebooks here, Rhyme. But Jim Bell and the other deputies must've looked through them."

"Don't make any assumptions about our colleagues' crime scene work," Rhyme said wryly.

"Got it."

She began flipping through the pages. "There're no diaries. No maps. Nothing about kidnapping… There're just drawings of insects… pictures of the ones he's got here in the terrariums."

"Any of girls, young women? Sado-sexual?"

"No."

"Bring them along. How about the books?"

"Maybe a hundred or so. Schoolbooks, books about animals, insects… Hold on – got something here – a Tanner's Corner High School yearbook. It's six years old."

Rhyme asked a question to someone in the room. He came back on the line. "Jim says Lydia 's twenty-six. She'd've been out of high school eight years. But check the McConnell girl's page."

Sachs thumbed through the Ms.

"Yep. Mary Beth's picture's been cut out with a sharp blade of some kind. He sure fits the classic stalker profile."

"We're not interested in profiles. We're interested in evidence. The other books – the ones on his shelf – which ones does he read the most?"

"How do I -"

"Dirt on the pages," he snapped impatiently. "Start on the ones nearest his bed. Bring back four or five of them."

She picked the four with the most well-thumbed pages. The Entomologist's Handbook, The Field Guide to Insects of North Carolina , Water Insects of North America , The Miniature World.

"I've got them, Rhyme. There're a lot of marked passages. Asterisks by some of them."

"Good. Bring them back. But there's got to be something more specific in the room."

"I can't find a thing."

"Keep looking, Sachs. He's a sixteen-year-old. You know the juvenile cases we've worked. Teenagers' rooms are the centers of their universe. Start thinking like a sixteen-year-old. Where would you hide things?"

She looked under the mattress, in and under the drawers of the desk, in the closet, beneath the grimy pillows. Then she shone the flashlight between the wall and the bed. She said, "Got something here, Rhyme…"

"What?"

She found a mass of wadded-up Kleenex, a bottle of Vaseline Intensive Care lotion. She examined one of the Kleenexes. It was stained with what appeared to be dried semen.

"Dozens of tissues under the bed. He's been a busy boy with his right hand."

"He's sixteen," Rhyme said. "It'd be unusual if he wasn't. Bag one. We might need some DNA."

Sachs found more under the bed: a cheap picture frame on which he'd painted crude drawings of insects – ants and hornets and beetles. Inside was mounted the cut-out yearbook photo of Mary Beth McConnell. There was also an album of a dozen other snapshots of Mary Beth. They were candids. Most of them were of the young woman on what seemed to be a college campus or walking down the street of a small town. Two were of her in her bikini at a lake. In both of these she was bending down and the picture focused on the girl's cleavage. She told Rhyme what she'd found.

"His fantasy girl," Rhyme muttered. "Keep going."

"I think we should bag this and get on to the primary scene."

"In a minute or two, Sachs. Remember – this was your idea, being Good Samaritans, not mine."

A shudder of anger at this. "What do you want?" she asked heatedly. "You want me to dust for prints? Vacuum for hairs?"

"Of course not. We're not after trial-quality evidence for the D.A.; you know that. All we need is something that'll give us an idea where he might've taken the girls. He's not going to bring them back home. He's got a place he's made just for them. And he's been there earlier – to get it ready. He may be young and quirky but he still smells of an organized offender. Even if the girls're dead I'll bet he's picked out nice, cozy graves for them."

Despite all the time they'd worked together Sachs still had trouble with Rhyme's callousness. She knew it was part of being a criminalist – the distancing one must do from the horror of crime – but it was hard for her. Perhaps because she recognized that she had the same capacity for this coldness within herself, that numbing detachment that the best crime-scene searchers must turn on like a light switch, a detachment that Sachs sometimes feared would deaden her heart irreparably.

Nice, cozy graves…

Lincoln Rhyme, whose voice was never more seductive than when he was imagining a crime scene, said to her, "Go on, Sachs, get into him. Become Garrett Hanlon. What are you thinking? What's your life like? What do you do minute by minute by minute in that little room? What are your most secret thoughts?"

The best criminalists, Rhyme had told her, were like talented novelists, who imagined themselves as their characters – and could disappear into someone else's world.

Eyes scanning the room once more. I'm sixteen. I'm a troubled boy, I'm an orphan, kids at school pick on me, I'm sixteen, I'm sixteen, I'm -

A thought formed. She snagged it before it swam off.

"Rhyme, you know what's weird?"

"Talk to me, Sachs," he said softly, encouraging.

"He's a teenager, right? Well, I remember Tommy Briscoe – I dated him when I was sixteen. You know what he had all over his walls in his room?"

"In my day and age it was that damn Farrah Fawcett poster."

"That's it exactly. Garrett doesn't have a single pinup, a single Playboy or Penthouse poster. No Magic cards, no Pokemon, no toys. No Alanis or Celine. No rock-musician posters… And – hey, get this: no VCR, TV, stereo, radio. No Nintendo. My God, he's sixteen and he doesn't even have a computer." Her goddaughter was twelve and the girl's room was virtually an electronics showroom.

"Maybe it's a money thing – the foster parents."

"Hell, Rhyme, if I were his age and wanted to listen to music I'd build a radio. Nothing stops teenagers. But those aren't the things that excite him."

"Excellent, Sachs."

Maybe, she reflected, but what did it mean? Recording observations is only half of the job of a forensic scientist; the other half, the far more important half, is drawing helpful conclusions from those observations.

"Sachs -"

"Shhhh."

She struggled to put aside the person she really was: the cop from Brooklyn, the lover of taut General Motors vehicles, former fashion model for the Chantelle agency on Madison Avenue, champion pistol shot, the woman who wore her straight red hair long and her fingernails short lest the habit of digging into her scalp and skin mar her otherwise perfect flesh with yet more stigmata of the tension that drove her.

Trying to turn that person into smoke and emerge as a troubled, scary sixteen-year-old boy. Someone who needed, or wanted, to take women by force. Who needed, or wanted, to kill.

What do I feel?

"I don't care about normal pleasures, music, TV, computers. I don't care about normal sex," she said, half to herself. "I don't care about normal relationships. People are like insects – things to be caged. In fact, all I care about are insects. They're my only source of comfort. My only amusement." She said this as she paced in front of the jars. Then she looked down at the floor at her feet. "The tracks of the chair!"

"What?"

"Garrett's chair… it's on rollers. It's facing the insect jars. All he does is roll back and forth and stare at them and draw them. Hell, he probably talks to them too. His whole life is these bugs." But the tracks in the wood stopped before they got to the jar on the end of the row – the largest of them and one set slightly apart from the others. It contained yellow jackets. The tiny yellow-and-black crescents zipped about angrily as if they were aware of her intrusion.

She walked to the jar, looked down at it carefully. She said to Rhyme, "There's a jar full of wasps. I think it's his safe."

"Why?"

"It's nowhere near the other jars. He never looks at it – I can tell by the tracks of the chair. And all the other jars have water in them – they're aquatic bugs. This's the only one with flying insects. It's a great idea, Rhyme – who'd reach inside something like that? And there's about a foot of shredded paper on the bottom. I'd think he's buried something in there."

"Look inside and see."

She opened the door and asked Mrs. Babbage for a pair of leather gloves. When she brought them she found Sachs looking into the wasp jar.

"You're not going to touch that, are you?" she asked in a desperate whisper.

"Yes."

"Oh, Garrett'll have a fit. He yells at anyone who ever touches his wasp jar."

"Mrs. Babbage, Garrett's a fleeing felon. Him yelling at anybody isn't really a concern here."

"But if he sneaks back and sees you bothered it… I mean… It could push him over the edge." Again, tears threatened.

"We'll find him before he comes back," Sachs said in a reassuring tone. "Don't worry."

Sachs put on the gloves, and she wrapped a pillowcase around her bare arm. Slowly she eased the mesh lid off and reached inside. Two wasps landed on the glove but flew off a moment later. The rest just ignored the intrusion. She was careful not to disturb the nest.

Stung 137 times…

She dug only a few inches before she found the plastic bag.

"Gotcha." She pulled it out. One wasp escaped and disappeared into the house before she got the mesh lid back on.

Pulling off the leather gloves and putting on the latex, she opened the bag and spilled the contents out on the bed. A spool of thin fishing line. Some money – about a hundred dollars in cash and four Eisenhower silver dollars. Another picture frame; this one held the photo from the newspaper of Garrett and his family, a week before the car accident that killed his parents and sister.

On a short chain was an old, battered key – like a car key, though there was no logo on the head; only a short serial number. She told Rhyme about this.

"Good, Sachs. Excellent. I don't know what it means yet but it's a start. Now get over to the primary scene. Blackwater Landing."

Sachs paused and looked around the room. The wasp that had escaped had returned and was trying to get back into the jar. She wondered what kind of message it was sending to its fellow insects.

• • •

"I can't keep up," Lydia told Garrett. "I can't go this fast," she gasped. Sweat streaming down her face. Her uniform was drenched.

"Quiet," he scolded angrily. "I need to listen. Can't do it with you bitching all the time."

Listen for what? she wondered.

He consulted the map again and led her along another path. They were still deep in the pine woods but, even though they were out of the sun, she was dizzy and recognized the early symptoms of heatstroke.

He glanced at her, eyes on her breasts again.

The fingernails snapping.

The immense heat.

"Please," she whispered, crying. "I can't do this! Please!"

"Quiet! I'm not going to tell you again."

A cloud of gnats swarmed around her face. She inhaled one or two and spit in disgust to clear her mouth. God, how she hated it here – in the woods. Lydia Johansson hated to be out of doors. Most people loved the woods and swimming pools and backyards. But her happiness was a fragile contentment that occurred mostly inside: her job, chatting with her other single girlfriends over margaritas at T.G.I. Friday's, horror books and TV, trips to the outlet malls for a shopping spree, those occasional nights with her boyfriend.

Indoor joys, all of them.

Outside reminded her of the cookouts her married friends gave, reminded her of families sitting around pools while their children played with inflatable toys, of picnics, of trim women in Speedos and thongs.

Outside reminded Lydia of a life she wanted but didn't have, of her loneliness.

He led her down another path, out of the forest. Suddenly the trees vanished and a huge pit opened in front of them. It was an old quarry. Blue-green water filled the bottom. She remembered years ago kids used to swim here, before the swamp started to reclaim the land north of the Paquo and the area got more dangerous.

"Let's go," Garrett said, nodding toward it.

"No. I don't want to. It's scary."

"Don't give a shit what you want," he snapped. "Come on!"

He gripped her taped hands and led her down a steep path to a rocky ledge. Garrett stripped off his shirt and bent down, splashed water on his blotched skin. He scratched and picked at the welts, examined his fingernails. Disgusting. He looked up at Lydia. "You want to do this? It feels good. You can take your dress off, you want. Go for a swim."

Horrified at the thought of being naked in front of him she shook her head adamantly. Then sat down near the edge and splashed water on her face and arms.

"Just don't drink it. I've got this."

He pulled a dusty burlap bag out from behind a rock, where he must've stashed it recently. He pulled out a bottle of water and some packets of cheese crackers with peanut butter. He ate a package of crackers and drank half of a bottle of water. He offered the rest to her.

She shook her head, repulsed.

"Fuck, I don't have AIDS or anything if that's what you're thinking. You gotta drink something."

Ignoring the bottle, Lydia lowered her mouth to the water in the quarry and drank deep. It was salty and metallic. Disgusting. She choked, nearly vomited.

"Jesus, I told you," Garrett snapped. He offered her the water again. "There's all kinds of crap in there. Quit being so fucking stupid." He tossed her the bottle. She caught it clumsily with her taped hands and drank it down.

Drinking the water immediately refreshed her. She relaxed some and asked, "Where's Mary Beth? What've you done with her?"

"She's in this place by the ocean. An old banker house."

Lydia knew what he meant. "Banker" to a Carolinian meant somebody who lived on the Outer Banks, the barrier islands off the coast in the Atlantic. So that's where Mary Beth was. And she understood now why they'd been traveling east – toward swampland with no houses and very few other places to hide. He probably had a boat stashed to take them through the swamp to the Intracoastal Waterway then to Elizabeth City and through Albemarle Sound to the Banks.

He continued. "I like it there. It's really neat. You like the ocean?" He asked her in a funny way – conversationally – and he seemed almost normal. For a moment her fear lessened. But then he froze again and listened to something, holding a finger to his lips to silence her, frowning angrily, as his dark side returned. Finally he shook his head as he decided that whatever he'd heard wasn't a threat. He rubbed the back of his hand over his face, scratching another welt. "Let's go." He nodded back up the steep path to the rim of the quarry. "It's not far."

"The Outer Banks'll take us a day to get to. More."

"Oh, hell, we're not gonna get there today." He laughed coldly as if she'd made another idiotic comment. "We'll hide near here and let the assholes searching for us get past. We'll spend the night." He was looking away from her when he said this.

"Spend the night?" she whispered hopelessly.

But Garrett said nothing more. He started prodding her up the steep incline to the lip of the quarry and the pine woods beyond.

6

What's the attraction of the sites of death? As she'd walked the grid at dozens of crime scenes Amelia Sachs had often asked this question and she asked it again now as she stood on the shoulder of Route 112 in Blackwater Landing, overlooking the Paquenoke River.

This was the place where young Billy Stail had died bloody, where two young women had been kidnapped, where a hardworking deputy's life had been changed forever – perhaps ended – by a hundred wasps. And even in the relentless sun the mood of Blackwater Landing was somber and edgy.

She surveyed the place carefully. Here, at the crime scene, a steep hill, strewn with trash, led from the shoulder of Route 112 down to the muddy riverbank. Where the ground leveled off, there were willows and cypress and clusters of tall grass. An old, rotting pier extended about thirty feet into the river then dipped below the surface of the water.

There were no homes in this immediate area though Sachs had noticed a number of large, new colonials not far from the river. The houses were obviously expensive but Sachs noticed that even this residential portion of Blackwater Landing, like the county seat itself, seemed ghostly and forlorn. It took her a moment to realize why – there were no children playing in the yards even though it was summer vacation. No inflatable pools, no bikes, no strollers. This reminded her of the funeral they'd passed a few hours ago – and the child's casket – and she forced her thoughts away from that sad memory and back to her task.

Examining the scene. Yellow tape encircled two areas. The one nearest the water included a willow in front of which were several bouquets of flowers – where Garrett had kidnapped Lydia. The other was a dusty clearing surrounded by a grove of trees where, yesterday, the boy had killed Billy Stail and taken Mary Beth. In the middle of this scene were a number of shallow holes in the ground where she'd been digging for arrowheads and relics. Twenty feet from the center of the scene was the spray-painted outline representing where Billy's body had lain.

Spray paint? she thought, chagrined. These deputies obviously weren't used to homicide investigations.

A Sheriff's Department car pulled onto the shoulder and Lucy Kerr climbed out. Just what I need – more cooks. The deputy nodded coolly to Sachs. "Find anything helpful at the house?"

"A few things." Sachs didn't explain further and nodded at the hillside.

In her headset she heard Rhyme's voice. "Is the scene trampled as bad as in the photos?"

"Like a herd of cattle walked through it. Must be two-dozen footprints."

"Shit," the criminalist muttered.

Lucy had heard Sachs's comment but said nothing, just kept looking out over the dark junction where the canal met the river.

Sachs asked, "That's the boat he got away in?" Looking toward a skiff beached on the muddy riverbank.

"Over there, yeah," Jesse Corn said. "It's not his. He stole it from some folks up the river. You want to search it?"

"Later. Now, which way wouldn't he have come to get here? Yesterday, I mean. When he killed Billy."

"Wouldn't?" Jesse pointed to the east. "There's nothing that way. Swamp and reeds. Can't even land a boat. So either he came along Route 112 and down the embankment here. Or, 'cause of the boat, I guess he might've rowed over."

She opened the crime scene suitcase. Said to Jesse, "I want a known of the dirt around here."

"Known?"

"Exemplars – samples, you know."

"Just of the dirt here."

"Right."

"Sure," he said. Then asked, "Why?"

"Because if we can find soil that doesn't match what's found here naturally it might be from the place Garrett's got those girls."

"It could also," Lucy said, "be from Lydia 's garden or Mary Beth's backyard or shoes of some kids fishing here a couple of days ago."

"It could," Sachs said patiently. "But we need to do it anyway." She handed Jesse a plastic bag. He strode off, pleased to help. Sachs started down the hill. She paused, opened the crime scene case again. No rubber bands. She noticed that Lucy Kerr had some bands binding the end of her French braid. "Borrow those?" she asked. "The elastic bands?"

After a brief pause the deputy pulled them off. Sachs stretched them around her shoes. Explained. "So I'll know which footprints're mine."

As if it makes a difference in this mess, she thought.

She stepped into the crime scene.

"Sachs, what do you have?" Rhyme asked. The reception was even worse than earlier.

"I can't see the scenario very clearly," she said, studying the ground. "Way too many footprints. Must've been eight, ten different people walking through here in the last twenty-four hours. But I have an idea what happened – Mary Beth was kneeling. A man's shoes approach from the west – from the direction of the canal. Garrett's. I remember the tread of the shoe Jesse found. I can see where Mary Beth stands and steps back. A second man's shoes approach from the south. Billy. He came down the embankment. He's moving fast – mostly on his toes. So he's sprinting. Garrett goes toward him. They scuffle. Billy backs up to a willow tree. Garrett comes toward him. More scuffling." Sachs studied the white outline of Billy's body. "The first time Garrett hits Billy with the shovel he gets him in the head. He falls. That didn't kill him. But then he hit him in the neck when he was down. That finished him off."

Jesse gave a surprised laugh, staring at the same outline as if he were looking at something completely different from what she saw. "How'd you know that?"

Absently she said, "The blood pattern. There're a few small drops here." She pointed to the ground. "Consistent with blood falling about six feet – that's from Billy's head. But that big spray pattern – which'd have to be from a severed carotid or jugular – starts when he was on the ground… Okay, Rhyme, I'm going to start the search."

Walking the grid. Foot by foot. Eyes on the dirt and grass, eyes on the knotty bark of the oaks and willows, eyes up to the overhanging branches ("A crime scene is three-dimensional, Sachs," Rhyme often reminded).

"Those cigarette butts still there?" Rhyme asked.

"Got 'em." She turned to Lucy. "Those cigarette butts," she said, nodding at the ground. "Why weren't they picked up?"

"Oh," Jesse answered for her, "those're just Nathan's."

"Who?"

"Nathan Groomer. One of our deputies. He's been trying to quit but just can't quite manage to."

Sachs sighed but managed to refrain from telling them that any cop who smoked at a crime scene ought to be suspended. She covered the ground carefully but the search was futile. Any visible fibers, scraps of paper or other physical evidence had been removed or blown away. She walked to the scene of this morning's kidnapping, stepped under the tape and started on the grid around the willow. Back and forth, fighting the dizziness from the heat. "Rhyme, there isn't much here… but… wait. I've got something." She'd seen a flash of white, close to the water. She walked down and carefully picked up a wadded-up Kleenex. Her knees cried out – from the arthritis that had plagued her for years. Rather be running down a perp than doing deep knee bends, she thought. "Kleenex. Looks similar to the ones at his house, Rhyme. Only this one's got blood on it. Quite a bit."

Lucy asked, "You think Garrett dropped it?"

Sachs examined it. "I don't know. All I can say is that it didn't spend the night here. Moisture content's too low. Morning dew would have half disintegrated it."

"Excellent, Sachs. Where'd you learn that? I don't recall ever mentioning it."

"Yes, you did," she said absently. "Your textbook. Chapter twelve. Paper."

Sachs walked down to the water, searched the small boat. She found nothing inside. Then she asked, "Jesse, can you row me over?"

He was, of course, more than happy to. And she wondered how long it would be before he fired off the first invitation for a cup of coffee. Uninvited, Lucy climbed in the skiff too and they pushed off.

The threesome rowed silently over the river, which was surprisingly choppy in the current.

On the far shore Sachs found footprints in the mud: Lydia 's shoes – the fine tread of nurse sneakers. And Garrett's prints – one barefoot, one in a running shoe with the tread that was already familiar to her. She followed them into the woods. They led to the hunting blind where Ed Schaeffer had been stung by the wasps. Sachs stopped, dismayed.

What the hell had happened here?

"God, Rhyme, it looks like the scene was swept."

Criminals often use brooms or even leaf blowers to destroy or confuse the evidence at crime scenes.

But Jesse Corn said, "Oh, that was from the chopper."

"Helicopter?" Sachs asked, dumbfounded.

"Well, yeah. Medevac – to get Ed Schaeffer out."

"But the downdraft from the rotors ruined the site," Sachs said. "Standard procedure is to move an injured victim away from the scene before you set the chopper down."

"Standard procedure?" Lucy Kerr asked abrasively. "Sorry, but we were a little worried about Ed. Trying, to save his life, you know."

Sachs didn't respond. She eased into the shed slowly so she wouldn't disturb the dozens of wasps that were hovering around a shattered nest. But whatever maps or other clues Deputy Schaeffer had seen inside were gone now and the wind from the helicopter had mixed up the topsoil so much that it was pointless to even take a sample of the dirt.

"Let's get back to the lab," Sachs said to Lucy and Jesse.

They were returning to the shore when there was a crashing sound behind her and a huge man lumbered toward them from the tangle of brush surrounding a cluster of black willows.

Jesse Corn drew his weapon but before he cleared leather Sachs had the borrowed Smittie out of the holster, cocked to double-action, and the blade sight aimed at the intruder's chest. He froze, lifted his hands outward, blinking in surprise.

He was bearded, tall and heavy, wore his hair in a braid. Jeans, gray T-shirt, denim vest. Boots. Something familiar about him.

Where had she seen him before?

It took Jesse's mentioning his name for her to remember. "Rich."

One of the trio they'd seen outside the County Building earlier. Rich Culbeau – she remembered the unusual name. Sachs recalled too how he and his friends had glanced at her body with a tacit leer and at Thom with an air of contempt; she kept the pistol pointed at him a moment longer than she would have otherwise. Slowly she aimed the weapon at the ground, uncocked it and replaced it in the holster.

"Sorry," Culbeau said. "Didn't mean to spook nobody. Hey, Jesse."

"This's a crime scene," Sachs said.

In her earphone she heard Rhyme's voice: "Who's there?"

She turned away, whispering into the stalk mike, "One of those characters out of Deliverance we saw this morning."

"We're working here, Rich," Lucy said. "Can't have you in our way."

"I don't intend to be in your way," he said, switching his gaze into the woods. "But I got a right to try for that thousand like everybody else. You can't stop me from looking."

"What thousand?"

"Hell," Sachs spat out into the microphone, "there's a reward, Rhyme."

"Oh, no. Last thing we need."

Of the major factors contaminating crime scenes and hampering investigations, reward and souvenir seekers are among the worst.

Culbeau explained, "Mary Beth's mom's offering it. That woman's got some money and I'll bet by nightfall, the girl's still not back, she'll be offering two thousand. Maybe more." He then looked at Sachs. "I'm not gonna cause any trouble, miss. You're not from here and you lookit me and think I must be just bad pay – I heard you talking 'bout Deliverance in that fancy radio gear of yours. I liked the book better'n the movie, by the way. You ever read it? Well, don't matter. Just don't go puttin' too much stock in appearances. Jesse, tell her who rescued that girl gone missing in the Great Dismal last year. Who ever'body knew was gone to snakes and skeeters and the whole county tore up about it."

Jesse said, "Rich and Harris Tomel found her. Three days lost in the swamp. She'd've died, it wasn't for them."

"Was me mostly," Culbeau muttered. "Harris don't like gettin' his boots dirty."

"That was good of you," Sachs said stiffly. "I just want to make sure you don't hurt our chances of finding those women."

"That's not gonna happen. There's no reason for you to get all ashy on me." Culbeau turned and lumbered away.

"Ashy?" Sachs asked.

"Means angry, you know."

She told Rhyme and told him about the encounter.

He dismissed it. "We don't have time to worry about the locals, Sachs. We've got to get on the trail. And fast. Get back here with what you've found."

As they sat in the boat on the way back over the canal Sachs asked, "How much trouble's he gonna be?"

"Culbeau?" Lucy responded. "He's lazy mostly. Smokes dope and drinks too much but he's never done worse than broke some jaws in public. We think he's got a still someplace and, even for a thousand bucks, I can't imagine him getting too far from it."

"What do he and his two cronies do?"

Jesse asked, "Oh, you saw them too? Well, Sean – that's the skinny one – and Rich don't have what you'd call real jobs. Scavenge and do day labor some. Harris Tomel's been to college – a couple years anyway. He's always trying to buy a business or put some deal together. Nothing ever pays out that I heard of. But all three of those boys have money and that means they're running 'shine."

"Moonshine? You don't bust 'em?"

After a moment Jesse said, "Sometimes, down here, you go lookin' for trouble. Sometimes you don't."

Which was a bit of law-enforcement philosophy that, Sachs knew, was hardly limited to the South.

They landed again on the south shore of the river, beside the crime scenes, and Sachs climbed out before Jesse could offer his hand, which he did anyway.

Suddenly a huge, dark shape came into view. A black motorized barge, forty feet long, eased down the canal, then passed them and headed into the river. She read on the side: DAVETT INDUSTRIES.

Sachs asked, "What's that?"

Lucy answered, "A company outside of town. They move shipments up the Intracoastal through the Dismal Swamp Canal and into Norfolk. Asphalt, tar paper, stuff like that."

Rhyme had heard this through the radio and said, "Let's ask if there was a shipment around the time of the killing. Get the name of the crew."

Sachs mentioned this to Lucy but she said, "I already did that. One of the first things Jim and I did." Her answer was clipped. "It was a negative. If you're interested we also canvassed everybody in town normally makes the commute along Canal Road and Route 112 here. Wasn't any help."

"That was a good idea," Sachs said.

"Just standard procedure," Lucy said coolly and strode back to her car like a homely girl in high school who'd finally managed to fling a searing put-down at the head cheerleader.

7

"I'm not letting him do anything until you get an air-conditioner in here."

"Thom, we don't have time for this," Rhyme spat out. Then told the workmen where to unload the instruments that had arrived from the state police.

Bell said, "Steve's out trying to dig one up. Isn't quite as easy as I thought."

"I don't need one."

Thom explained patiently. "I'm worried about dysreflexia."

"I don't remember hearing that temperature was bad for blood pressure, Thom," Rhyme said. "Did you read that somewhere? I didn't read it. Maybe you could show me where you read it."

"I don't need your sarcasm, Lincoln."

"Oh, I'm sarcastic, am I?"

The aide patiently said to Bell, "Heat causes tissue swelling. Swelling causes increased pressure and irritation. And that can lead to dysreflexia. Which can kill him. We need an air-conditioner. Simple as that."

Thom was the only one of Rhyme's care-giving aides who'd survived more than a few months in the service of the criminalist. The others had either quit or been peremptorily fired.

"Plug that in," Rhyme ordered a deputy who was wheeling a battered gas chromatograph into the corner.

"No." Thom crossed his arms and stood in front of the extension cord. The deputy saw the look on the aide's face and paused uneasily, not prepared for a confrontation with the persistent young man. "When we get the air-conditioner up and running… then we'll plug it in."

"Jesus Christ." Rhyme grimaced. One of the most frustrating aspects of being a quad is the inability to bleed off anger. After his accident Rhyme quickly came to realize how a simple act like walking or clenching our fists – not to mention flinging a heavy object or two (a favorite pastime of Rhyme's ex-wife, Elaine) – dissipates fury. "If I get angry I could start spasming or get contractures," Rhyme pointed out testily.

"Neither of which will kill you – the way dysreflexia will." Thom said this with a tactical cheerfulness that infuriated Rhyme all the more.

Bell gingerly said, "Gimme five minutes." He disappeared and the troopers continued to wheel in the equipment. The chromatograph went unelectrified for the moment.

Lincoln Rhyme surveyed the machinery. Wondered what it would be like to actually close his fingers around an object again. With his left ring finger he could touch and had a faint sense of pressure. But actually gripping something, feeling its texture, weight, temperature… those were unimaginable.

Terry Dobyns, the NYPD therapist, the man who'd been sitting at Rhyme's bedside when he'd awakened after the accident at a crime scene left him a quadriplegic, had explained to the criminalist all the clichéd stages of grief. Rhyme had been assured that he'd experience – and survive – all of them. But what the doctor hadn't told him was that certain stages sneak back. That you carried them around with you like sleeping viruses and that they might erupt at any time.

Over the past several years he'd re-experienced despair and denial.

Now, he was consumed with fury. Why, here were two kidnapped young women and a killer on the run. How badly he wanted to speed to the crime scene, walk the grid, pluck elusive evidence from the ground, gaze at it through the luxurious lenses of a compound microscope, punch the buttons of the computers and the other instruments, pace as he drew his conclusions.

He wanted to get to work without worrying that the fucking heat would kill him. He thought again about Dr. Weaver's magic hands, about the operation.

"You're quiet," Thom said cautiously. "What're you plotting?"

"I'm not plotting anything. Would you please plug in the gas chromatograph and turn it on? It needs time to warm up."

Thom hesitated then walked to the machine and got it running. He arranged the rest of the equipment on a fiberboard table.

Steve Farr walked into the office, lugging a huge Carrier air-conditioner. The deputy was apparently as strong as he was tall and the only clue to the effort was the red hue to his prominent ears.

He gasped, "Stole it from Planning and Zoning. We don't much like them."

Bell helped Farr mount the unit in the window and a moment later cold air was chugging into the room.

A figure appeared in the doorway – in fact, he filled the doorway. A man in his twenties. Massive shoulders, a prominent forehead. Six-five, close to three hundred pounds. For a difficult moment Rhyme thought this might be a relative of Garrett's and that the man had come to threaten them. But in a high, bashful voice he said, "I'm Ben?"

The three men stared at him as he glanced uneasily at Rhyme's wheelchair and legs.

Bell said, "Can I help you?"

"Well, I'm looking for Mr. Bell."

"I'm Sheriff Bell."

Eyes still surveying Rhyme's legs awkwardly. He glanced away quickly then cleared his throat and swallowed. "Oh, well, now. I'm Lucy Kerr's nephew?" He seemed to ask questions more than make statements.

"Ah, my forensics assistant!" Rhyme said. "Excellent! Just in time."

Another glance at the legs, the wheelchair. "Aunt Lucy didn't say…"

What was coming next? Rhyme wondered.

"… didn't say anything about forensics," he mumbled. "I'm just a student, post-grad at UNC in Avery. Uhm, what do you mean, sir, 'just in time'?" The question was directed to Rhyme but Ben was looking at the sheriff.

"I mean: Get over to that table. I've got samples coming in any minute and you have to help me analyze them."

"Samples… Okay. What kind of fish would that be?" he asked Bell.

"Fish?" Rhyme responded. "Fish?"

"What it is, sir," the big man said softly, still looking at Bell, "I'd be happy to help but I have to tell you, I have pretty limited experience."

"We're not talking about fish. We're talking crime scene samples! What'd you think?"

"Crime scene? Well, I didn't know," Ben told the sheriff.

"You can talk to me," Rhyme corrected sternly.

A rosy blush blossomed on the man's face and his eyes snapped to attention. His head seemed to shiver as he forced himself to look at Rhyme. "I was just… I mean, he's the sheriff."

Bell said, "But Lincoln here's running the show. He's a forensics scientist from New York. He's helping us out."

"Sure." Eyes on the wheelchair, eyes on Rhyme's legs, eyes on the sip-and-puff controller. Back to the safety of the floor.

Rhyme decided he hated this man, who was acting as if the criminalist were the oddest kind of circus freak.

And part of him hated Amelia Sachs too – for engineering this whole diversion and taking him away from his shark cells and Dr. Weaver's hands.

"Well, sir -"

"' Lincoln ' is fine."

"The thing is I specialize in marine sociozoology."

"Which is?" Rhyme asked impatiently.

"Basically, the behavior of marine animal life."

Oh, great, Rhyme thought. Not only do I get a crip-phobe for an assistant but I get one who's a fish shrink. "Well, it doesn't matter. You're a scientist. Principles are principles. Protocols are protocols. You've used a gas chromatograph?"

"Yessir."

"And compound and comparison microscopes?"

An affirmative nod though not as assertive as Rhyme would have liked. "But…" Looking at Bell for a moment then returning obediently to Rhyme's face. "… Aunt Lucy just asked me to stop by. I didn't know she meant I was supposed to help you on a case… I'm not really sure… I mean, I have classes -"

"Ben, you have to help us," Rhyme said curtly.

The sheriff explained, "Garrett Hanlon."

Ben let the name settle in his massive head somewhere. "Oh, that kid in Blackwater Landing."

The sheriff explained about the kidnappings and Ed Schaeffer's wasp attack.

"Gosh, I'm sorry about Ed," Ben said. "I met him once at Aunt Lucy's house and -"

"So we need you," Rhyme said, trying to steer the conversation back on track.

"We don't have a clue where he's gone with Lydia," the sheriff continued. "And we hardly have any time left to save those women. And, well, as you can see – Mr. Rhyme, he needs somebody to help him."

"Well…" A glance toward, but not at, Rhyme. "It's just I have this test coming up. I'm in school and all. Like I said."

Rhyme said patiently, "We don't really have any options here, Ben. Garrett's got three hours on us and he could kill either of his victims at any time – if he hasn't already."

The zoologist looked around the dusty room for a reprieve and found none. "Guess I can stick around for a little while, sir."

"Thank you," Rhyme said. He inhaled into the controller and swung around to the table on which the instruments rested. He stopped and surveyed them. He looked over at Ben. "Now, if you could just change my catheter we'll get to work."

The big man looked stricken. Whispered, "You want me to…"

"It's a joke," Thom said.

But Ben didn't smile. He just nodded uneasily and with the grace of a bison walked over to the chromatograph and began studying the control panel.

Sachs jogged into the impromptu lab in the County Building, Jesse Corn keeping up the speedy pace beside her.

Moving more leisurely, Lucy Kerr joined them a moment later. She said hello to her nephew Ben and introduced the huge man to Sachs and Jesse. Sachs held up one cluster of bags. "This is the evidence from Garrett's room," she said, then held up more bags. "This is from Blackwater Landing – the primary scene."

Rhyme looked at the bags but did so with some discouragement. Not only was there very little physical evidence but Rhyme was troubled again by what had occurred to him earlier: he had to analyze the clues without any firsthand knowledge of the surrounding area.

Fish out of water …

He had a thought.

"Ben, how long've you lived here?" the criminalist asked.

"All my life, sir."

"Good. What's this general area of the state called?"

He cleared his throat. "I guess the Northern Coastal Plain."

"You have any friends who're geologists who specialize in the area? Cartographers? Naturalists?"

"No. They're all marine biologists."

"Rhyme," Sachs said, "when we were at Blackwater Landing I saw that barge, remember? It was shipping asphalt or tar paper from a factory near here."

"Henry Davett's company," Lucy said.

Sachs asked, "Would they have a geologist on staff?"

"I don't know about that," Bell said, "but Davett, he's an engineer and's lived here for years. Probably knows the land as good as anybody."

"Give him a call, will you?"

"You bet." Bell disappeared. He returned a moment later. "I got Davett. There's no geologist on staff but he said he might be able to help. He'll be over in a half hour." Then the sheriff asked, "So, Lincoln, how do you want to handle the pursuit?"

"I'll be here, with you and Ben. We're going to go through the evidence. I want a small search party over at Blackwater Landing now – to where Jesse saw Garrett and Lydia disappear. I'll guide the team as best I can, depending on what the evidence shows."

"Who do you want on the team?"

"Sachs in charge," Rhyme said. "Lucy with her."

Bell nodded and Rhyme noticed that Lucy gave no reaction to these orders about the chain of command.

"I'd like to volunteer," Jesse Corn said quickly.

Bell looked at Rhyme, who nodded. Then he said, "Probably one other."

"Four people? That's all?" Bell asked, frowning. "Hell, I could get dozens of volunteers."

"No, less is better in a case like this."

"Who's the fourth?" Lucy asked. "Mason Germain?"

Rhyme looked at the doorway, could see nobody outside. He lowered his voice. "What's Mason's story? He's got some history. I don't like cops with histories. I like blank slates."

Bell shrugged. "The man's had a tough life. He grew up north of the Paquo – the wrong side of the tracks. Father tried to make a go of it at a couple businesses and then started running 'shine and when he got collared by revenuers he killed himself. Mason himself worked his way up from dust. There's an expression 'round here – too poor to paint, too proud to whitewash. That's Mason. He's always complaining about being held back, not getting what he wants. He's an ambitious man in a town that hasn't got any use for ambition."

Rhyme observed, "And he's gunning for Garrett."

"You got that right."

"Why?"

"Mason just about begged to be lead investigator on that case we were telling you about – the girl got stung to death in Blackwater. Meg Blanchard. Truth be told, I think the victim had, you know, some connection with Mason. Maybe they were going out. Maybe there was something else – I don't know. But he wanted to nail Garrett bad. But he just couldn't make the case against him. When it came time for the old sheriff to retire, the Board of Supervisors held that against him. I got the job and he didn't – even though he's older'n me and'd been on the force longer."

Rhyme shook his head. "We don't need hotheads in an operation like this. Pick somebody else."

"Ned Spoto?" Lucy suggested.

Bell shrugged. "He's a good man. Sure. Can shoot good but he also won't unless he for sure has to."

Rhyme said, "Just make sure Mason's nowhere near the search."

"He won't like it."

"That's not a consideration," Rhyme said. "Find something else for him to do. Something that sounds important."

"I'll do the best I can," Bell said uncertainly.

Steve Farr leaned into the doorway. "Just called the hospital," he announced. "Ed's still in critical condition."

"Has he said anything? About the map he saw?"

"Not a word. Still unconscious."

Rhyme turned to Sachs. "Okay… Get going. Hold up where the trail stops in Blackwater Landing and wait to hear from me."

Lucy was looking uncertainly at the bags of evidence. "You really think this's the way to find those girls?"

"I know it is," Rhyme answered shortly.

She said skeptically, "Seems a little too much like magic to me."

Rhyme laughed. "Oh, that's exactly what it is. Sleight of hand, pulling rabbits out of hats. But remember that illusion is based on… on what, Ben?"

The big man cleared his throat, blushed and shook his head. "Uhm, don't quite know what you mean, sir."

"Illusion's based on science. That's what." A glance at Sachs. "I'll call you as soon as I find something."

The two women and Jesse Corn left the evidence room.

And so, the precious evidence arrayed before him, the familiar equipment warmed up, internal politics disposed of, Lincoln Rhyme eased his head back against the wheelchair headrest and stared at the bags Sachs had delivered to him – willing, or coercing, or perhaps just allowing his mind to roam where his legs could not walk, to touch what his hands could not feel.

8

The deputies were talking. Mason Germain, arms crossed, leaning against the hallway wall beside the door that led to the Sheriff's Department deputy cubicles, could just hear their voices.

"How come we're just sitting here not doing anything?"

"No, no, no… Didn't you hear? Jim's sent out a search party."

"Yeah? No, I didn't hear that."

Goddamn, thought Mason. Who hadn't heard it either.

"Lucy, Ned and Jesse. And that lady cop from Washington."

"Naw, it's New York. You see that hair of hers?"

"I don't care 'bout that hair of hers. I care 'bout finding Mary Beth and Lydia."

"I do too. I'm just saying…"

Mason's gut tightened further. They only sent four people out after the Insect Boy? Was Bell crazy?

He stormed up the corridor, on his way to the sheriff's office, and nearly collided with Bell himself as he walked out of the storeroom – where that weird guy, the one in the wheelchair, was set up. Bell glanced at the senior deputy with a surprised blink.

"Hey, Mason… I was looking for you."

Not looking too hard, though, don't seem.

"I want you to get over to Rich Culbeau's place."

"Culbeau? What for?"

"Sue McConnell's offering some reward or 'nother for Mary Beth and he wants it. We don't need him to mess up the search. I want you to keep an eye on him. If he's not there just wait at his place till he shows up again."

Mason didn't even bother to respond to this bizarre request. "You sent Lucy out after Garrett. And didn't tell me."

Bell looked the deputy up and down. "She and a couple others're going over to Blackwater Landing, see if they can pick up his trail."

"You musta known I wanted to be in the search party."

"I can't send everybody. Culbeau's already been over to Blackwater Landing once today. I can't have him screwing up the search."

"Come on, Jim. Don't bullshit me."

Bell sighed. "All right. The truth? Being as you got a hard-on for that boy, Mason, I decided not to send you. I don't want any mistakes made. There're lives at stake. We've got to get him and get him fast."

"Which is my intent, Jim. As you ought to know. I been after this kid for three years. I can't believe you'd just cut me out and hand the case over to that freak in there -"

"Hey, enough of that."

"Come on. I know Blackwater ten times better'n Lucy. I used to live there. Remember?"

Bell lowered his voice. "You want him too bad, Mason. It could affect your judgment."

"Did you think of that? Or was it him?" Nodding to the room where Mason now heard the eerie whine of the wheelchair. It set him on edge like a dentist's drill. Bell asking that freak to help them out could cause all kinds of problems that Mason didn't even want to think about.

"Come on, facts is facts. The whole world knows how you feel about Garrett."

"And the whole world happens to agree with me."

"Well, the way I told you's the way it is. You're gonna have to live with it."

The deputy laughed bitterly. "So now I'm baby-sitting a redneck 'shiner."

Bell looked past Mason, motioned to another deputy. "Hey, Frank…"

The tall, round officer ambled over to the two men.

"Frank, you go with Mason here. Over to Rich Culbeau's."

"Gonna serve a warrant? What's he done now?"

"Naw, no papers. Mason'll fill you in. If Culbeau's not at his place just wait for him. And make sure him and his buddies don't go anywhere near the search party. You got that, Mason?"

The deputy didn't answer. He just turned and walked away from his boss, who called, "This's better for everybody."

Don't think so, Mason thought.

"Mason…"

But the man said nothing and strode into the deputies' room. Frank followed a moment later. Mason didn't acknowledge the cluster of uniformed men, talking about the Insect Boy and about pretty Mary Beth and about Billy Stail's incredible 92-yard runback. He walked to his office and dug a key out of his pocket. He unlocked his desk and took out an extra Speedloader, clipped in six.357 shells. He slipped the Speedloader into its leather case and hooked it to his belt. He stepped to the doorway of his office. His voice cut through the conversation in the room as he gestured toward Nathan Groomer – a strawberry-blond deputy of about thirty-five. "Groomer, I'm going to have a talk with Culbeau. You're coming with me."

"Well," Frank began slowly, holding the hat he'd fetched from his cubicle. "I thought Jim wanted me to go."

"I want Nathan," Mason said.

"Rich Culbeau?" Nathan asked. "Him and me're oil and water. I brought him in three times for DUI and hurt him some the last time. I'd take Frank."

"Yeah," agreed Frank. "Culbeau's cousin works with my wife's dad. He thinks I'm kin. He'll listen to me."

Mason looked coldly at Nathan. "I want you."

Frank tried again. "But Jim said -"

"And I want you now."

"Come on, Mason," Nathan said in a brittle voice. "There's no call to break your manners with me."

Mason was looking at an elaborate decoy – a mallard duck – on Nathan's desk, his most recent carving. That man has some talent, he thought. Then said to the deputy, "You ready?"

Nathan sighed, stood up.

Frank asked, "But whatta I tell Jim?"

Without responding, Mason walked out of the office, Nathan in tow, and headed toward Mason's squad car. They climbed in. Mason felt the heat bristle around him and he got the engine going and the AC blasting full up.

After they'd belted up, as the slogan on the side of the cruiser instructed all responsible citizens to do, Mason said, "Now, listen up. I -"

"Aw, come on, Mason, don't get that way. I was only telling you what made sense. I mean, last year Frank and Culbeau -"

"Just shut up and listen."

"Okay. I'll listen. Don't think you need to be talking that way… Okay. I'm listening. What's Culbeau done now?"

But Mason didn't answer. He asked, "Where's your Ruger?"

"My deer rifle? The M77?"

"Right."

"In my truck. At home."

"You got the Hitech 'scope mounted?"

"Course I do."

"We're gonna go get it."

They pulled out of the parking lot and as soon as they were on Main Street Mason hit the switch for the gumball machine – the revolving red and blue light on top of the car. Kept the siren off. He sped out of town.

Nathan tucked some Red Indian inside his cheek, which he couldn't do with Jim around but Mason didn't mind. "The Ruger… So. That's why you wanted me. Not Frank."

"That's right."

Nathan Groomer was the best rifle shot in the department, one of the best in Paquenoke County. Mason'd seen him bring down a ten-point buck at eight hundred yards.

"So. After I get the rifle we going to Culbeau's house?"

"No."

"Where we going?"

"We're going hunting."

"Nice houses here," Amelia Sachs observed.

She and Lucy Kerr were driving north along Canal Road, back to Blackwater Landing from downtown. Jesse Corn and Ned Spoto, a stocky deputy in his late thirties, were behind them in a second squad car.

Lucy glanced at the real estate overlooking the canal – the elegant new colonials Sachs had seen earlier – and said nothing.

Again Sachs was struck by the forlorn quality of the houses and yards, the absence of kids. Just like the streets of Tanner's Corner.

Children, she reflected again.

Then told herself: Let's not get into that.

Lucy turned right on Route 112 then off onto the shoulder – where they'd been just a half hour earlier, the ridge overlooking the crime scenes. Jesse Corn's squad car pulled in behind. The four of them walked down the embankment to the riverside and climbed into the skiff. Jesse took up the rowing position again, muttered, "Brother, north of the Paquo." He said this with an ominous tone that Sachs at first took to be a joke but then noticed that neither he nor the others were smiling. On the far side of the river they climbed out and followed Garrett's and Lydia 's footsteps to the hunting blind where Ed Schaeffer had been stung then about fifty feet past it into the woods, where the tracks vanished.

At Sachs' direction they fanned out, moving in increasingly large circles, looking for any signs of the direction Garrett had gone. They found nothing and returned to the place where the footprints disappeared.

Lucy said to Jesse, "You know that path? The one those druggies scooted down after Frank Sturgis found 'em over last year?"

He nodded. He said to Sachs, "It's about fifty yards north. That way." He pointed. "Garrett'd know about it probably and it's the best way to get through the woods and swamp here."

"Let's check it out," Ned said.

Sachs wondered how to best handle the impending conflict and decided there was only one way: head-on. Being overly delicate wouldn't work, not with three of them versus her alone (Jesse Corn being, she believed, only amorously in her camp). "We should stay here until we hear from Rhyme."

Jesse kept a faint smile on his face, tasting a morsel of divided loyalty.

Lucy shook her head. "Garrett had to've taken that path."

"We don't know that for sure," Sachs said.

"It does get a little thick 'round here," Jesse offered.

Ned said, "All that plume grass and tuckahoe and mountain holly. Lot of creeper too. You don't take that path, there's no way to get through here and make any time."

"We'll have to wait," Sachs said, thinking of a passage from Lincoln Rhyme's textbook on criminalistics, Physical Evidence:

More investigations involving a suspect at large are ruined by giving in to the impulse to move quickly and engage in hot pursuit when, in fact, in most cases, a slow examination of the evidence will point a clear path to the suspect's door and permit a safer and more efficient arrest.

Lucy Kerr said, "It's just that somebody from the city doesn't really understand the woods. You head off that path it'd slow your time by half. He had to've stuck to it."

"He could've doubled back to the riverbank," Sachs pointed out. "Maybe he had another boat hidden up – or downstream."

"That's true," Jesse said, earning a dark glance from Lucy.

A long moment of silence, the four people standing immobile while gnats strafed them and they sweated in the merciless heat.

Finally Sachs said simply, "We'll wait."

Sealing the decision, she sat on what was surely the most uncomfortable rock in the entire woods and, with feigned interest, studied a woodpecker drilling fiercely into a tall oak in front of them.

9

"Primary scene first," Rhyme called to Ben. "Blackwater."

He nodded at the cluster of evidence on the fiberboard table. "Let's do Garrett's running shoe first. The one he dropped when he snatched Lydia."

Ben picked it up, unzipped the plastic bag, started to reach inside.

"Gloves!" Rhyme ordered. "Always wear latex gloves when handling evidence."

"Because of fingerprints?" the zoologist asked, hurriedly pulling them on.

"That's one reason. The other's contamination. We don't want to confuse places you've been with places the perp has been."

"Sure. Right." Ben nodded his massive crew-cut head aggressively, as if he were fearful of forgetting this rule.

He shook the shoe, peered into it. "Looks like there's gravel or something inside."

"Hell, I didn't have Amelia ask for sterile examining boards." Rhyme looked around the room. "See that magazine there? People?"

Ben picked it up. Shook his head. "It's three weeks old."

"I don't care how current the stories about Leonardo DiCaprio's love life are," Rhyme muttered. "Pull out the subscription inserts inside… Don't you hate those things? But they're good for us – they come off the printing press nice and sterile, so they make good mini-examining boards."

Ben did as instructed and poured the dirt and stones onto the card.

"Put a sample in the microscope and let me take a look at it." Rhyme wheeled close to the table but the ocular piece was a few inches too high for him. "Damn."

Ben assessed the problem. "Maybe I could hold it for you to look in."

Rhyme gave a faint laugh. "It weighs close to thirty pounds. No, we'll have to find a – "

But the zoologist picked up the instrument and, with his massive arms, held the 'scope very steady. Rhyme couldn't, of course, turn the focusing knobs but he saw enough to give him an idea of what the evidence was. "Limestone chips and dust. Would that've come from Blackwater Landing?"

"Uhm," Ben said slowly, "doubt it. Mostly just mud and stuff."

"Run a sample of it through the chromatograph. I want to see what else is in there."

Ben mounted the sample inside and pressed the test button.

Chromatography is a criminalist's dream tool. Developed just after the turn of the century by a Russian botanist though not much used until the 1930s, the device analyzes compounds such as foods, drugs, blood and trace elements and isolates the pure elements in them. There are a half-dozen variations on the process but the most common type used in forensic science is the gas chromatograph, which burns a sample of evidence. The resulting vapors are then separated to indicate the component substances that make up the sample. In a forensic science lab the chromatograph is usually connected to a mass spectrometer, which can identify many of the substances specifically.

The gas chromatograph will only work with materials that can be vaporized – burned – at relatively low temperatures. The limestone wouldn't ignite, of course. But Rhyme wasn't interested in the rock; he was interested in what trace materials had adhered to the dirt and gravel. This would narrow down more specifically the places Garrett had been.

"It'll take a little while," Rhyme said. "While we're waiting let's look at the dirt in the treads of Garrett's shoe. I tell you, Ben, I love treads. Shoes, and tires too. They're like sponges. Remember that."

"Yessir. I will, sir."

"Dig some out and let's see if it comes from someplace different from Blackwater Landing."

Ben scraped the dirt onto another subscription card, which he held in front of Rhyme, who examined it carefully. As a forensic scientist, he knew the importance of dirt. It sticks to clothes, it leaves trails like Hansel's and Gretel's bread crumbs to and from a perp's house and it links criminal and crime scene as if they were shackled together. There are approximately 1,100 different shades of soil and if a sample from a crime scene is the identical color to the dirt in the perp's backyard the odds are good that the perp was there. Similarity in the composition of the soils can bolster the connection too. Locard, the great French criminalist, developed a forensics principle named after him, which holds that in every crime there is always some transfer between the perpetrator and the victim or the crime scene. Rhyme had found that, second to blood in the case of an invasive homicide or assault, dirt is the substance most often transferred.

However, the problem with dirt as evidence is that it's too prevalent. In order for it to have any meaning forensically a bit of dirt whose source might be the criminal must be different from the dirt found naturally at the crime scene.

The first step in dirt analysis is to check known soil from the scene – an exemplar – against the sample the criminalist believes came from the perp.

Rhyme explained this to Ben and the big man picked up one bag of dirt, which Sachs had marked Exemplar soil – Blackwater Landing, along with the date and time of collection. There was also a notation in a hand that was not Sachs'. Collected by Deputy J. Corn. Rhyme pictured the young deputy eagerly scurrying off to do her bidding. Ben poured some of this dirt onto a third subscription card. He set it beside the dirt he'd dug out of Garrett's treads. "How do we compare them?" the young man asked, looking over the instruments.

"Your eyes."

"But – "

"Just look at them. See if the color of the unknown sample is different from the color of the known."

"How do I do that?"

Rhyme forced himself to answer calmly. "You just look at them."

Ben stared at one pile, then the other.

Back again. Once more.

And then once again.

Come on, come on… it isn't that tricky. Rhyme struggled to be patient. One of the hardest things in the world for him.

"What do you see?" Rhyme asked. "Is the dirt from the two scenes different?"

"Well, I can't exactly tell, sir. I think one's lighter."

"'Scope them in the comparison."

Ben mounted the samples in a comparison microscope and looked through the eyepieces. "I'm not sure. Hard to say. I guess… maybe there is some difference."

"Let me see."

Once again the massive muscles held the large microscope steady and Rhyme peered into the eyepieces. "Definitely different from the known," Rhyme said. "Lighter-colored. And it has more crystal in it. More granite and clay and different types of vegetation. So it's not from Blackwater Landing… If we're lucky it came from his hidey-hole."

A faint smile crossed Ben's lips, the first Rhyme had seen.

"What?"

"Oh, well, that's what we call the cave a moray eel takes for his home…" The young man's smile vanished as Rhyme's stare told him that this was not the time or place for anecdotes.

The criminalist said, "When you get the results of the limestone on the chromatograph run the dirt from the treads."

"Yessir."

A moment later the screen of the computer attached to the chromatograph/spectrometer flickered and lines shaped like mountains and valleys appeared. Then a window popped up and the criminalist maneuvered closer in his wheelchair. He bumped a table and the Storm Arrow jerked to the left, jostling Rhyme. "Shit."

Ben's eyes went wide with alarm. "Are you all right, sir?"

"Yes, yes, yes," Rhyme muttered. "What's that fucking table doing there? We don't need it."

"I'll get it out of the way," Ben blurted, grabbing the heavy table with one hand as if it were made of balsa wood and stashing it in the corner. "Sorry, I should've thought of that."

Rhyme ignored the zoologist's uncomfortable contrition and scanned the screen. "Large amounts of nitrates, phosphates and ammonia."

This was very troubling but Rhyme said nothing just yet; he wanted to see what substances were in the dirt that Ben had dug out of the treads. And shortly these results too were on the screen.

Rhyme sighed. "More nitrates, more ammonia – a lot of it. High concentrations again. Also, more phosphates. Detergent too. And something else… What the hell is that?"

"Where?" Ben asked, leaning toward the screen.

"At the bottom. The database's identified it as camphene. You ever hear of that?"

"No, sir."

"Well, Garrett walked through some of it, whatever it is." He looked at the evidence bag. "Now, what else do we have? That white tissue Sachs found…"

Ben picked up the bag, held it close to Rhyme. There was a lot of blood on the tissue. He glanced at the other tissue sample – the Kleenex that Sachs had found in Garrett's room. "They the same?"

"Look the same," Ben said. "Both white, both the same size."

Rhyme said, "Give them to Jim Bell. Tell him I want a DNA analysis. The drive-through variety."

"The, uhm… what's that, sir?"

"The down-and-dirty DNA, the polymerase chain reaction. We don't have time for the RFLP – that's the one-in-six-billion version. I just want to know if it's Billy Stail's blood or somebody else's. Have somebody scrounge up samples from Billy Stail's body and from Mary Beth and Lydia."

"Samples? Of what?"

Rhyme forced himself once more to remain patient. "Of genetic material. Any tissue from Billy's body. For the women, getting some hair would be the easiest – as long as the bulb's attached. Have a deputy pick up a brush or comb from Mary Beth's and Lydia 's bathrooms and get it over to the same lab that's running the test on the Kleenex."

The man took the bag and left the room. He returned a moment later. "They'll have it in an hour or two, sir. They're going to send it to the med center in Avery, not to the state police. Deputy Bell, I mean, Sheriff Bell, thought that would be easier."

"An hour?" Rhyme muttered, grimacing. "Way too long."

He couldn't help wondering if this delay might be just long enough to keep them from finding the Insect Boy before he killed Lydia or Mary Beth.

Ben stood with his bulky arms at his sides. "Uhm, I could call them back. I told 'em how important it was but… Do you want me to?"

"That's okay, Ben. We'll keep going here. Thom, time for our charts."

The aide wrote on the blackboard as Rhyme dictated to him.

FOUND AT PRIMARY CRIME SCENE -

BLACKWATER LANDING

Kleenex with Blood

Limestone Dust

Nitrates

Phosphate

Ammonia

Detergent

Camphene

Rhyme gazed at it. More questions than answers…

Fish out of water…

His eye fell on the pile of dirt that Ben had dug out of the boy's shoe. Then something occurred to him. "Jim!" he shouted, his voice booming and startling both Thom and Ben. "Jim! Where the hell is he? Jim!!"

"What?" The sheriff came running into the room, alarmed. "Something wrong?"

"How many people work in the building here?"

"I don't know. 'Bout twenty."

"And they live all over the county?"

"More'n that. Some travel from Pasquotank, Albemarle and Chowan."

"I want 'em all down here now."

"What?"

"Everybody in the building. I want soil samples from their shoes… Wait: And the floor mats in their cars."

"Soil…"

"Soil! Dirt! Mud! You know. I want it now!"

Bell retreated. Rhyme said to Ben, "That rack? Over there?"

The zoologist lumbered toward the table on which was a long rack holding a number of test tubes.

"It's a density-gradient tester. It profiles the specific gravity of materials like dirt."

He nodded. "I've heard of it. Never used one."

"It's easy. Those bottles there -" Rhyme was looking toward two dark glass bottles. One labeled tetra, the other ethanol. "You're going to mix those the way I tell you and fill up the tubes close to the top."

"Okay. What's that going to do?"

"Start mixing. I'll tell you when we're through."

Ben mixed the chemicals according to Rhyme's instructions and then filled twenty of the tubes with alternating bands of different-colored liquids – the ethanol and the tetrabromoethane.

"Pour a little of the soil sample from Garrett's shoe into the tube on the left. The soil'll separate and that'll give us a profile. We'll get samples from employees here who live in different areas of the county. If any of them match Garrett's that means the dirt he picked up could be from nearby."

Bell arrived with the first of the employees and Rhyme explained what he was going to do. The sheriff grinned in admiration. "That's an idea and a half, Lincoln. Cousin Roland knew what he was doing when he sang your praises."

But the half hour spent on this exercise was futile. None of the samples submitted from the people in the building matched the dirt in the treads of Garrett's shoe. Rhyme scowled as the last sample of dirt from the employees settled into the tube.

"Damn."

"Was a good try though," Bell said.

A waste of precious time.

"Should I pitch out the samples?" Ben asked.

"No. Never throw out your exemplars without recording them," he said firmly. Then remembered not to be too abrasive in his instructions; the big man was here only by the grace of family ties. "Thom, help us out. Sachs asked for a Polaroid camera from the state. It's got to be here someplace. Find it and take close-ups of all the tubes. Mark down the name of each employee on the back of the pictures."

The aide found the camera and went to work.

"Now let's analyze what Sachs found at Garrett's foster parents' house. The pants in that bag – see if there's anything in the cuffs."

Ben carefully opened the plastic bag and examined the trousers. "Yessir, some pine needles."

"Good. Did they fall off the branches or are they cut?"

"Cut, looks like."

"Excellent. That means he did something to them. He cut them on purpose. And that purpose may have to do with the crime. We don't know what that is yet but I'd guess it's camouflage."

"I smell skunk," Ben said, sniffing the clothes.

Rhyme said, "That's what Amelia said. Doesn't do us any good, though. Not yet anyway."

"Why not?" the zoologist asked.

"Because there's no way to link a wild animal to a specific location. A stationary skunk would be helpful; a mobile one isn't. Let's look at the trace on the clothes. Cut a couple pieces of the pants and run them through the chromatograph."

While they waited for the results Rhyme examined the rest of the evidence from the boy's room. "Let me see that notebook, Thom." The aide flipped through the pages for Rhyme. They contained only bad drawings of insects. He shook his head. Nothing helpful there.

"Those other books?" Rhyme nodded toward the four hardbound books Sachs had found in his room. One – The Miniature World – had been read so often it was falling apart. Rhyme noticed passages were circled or underlined or marked with asterisks. But none of the passages gave any clue as to where the boy might have spent time. They seemed to be trivia about insects. He told Thom to put them aside.

Rhyme then looked over what Garrett had hidden in the wasp jar: money, pictures of Mary Beth and of the boy's family. The old key. The fishing line.

The cash was just a crumpled mass of fives and tens and silver dollars. There were, Rhyme noted, no helpful jottings in the margins of the bills (where many criminals write messages or plans – a fast way to get rid of incriminating instructions to co-conspirators is to buy something and send the note off into the black hole of circulation). Rhyme had Ben run the PoliLight – an alternative light source – over the money and found that both the paper and the silver dollars contained easily a hundred different partial fingerprints, too many to provide any helpful clues. There was no price sticker on the picture frame or fishing line and thus no way to trace them to stores Garrett might've frequented.

"Three-pound-test fishing line," Rhyme commented, looking at the spool. "That's light, isn't it, Ben?"

"Hardly catch a bluegill with that, sir."

The results of the trace on the boy's slacks flickered onto the computer screen. Rhyme read aloud: "Kerosene, more ammonia, more nitrates and that camphene again. Another chart, Thom, if you'd be so kind."

He dictated.

FOUND AT SECOND CRIME SCENE -

GARETT'S ROOM

Skunk Musk

Cut Pine Needles

Drawings of Insects

Pictures of Mary Beth and Family

Insect Books

Fishing Line

Money

Unknown Key

Kerosene

Ammonia

Nitrates

Camphene

Rhyme stared at the charts. Finally he said, "Thom, make a call. Mel Cooper."

The aide picked up the phone, dialed from memory.

Cooper, who worked with NYPD forensics, weighed in at probably half Ben's weight. He looked like a timid actuary and he was one of the top forensic lab men in the country.

"Can you speaker me, Thom?"

A button was pushed and a moment later the soft tenor of Cooper's voice said, "Hello, Lincoln. Something tells me you're not in the hospital."

"How'd you figure that one out, Mel?"

"Didn't take much deductive reasoning. Caller ID says Paquenoke County Government Building. Delaying your operation?"

"No. Just helping out on a case here. Listen, Mel, I don't have much time and I need some information about a substance called camphene. Ever hear of it?"

"No. But hold on. I'll go into the database."

Rhyme heard frantic clicking. Cooper was also the fastest keyboarder Rhyme had ever met.

"Okay, here we go… Interesting…"

"I don't need interesting, Mel. I need facts."

"It's a terpene – carbon and hydrogen. Derived from plants. It used to be an ingredient in pesticides but it was banned in the early eighties. Its main use was in the late 1800s. It was used for fuel in lamps. It was state-of-the-art at the time – replaced whale oil. Common as natural gas back then. You're trying to track down an unsub?"

"He's not an unknown subject, Mel. He's extremely known. We just can't find him. Old lamps? So trace camphene probably means that he's been hiding out someplace built in the nineteenth century."

"Likely. But there's another possibility. Says here that camphene's only present use is in fragrances."

"What sort?"

"Perfumes, aftershave and cosmetics mostly."

Rhyme considered this. "What percentage of a finished fragrance product is camphene?" he asked.

"Trace only. Parts per thousand."

Rhyme had always told his forensic teams never to be afraid to make bold deductions in analyzing the evidence. Still, he was painfully aware of the short time the two women might have to live and he felt they had only enough resources now to pursue one of these potential leads.

"We'll have to play the odds on this one," he announced. "We'll assume the camphene's from old lanterns, not fragrances, and act accordingly. Now, listen, Mel, I'm also going to be sending you a photocopy of a key. I need you to trace it."

"Easy. From a car?"

"I don't know."

"House?"

"Don't know."

"Recent?"

"No clue."

Cooper said dubiously, "May be less easy than I thought. But get it to me and I'll do what I can."

When they disconnected, Rhyme ordered Ben to photocopy both sides of the key and fax it to Cooper. Then he tried Sachs on the radio. It wasn't working. He called her on her cell phone.

"'Lo?"

"Sachs, it's me."

"What's wrong with the radio?" she asked.

"There's no reception."

"Which way should we go, Rhyme? We're across the river but we lost the trail. And, frankly" – her voice fell to a whisper – "the natives're restless. Lucy wants to boil me for dinner."

"I've got the basic analysis done but I don't know what to do with all the data – I'm waiting for that man from the factory in Blackwater Landing. Henry Davett. He should be here any minute. But listen, Sachs, there's something else I have to tell you. I found significant trace of ammonia and nitrates on Garrett's clothes and in the shoe he lost."

"A bomb?" she asked, her hollow voice revealing her dismay.

"Looks that way. And that fishing line you found's too light to do any serious fishing. I think he's using it for trip wires to set off the device. Go slow. Look for traps. If you see something that looks like a clue just remember that it might be rigged."

"Will do, Rhyme."

"Sit tight. I hope to have some directions for you soon."

Garrett and Lydia had covered another three or four miles.

The sun was high now. It was noon maybe, or close to it, and the day was hot as a tailpipe. The bottled water that Lydia had drunk at the quarry had quickly leached from her system and she was faint from the heat and thirst.

As if he sensed this Garrett said, "We'll be there soon. It's cooler. And I got more water."

The ground was open here. Broken forests, marshes. No houses, no roads. There were many old paths branching in different directions. It would be almost impossible for anyone searching for them to figure out which way they'd gone – the paths were like a maze.

Garrett nodded down one of these narrow paths, rocks to the left, a twenty-foot drop off to the right. They walked about a half-mile along this route and then he stopped. He looked back.

When he seemed satisfied that no one was nearby he stepped into the bushes and returned with a nylon string – like thin fishing line – that he ran across the path just above the ground. It was nearly impossible to see. He connected it to a stick, which in turn propped up a three- or four-gallon glass bottle, filled with a milky liquid. There was some residue on the side and she got a whiff of it – ammonia. She was horrified. Was it a bomb? she wondered. As a nurse on ER duty she'd treated several teenagers who'd been hurt making homemade explosives. She remembered how their blackened skin had actually been shattered by the detonation.

"You can't do that," she whispered.

"I don't want any shit from you." He snapped his fingernails. "I'm gonna finish up here and then we're going home."

Home?

Lydia stared, numb, at the large bottle as he covered it with boughs.

Garrett pulled her down the path once more. Despite the increasing heat of the day he was moving faster now and she struggled to keep up with Garrett, who seemed to get dirtier by the minute, covered with dust and flecks of dead leaves. It was as if he were slowly turning into an insect himself every step they got farther from civilization. It reminded her of some story she was supposed to read in school but never finished.

"Up there." Garrett nodded toward a hill. "There's a place we'll stay. Go on to the ocean in the morning."

Her uniform was soaked with sweat. The top two buttons of the white outfit were undone and the white of her bra was visible. The boy kept glancing at the rounded skin of her breasts. But she hardly cared; at the moment she wanted only to escape from the Outside, to get into some cooling shade, wherever he was taking her.

Fifteen minutes later they broke from the woods and into a clearing. In front of them was an old gristmill, surrounded by reeds, cattails, tall grass. It sat beside a stream that had largely been taken over by the swamp. One wing of the mill had burnt down. Amid the rubble stood a scorched chimney – what was called a " Sherman Monument," after the Union general who burned houses and buildings during his march to the sea, leaving a landscape of blackened chimneys behind him.

Garrett led her into the front part of the mill, the portion that had been untouched by the fire. He pushed her through the doorway and swung the heavy oak door shut, bolted it. For a long moment he stood listening. When he seemed satisfied that no one was following he handed her another bottle of water. She fought the urge to gulp down the whole container. She filled her mouth, let it sit, feeling the sting against her parched mouth, then swallowed slowly.

When she finished he took the bottle away from her, untaped her hands and retaped them behind her back. "You have to do that?" she asked angrily.

He rolled his eyes at the foolishness of the question. He eased her to the floor. "Sit there and keep your goddamn mouth shut." Garrett sat against the opposite wall and closed his eyes. Lydia cocked her head toward the window and listened for the sounds of helicopters or swamp boats or the baying of the search party's dogs. But she heard only Garrett's breathing, which she decided in her despair was really the sound of God Himself abandoning her.

10

A figure appeared in the doorway, accompanying Jim Bell.

He was a man in his fifties, thinning hair and a round, distinguished face. A blue blazer was over his arm and his white shirt was perfectly pressed and heavily starched though darkened with sweat stains under the arms. A striped tie was stuck in place with a bar.

Rhyme had thought this might be Henry Davett but the criminalist's eyes were one aspect of his physical body that had come through his accident unscathed – his vision was perfect – and he read the monogram on the man's tie bar from ten feet away: WWJD.

William? Walter? Wayne?

Rhyme didn't have a clue who he might be.

The man looked at Rhyme, squinted appraisingly and nodded. Then Jim Bell said, "Henry, I'd like you to meet Lincoln Rhyme."

So, not a monogram. This was Davett. Rhyme nodded back to the man, concluding that the tie bar had probably been his father's. William Ward Jonathan Davett.

He stepped into the room. His fast eyes took in the equipment. "Ah, you know chromatographs?" Rhyme asked, observing a flicker of recognition.

"My Research and Development Department has a couple of them. But this model…" He shook his head critically. "They don't even make it anymore. Why're you using it?"

"State budget, Henry," Bell said.

"I'll send one over."

"Not necessary."

"This is garbage," the man said gruffly. "I'll get a new one here in twenty minutes."

Rhyme said, "Getting the evidence isn't the problem. Interpreting it is. That's why I can use your help. This is Ben Kerr, my forensic assistant."

They shook hands. Ben seemed relieved that another able-bodied person was in the room.

"Sit down, Henry," Bell said, rolling an office chair up to him. The man sat and, leaning forward somewhat, carefully smoothed his tie. The gesture, his posture, the tiny dots of his confident eyes coalesced in Rhyme's perception and he thought: charming, smart… and one hell of a tough businessman.

Rhyme wondered again about WWJD. He wasn't sure he'd solved the puzzle.

"This is about those women who got kidnapped, isn't it?"

Bell nodded. "Nobody's really coming right out and saying it but in the back of our minds…" He looked at Rhyme and Ben. "… We're thinking Garrett might've already raped and killed Mary Beth, dumped her body someplace."

Twenty-four hours…

The sheriff continued, "But we've still got a chance to save Lydia, we're hoping. And we have to stop Garrett before he goes after somebody else."

The businessman said angrily, "And Billy, that was such a shame. I heard he was just being a Good Samaritan, trying to save Mary Beth, and got himself killed."

"Garrett crushed his head in with a shovel. It was pretty bad."

"So time's at a premium. What can I do?" Davett turned to Rhyme. "You said interpreting something?"

"We have some clues as to where Garrett's been and where he might be headed with Lydia. I was hoping you might know something about the area around here and might be able to help us."

Davett nodded. "I know the lay of the land pretty well. I have geology and chemical engineering degrees. I've also lived in Tanner's Corner all my life so I'm pretty familiar with Paquenoke County."

Rhyme nodded toward the evidence charts. "Can you look at those and give us any thoughts? We're trying to link those clues to a specific location."

Bell added, "It'll probably be someplace they could get to by foot. Garrett doesn't like cars. He won't drive."

Davett put on eyeglasses and eased his head back, looking up at the wall.

FOUND AT PRIMARY CRIME SCENE -

BLACKWATER LANDING

Kleenex with Blood

Limestone Dust

Nitrates

Phosphate

Ammonia

Detergent

Camphene

FOUND AT SECONDARY CRIME SCENE -

GARETT'S ROOM

Skunk Musk

Cut Pine Needles

Drawings of Insects

Pictures of Mary Beth and Family

Insect Books

Fishing Line

Money

Unknown Key

Kerosene

Ammonia

Nitrates

Camphene

Davett scanned the list up and down, taking his time, eyes narrowing several times. A faint frown. "Nitrates and ammonia? You know what that could be?"

Rhyme nodded. "I think he left some explosive devices to stop the search party. I've told them about it."

Grimacing, Davett returned to the chart. "The camphene… I think that was used in old lanterns. Like coal-oil lamps."

"That's right. So we think the place he's got Mary Beth is old. Nineteenth century."

"There must be thousands of old houses and barns and shacks around here… What else? Limestone dust… That's not going to narrow things down much. There's a huge ridge of limestone that runs all the way through Paquenoke County. It used to be a big moneymaker here." He rose and moved his finger diagonally along the map from the southern edge of the Great Dismal Swamp to the southwest, from Location L-4 to C-14. "You could find limestone anywhere along that line. That won't do you much good. But" – he stepped back, crossed his arms – "the phosphate's helpful. North Carolina 's a major producer of phosphate but it's not mined around here. That's farther south. So, combined with the detergent, I'd say he's been near polluted water."

"Hell," Jim Bell said, "that just means he's been in the Paquenoke."

"No," Davett said, "the Paquo's clean as well water. It's dark but it's fed by the Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond."

"Oh, it's magic water," the sheriff said.

"What's that?" Rhyme asked.

Davett explained. "Some of us old-timers call the water from the Great Dismal magic water. It's full of tannic acid from decaying cypress and juniper trees. The acid kills bacteria so it stays fresh for a long time – before refrigeration they'd use it for drinking water on sailing ships. People used to think it had magic properties."

"So," Rhyme said, never much interested in local myths if they couldn't help him forensically, "if it's not the Paquenoke, where would the phosphates place him?"

Davett looked at Bell. "Where'd he kidnap the girl most recently?"

"Same place as Mary Beth. Blackwater Landing." Bell touched the map and then moved his finger north to Location H-9. "Crossed the river, went to a hunting blind about here then headed north a half-mile. Then the search party lost the trail. They're waiting for us to give them directions."

"Oh, then there's no question," Davett said with encouraging confidence. The businessman moved his finger to the east. "He crossed Stone Creek. Here. See it? Some of the waterfalls there look like foam on beer, there's so much detergent and phosphate in the water. It starts out near Hobeth Falls up north and there's a ton of runoff. They don't know a thing about planning and zoning in that town."

"Good," Rhyme said. "Now, once he crossed the creek, any thoughts about which way he'd go?"

Davett again consulted the chart. "If you found pine needles I'd have to guess this way." Tapping the map at I-5 and J-8. "There's pine everywhere in North Carolina but around here most of the forests are oak, old-growth cedar, cypress and gum. The only big pine forest I know of is northeast. Here. On the way to the Great Dismal." Davett stared at the charts for a moment longer, shook his head. "Not much else I can say, I'm afraid. How many search parties you have out?"

"One," Rhyme said.

"What?" Davett turned to him, frowning. "Just one? You're joking."

"No," Bell said, sounding defensive under the man's firm cross-examination.

"Well, how big is it?"

"Four deputies," Bell said.

Davett scoffed. "That's crazy." He waved at the map. "You've got hundreds of square miles. This's Garrett Hanlon… the Insect Boy. He just about lives north of the Paquo. He can outmaneuver you in a minute."

The sheriff cleared his throat. "Mr. Rhyme here thinks it's better not to use too many people."

"You can't use too many people in a situation like this," Davett said to Rhyme. "You should take fifty men, give them rifles and have them beat the bushes till you find him. You're doing it all wrong."

Rhyme noticed that Ben observed Davett's lecture with a mortified expression. The zoologist would, of course, assume that one had to take the kid-glove approach when arguing with crips. The criminalist, though, said calmly, "A big manhunt would just drive Garrett to kill Lydia and then go to ground."

"No," Davett said emphatically, "it'd scare him into letting her go. I've got about forty-five people working a shift at the factory now. Well, a dozen are women. We couldn't get them involved. But the men… Let me get them out. We'll find some guns. Turn them loose around Stone Creek."

Rhyme could just imagine what thirty or forty amateur bounty hunters would do in a search like this. He shook his head. "No, this is the way to handle it."

Their eyes met and for a moment there was a thick silence in the room. Davett shrugged and looked away first but this disengagement was not a concession that Rhyme might be correct. It was just the opposite: an emphatic protest that by ignoring his advice Rhyme and Bell were proceeding at their own peril.

"Henry," Bell said, "I agreed to let Mr. Rhyme run the show. We're pretty thankful to him."

Part of the sheriff's comments were intended for Rhyme himself – implicitly apologizing for Davett.

But for his part Rhyme was delighted to be on the receiving end of Davett's bluntness. It was a shocking admission for him but Rhyme, who believed not at all in omens, felt the man's presence now was a sign – that the surgery would go well and would have some beneficial effect on his condition. He felt this because of the brief exchange that had just occurred – in which this tough businessman had looked him in the eye and told him he was dead-wrong. Davett didn't even notice Rhyme's condition; all he saw was Rhyme's actions, his decision, his attitude. His damaged body was irrelevant to Davett. Dr. Weaver's magic hands would move him a step closer to a place where more people would treat him this way.

The businessman said, "I'll pray for those girls." Then turned to Rhyme. "I'll pray for you too, sir." The glance lasted a moment longer than a valediction normally would and Rhyme sensed the last promise was meant sincerely – and literally. He walked out the door.

"Henry's a bit opinionated," Bell said when Davett had left.

"And he's got his own interests here, right?" Rhyme asked.

"The girl who died from the hornets last year. Meg Blanchard…"

Got herself stung 137 times. Rhyme nodded.

Bell continued, "She worked for Henry's company. Went to the same church he and his family belong to, too. He's no different from most folks here – he thinks the town'd be better off without Garrett Hanlon in it. He just tends to think his way is the best way to handle things."

Church… prayer… Rhyme suddenly understood something. He said to Bell, "Davett's tie bar. The J stands for Jesus?"

Bell laughed. "You got that right. Oh, Henry'd drive a competitor out of business without a blink but he's a deacon in church. Goes three times a week or so. One of the reasons he'd like to send an army out after Garrett is that he's thinking that the boy's probably a heathen."

Rhyme still couldn't figure out the rest of the initials. "I give up. What're the other letters?"

"Stands for 'What Would Jesus Do?' That's what all those good Christians 'round here ask themselves when they're facing a big decision. I myself don't have a clue what He'd do in a case like this. But I'll tell you what I'm doing: calling up Lucy and your friend and gettin' ' em on Garrett's trail."

• • •

"Stone Creek?" Jesse Corn said after Sachs had relayed Rhyme's message to the search party. The deputy pointed. "A half-mile that way."

He started through the brush, followed by Lucy and Amelia. Ned Spoto was in the rear, his pale eyes scanning the surroundings uneasily.

In five minutes they broke out of the tangle and stepped onto a well-trod path. Jesse motioned them along it, to the right – east.

"This is the path?" Sachs asked Lucy. "The one you thought he'd gone down?"

"That's right," Lucy responded.

"You were right," Sachs said quietly, for her ears only. "But we still had to wait."

"No, you had to show who was in charge," Lucy said brusquely.

That's absolutely right, Sachs thought. Then added: "But now we know there's probably a bomb on the trail. We didn't know that before."

"I would've been looking for traps anyway." Lucy fell silent and she continued along the path, eyes fixed on the ground, proving that she would, in fact, have been looking.

In ten minutes they came to Stone Creek, its water milky and frothing with pollutant suds. On the bank they found two sets of footprints – sneaker prints in a small size, but deep, probably left by a heavyset woman. Lydia, undoubtedly. And a man's bare feet. Garrett had apparently discarded his remaining shoe.

"Let's cross here," Jesse said. "I know the pine woods that Mr. Rhyme mentioned. This's the shortest way to get to them."

Sachs started toward the water.

"Stop!" Jesse called abruptly.

She froze, hand on her pistol, crouching. "What's the matter?" she asked. Lucy and Ned, snickering at her reaction, were sitting on rocks, taking off their shoes and socks.

"You get your socks wet and keep walking," Lucy said, "you'll be standing in need of about a dozen bandages 'fore you go a hundred yards. Blisters."

"Don't know much 'bout hiking, do you?" Ned asked the policewoman.

Jesse Corn gave an exasperated laugh at his fellow deputy. "'Cause she lives in the city, Ned. Just like I don't figure you'd be an expert on subways and skyscrapers."

Sachs ignored both the chide and the gallant defense, and pulled off her short boots and black ankle-length socks. Rolled her jeans cuffs up.

They started through the stream. The water was ice-cold and felt wonderful. She regretted when the short trek through the creek – which Jesse pronounced "crick" – was over.

They waited a few minutes on the other side for their feet to dry then pulled on socks and shoes. Then searched the shore until they found the footprints once more. The party followed the trail into the woods but, as the ground grew drier and more tangled with brush, they lost the tracks.

"The pine trees're that way," Jesse said. He pointed northeast. "Makes the most sense for them to go straight through there."

Following his general guidance, they hiked for another twenty minutes, single-file, scanning the ground for trip wires. Then the oak and holly and sedge gave way to juniper and hemlock. Ahead of them, a quarter mile, was a huge line of pine trees. But there was no longer any sign of the kidnapper's or his victim's footprints – no clue as to where they'd entered the forest.

"Too damn big," Lucy muttered. "How're we going to find the trail in there?"

"Let's fan out," Ned suggested. He too looked dismayed at the tangle of flora in front of them. "If he's left a bomb here it'll be the dickens to see it."

They were about to spread out when Sachs lifted her head. "Wait. Stay here," she ordered then started slowly through the brush, eyes on the ground, looking for traps. Only fifty feet away from the deputies, in a grove of some flowering trees, now barren and surrounded by rotting petals, she found Garrett's and Lydia's footprints in the dusty earth. They led to a clear path that headed into the forest.

"They came this way!" she called. "Follow my footprints. I checked it for traps."

A moment later the three deputies joined her.

"How'd you find it?" asked infatuated Jesse Corn.

"What do you smell?" she asked.

"Skunk," Ned said.

Sachs said, "Garrett had skunk scent on the pants I found in his house. I figured he'd come this way before. I just followed the smell here."

Jesse laughed and said to Ned, "How's that for a city girl?"

Ned rolled his eyes and they all started up the path, moving slowly toward the line of pine trees.

Several times along this route they passed large, barren areas – the trees and bushes were dead. Sachs felt uneasy as they trekked through these – the search party was completely exposed to attack. Halfway through the second clearing, and after another bad scare when an animal or bird rustled the brush ringing the bare dirt, she pulled out her cell phone.

"Rhyme, you there?"

"What is it? Found anything?"

"We've picked up the trail. But tell me – did any of the evidence point to Garrett doing any shooting?"

"No," he answered. "Why?"

"There're some big barren patches in the woods here – acid rain or pollution's killed all the plants. We have zero cover. It's a perfect place for an ambush."

"I don't see any trace that's consistent with firearms. We've got the nitrates but if that was from ammunition we'd've found burnt powder grains, cleaning solvent, grease, cordite, fulminate of mercury. There's none of that."

"Which just means he hasn't fired a weapon in a while," she said.

"True."

She hung up.

Looking around cautiously now, skittish, they walked for several miles more, surrounded by the turpentiney scent of the air. Lulled by the heat, the buzzing of insects, they were still on the path that Garrett and Lydia had started along, though their footsteps were no longer visible. Sachs wondered if they'd missed -

"Stop!" Lucy Kerr cried. She dropped to her knees. Ned and Jesse froze. Sachs drew her pistol in a fraction of a second. Then she noticed what Lucy was referring to – the silvery glimmer of a wire across the path.

"Man," Ned said, "how'd you see that? It's full-up invisible."

Lucy didn't respond. She crawled to the side of the path, following the wire. Gently pulled aside bushes. Hot, crisp leaves rustled as she lifted them out one by one.

"Want me to get the bomb squad over here from Elizabeth City?" Jesse asked.

"Shhhh," Lucy ordered.

The deputy's careful hands moved aside the leaves a millimeter at a time.

Sachs was holding her breath. In a recent case she'd been the victim of an antipersonnel bomb. She hadn't been badly injured but she remembered that in a portion of a second the astonishing noise, the heat, the pressure wave and debris had enveloped her completely. She didn't want that to happen again. She knew too that many homemade pipe bombs were filled with BBs or ball bearings – sometimes dimes or pennies – as deadly shrapnel. Would Garrett do this too? She remembered his picture: his dim, sunken eyes. She remembered the jars of insects. Remembered the death of that woman in Blackwater Landing – stung to death. Remembered Ed Schaeffer in a wasp-venom coma. Yes, she decided, Garrett would definitely rig the most vicious trap he could think of.

She cringed as Lucy eased the last leaf off the pile. The deputy sighed, sat back on her haunches. "It's a spider," she muttered.

Sachs saw it too. It wasn't fishing line at all, just a long string of web.

They rose to their feet.

"Spider," Ned said, laughing. Jesse chuckled too.

But their voices were humorless and, Sachs noticed, as they started down the path once more each one of them carefully lifted their feet well over the glistening strand.

Lincoln Rhyme, head back, eyes squinting at the chalkboard.

FOUND AT SECONDARY CRIME SCENE -

GARETT'S ROOM

Skunk Musk

Cut Pine Needles

Drawings of Insects

Pictures of Mary Beth and Family

Insect Books

Fishing Line

Money

Unknown Key

Kerosene

Ammonia

Nitrates

Camphene

He sighed angrily. Felt completely helpless. The evidence was inexplicable to him.

His eyes focused on: Insect Books.

Then glanced at Ben. "So. You're a student, are you?"

"That's right, sir."

"Read a lot, I'll bet."

"How I spend most of my time – if I'm not in the field."

Rhyme was gazing at the spines of the books that Amelia had brought from Garrett's room. He mused, "What do a person's favorite books say about them? Other than the obvious – that they're interested in the subject of the books, I mean."

"How's that?"

"Well, if a person has mostly self-help books, that says one thing about them. If he's got mostly novels, that says something else. These books of Garrett's are all nonfiction guidebooks. What do you make of that?"

"I wouldn't know, sir." The big man glanced once at Rhyme's legs – involuntarily, it seemed – then he turned his attention to the evidence chart. He mumbled, "I can't really figure out people. Animals make a lot more sense to me. They're a lot more social, more predictable, more consistent than people. Hell of a lot more clever too." Then he realized he was rambling and, with a ruddy blush, stopped talking.

Rhyme glanced again at the books. "Thom, could you get me the turning frame?" Rigged to an ECU – an environmental-control unit – that Rhyme could manipulate with his one working finger, the device used a rubber armature to turn pages of books. "It's in the van, isn't it?"

"I think so."

"I hope you packed it. I told you to pack it."

"I said I think it is," the aide said evenly. "I'll go see if it's there." He left the room.

Hell of a lot more clever too…

Thom returned a moment later with the turning frame.

"Ben," Rhyme called. "That book on top?"

"There?" the big man asked, staring at the books. It was the Field Guide to Insects of North Carolina.

"Put it in the frame." He stepped on his urgency. "If you would be so kind."

The aide showed Ben how to mount the book then plugged a different set of wires into the ECU underneath Rhyme's left hand.

He read the first page, found nothing helpful. Then his mind ordered his ring finger to move. An impulse shot from the brain, spiraled down through a tiny surviving axon in his spinal cord, past a million of its dead kin, then streaked along Rhyme's arm and into his hand.

The finger flicked a fraction of an inch.

The armature's own finger slid sideways. The page turned.

11

They followed the path through the forest, surrounded by the oily scent of pine and the sweet fragrance from one of the plants they passed. Lucy Kerr recognized it as a chicken grape.

As she stared at the path in front of them, looking for trip wires, she was suddenly aware that they hadn't seen any of Garrett's or Lydia 's footprints for a long time. She swatted what she thought was a bug on her neck but it turned out to be just a rivulet of sweat, tickling as it ran down her skin. Lucy felt dirty today. Other times – evenings and days off – she loved to be outside, in her garden. As soon as she got home from her tour at the Sheriff's Department she would pull on her faded plaid shorts and T-shirt and navy-blue running shoes that trailed stitching and would go to work in one of the three cuts of property surrounding her pale green colonial home that Bud had eagerly signed over to her outright as part of the divorce, laid low by a fever of guilt. There Lucy tended her long-spurred violets, yellow lady slippers, fringed orchids and orange bell lilies. She scooped dirt, led plants up trellises, watered them and whispered encouragements as if she were speaking to the children she'd been so certain she and Buddy would one day have.

Sometimes, after an assignment took her into the Carolina hinterland, serving a warrant or inquiring why the Honda or Toyota hidden in someone's garage happened to be owned by someone else, Lucy would notice a fledgling plant and, the police work disposed of, would uproot it and take it home with her like a foundling. She'd adopted her Solomon's seal this way. A tuckahoe plant too. And a beautiful indigo bush, which had grown six feet tall under her care.

Her eyes now slipped to what she was presently passing on this anxious pursuit of theirs: an elderberry, a mountain holly, plume grass. They passed a nice evening primrose, then some cattails and wild rice – taller than any of the search party and with leaves sharp as knives. And here was a squaw root, a parasitic herb. Which Lucy Kerr also knew by another name: cancer root. She glanced at that one once then looked back to the trail.

The path led to a steep hill – a series of rocks about twenty feet high. Lucy scaled the incline easily but at the top she stopped. Thinking, No, something's wrong here.

Beside her, Amelia Sachs climbed up to the plateau, paused. A moment later Jesse and Ned appeared. Jesse was breathing hard but Ned, a swimmer and outdoorsman, was taking the hike in stride.

"What is it?" Amelia asked Lucy, assessing the frown.

"This doesn't make any sense. For Garrett to come this way."

"We've been following the path, like Mr. Rhyme told us," Jesse said. "It's the only stretch of pine we've come across. Garrett's prints were leading this way."

"They were. But we haven't seen them for a while."

"Why don't you think he'd come this way?" Amelia asked.

"Look what's growing here." She pointed. "More and more swamp plants. And now we're on this rise we can see the ground better – look how marshy it's getting. Come on, think about it, Jesse. Where's this going to get Garrett? We're headed right for the Great Dismal."

"What's that?" Amelia asked her. "The Great Dismal?"

"A huge swamp, one of the biggest on the East Coast," Ned explained.

Lucy continued, "There's no cover there, no houses, no roads. The best he could do would be to slog his way into Virginia but that'd take days."

Ned Spoto added, "And this time of year, they don't make enough insect repellent to keep you from getting eaten alive. Not to mention snakes."

"Anyplace around here they could hide in? Caves? Houses?" Sachs looked around.

Ned said, "No caverns. Maybe a few old buildings. But what's happened is the water table's changed. The swamp's coming this way and a lot of the old houses and cabins're submerged. Lucy's right. If Garrett came this way he's heading for a dead end."

Lucy said, "I think we ought to turn around."

She thought that Amelia'd throw a hissy fit at this suggestion but the woman simply pulled out her cell phone and made a call. She said into the phone, "We're in the pine forest, Rhyme. There's a path but we can't find any sign that Garrett came along here. Lucy says it doesn't make any sense for him to come this way. She says it's mostly swamp northeast of here. There's no place for him to go."

Lucy said, "I'm thinking he'd head west. Or south, back across the river."

"That way he could get to Millerton," Jesse suggested.

Lucy nodded. "Couple of big factories around there closed when the companies took their business to Mexico. Banks foreclosed on a lot of property. There're dozens of abandoned houses he could hide in."

"Or southeast," Jesse suggested. "That's where I'd go – follow Route 112 or the rail line. There's a slew of old houses and barns that way too."

Amelia repeated this to Rhyme.

As Lucy Kerr thought: What a strange man he is, so terribly afflicted and yet so supremely confident.

The policewoman from New York listened then hung up. " Lincoln says to keep going. The evidence doesn't suggest he went in those directions."

"Not like there aren't any pine trees to the west and south," Lucy snapped.

But the redhead was shaking her head. "That might be logical but it's not what the evidence shows. We keep going."

Ned and Jesse were looking from one woman to the other. Lucy glanced at Jesse's face and saw the ridiculous crush; she obviously wasn't going to get any support from him. She dug in. "No. I think we should go back, see if we can find where they turned off the path."

Amelia lowered her head, stared right into Lucy's eyes. "I'll tell you what… We can call Jim Bell if you want."

A reminder that Jim had declared that that damn Lincoln Rhyme was running the operation and that he'd put Amelia in charge of the search party. This was crazy – a man and woman who'd probably never been in the Tar Heel State before this, two people who knew nothing of the people or the geography of the area, telling lifelong residents how to do their job.

But Lucy Kerr knew that she'd signed on to do a job where, like the army, you followed the chain of command. "All right," she muttered angrily. "But for the record I'm against going that way. It doesn't make any sense." She turned and started along the path, leaving the others behind. Her footsteps growing silent suddenly as she walked over a thick blanket of pine needles that covered the path.

Amelia's phone rang and she slowed as she took the call. Lucy strode quickly ahead of her, over the thick bed of needles, trying to control her anger. There was no way Garrett Hanlon would come this way. It was a waste of time. They should have dogs. They should call Elizabeth City and get the state police choppers out. They should -

Then the world became a blur and she was tumbling forward, giving a short scream – her hands outstretched to catch her fall. "Jesus!"

Lucy fell hard onto the path, the breath knocked out of her, pine needles digging into her palms.

"Don't move," Amelia Sachs said, climbing to her feet after tackling the deputy.

"What the hell d'you do that for?" Lucy gasped, her hands stinging from the impact with the ground.

"Don't move! Ned and Jesse, you either."

Ned and Jesse froze, hands on their weapons, looking around, not sure what was going on.

Amelia, wincing as she stood, stepped cautiously off the pine needles and found a long stick in the woods, picked it up. She moved forward slowly, slipping the branch into the ground.

Two feet in front of Lucy, where she'd been about to step, the stick disappeared through a pile of pine boughs. "It's a trap."

"But there's no trip wire," Lucy said. "I was looking."

Carefully Amelia lifted away the boughs and the needles. They rested on a network of fishing line and covered a pit about two feet deep.

"The fish line wasn't a trip wire," Ned said. "It was to make that – a deadfall pit. Lucy, you nearly stepped right in it."

"And inside? There a bomb?" Jesse asked.

Amelia said to him, "Let me have your flashlight." He handed it to her. She shined the beam into the hole then backed up quickly.

"What is it?" Lucy asked.

"No bomb," Amelia responded. "Hornets' nest."

Ned looked. "Christ, what a bastard…"

Amelia carefully lifted off the rest of the boughs, exposing the hole and the nest, which was about the size of a football.

"Man," Ned muttered, closing his eyes, undoubtedly considering what it would have been like to find a hundred stinging wasps clustered around your thighs and waist.

Lucy rubbed her hands together – they smarted from the fall. She rose to her feet. "How'd you know?"

"I didn't. That was Lincoln on the phone. He was reading through Garrett's books. There was an underlined passage about some insect called an ant lion. It digs a pit and stings its enemy to death when it falls in. Garrett had circled it and the ink was just a few days old. Rhyme remembered the cut pine needles and the fishing line. He figured that the boy might dig a trap and told me to look for a bed of pine boughs on the path."

"Let's burn the nest out," Jesse said.

"No," Amelia said.

"But it's dangerous."

Lucy agreed with the policewoman. "A fire'd give away our position and Garrett'd know where we are. Just leave it uncovered so people can see it. We'll come back afterward and take care of it. Hardly anybody comes along here anyway."

Amelia nodded. She made a call on her phone. "We found it, Rhyme. Nobody got hurt. There was no bomb – he put a hornets' nest inside… Okay. We'll be careful… Keep reading that book. Let us know if you find anything else."

They started down the path once more and covered a good quarter mile before Lucy found it in her to say, "Thanks. Y'all were right about him coming this way. I was wrong." She hesitated for another long moment then added, "Jim made a good choice – bringing you down from New York for this. I wasn't real crazy about it at first but I won't argue with results."

Amelia frowned. "Bringing us down? What do you mean?"

"To help out."

"Jim didn't do that."

"What?" Lucy asked.

"No, no, we were over at the medical center in Avery. Lincoln 's having some surgery. Jim heard we were going to be here so he came by this morning to ask if we'd look at some evidence."

A long pause. Then Lucy gave a laugh as the relief flooded through her. "I thought he'd scrounged up county money to fly y'all down here after the kidnapping yesterday."

Amelia shook her head. "The surgery's not till day after tomorrow. We had some free time. That's all."

"That boy – Jim. He never said a word about it. He can be the quiet one sometimes."

"You were worried he didn't think you could handle the case?"

"I guess that's exactly what I thought."

"Jim's cousin works with us in New York. He told Jim we were coming down for a couple of weeks."

"Wait, you mean Roland?" Lucy asked. "Sure, I know him. Knew his wife too, before she passed. His boys're dears."

"Had them over for a barbecue not long ago," Amelia said.

Lucy laughed again. "I guess I was being paranoid here… So, you were over at Avery? The medical center?"

"That's right."

"That's where Lydia Johansson works. You know, she's a nurse there."

"I didn't."

A dozen memories flickered through Lucy Kerr's mind. Some she was warmly touched by, some she wanted to avoid like the swarm of wasps she'd nearly stirred up in Garrett's trap. She didn't know whether she wanted to tell any of this to Amelia Sachs or not. What she settled for was: "That's why I'm pretty eager to save her. I had some medical problems a few years ago and Lydia was one of my nurses. She's a good person. The best."

"We'll save her," Amelia said, and she said it with a tone that Lucy sometimes – not often, but sometimes – heard in her own voice. A tone that didn't leave any doubt.

They walked more slowly now. The trap had spooked them all. And the heat was truly excruciating.

Lucy asked Amelia, "That surgery your friend's going to have? It's for his… situation?"

"Yep."

"What's that look?" Lucy asked, noticing a darkness cross the woman's face.

"It probably won't do anything."

"Then why's he doing it?"

Amelia explained, "There's a chance it might help. Small chance. It's experimental. Nobody with the kind of injury he has – as serious as that – has ever improved."

"And you don't want him to go through with it?"

"I don't, no."

"Why not?"

Amelia hesitated. "Because it could kill him. Or make him even worse."

"You talked to him about it?"

"Yes."

"But it didn't do any good," Lucy said.

"Not a bit."

Lucy nodded. "I figured he's a man who's a bit muley."

Amelia said, "That's putting it mildly."

A crash sounded near them, in the brush, and by the time Lucy's hand found her pistol Amelia had drawn a careful bead on a wild turkey's chest. The four members of the search party smiled but the amusement lasted for only a moment, replaced by edginess as adrenaline eased through their hearts.

Guns replaced in holsters, eyes scanning the path, they continued forward, conversation on hold for the time being.

• • •

There were several categories people fell into when it came to Rhyme's injury.

Some took the joking, in-your-face approach. Crip humor, no prisoners taken.

Some, like Henry Davett, ignored his condition completely.

Most did what Ben was doing – tried to pretend that Rhyme didn't exist and prayed that they could escape at the earliest possible moment.

It was this response that Rhyme hated the most – it was one of the most blatant reminders of how different he was. But he had no time to dwell on his surrogate assistant's attitude. Garrett was leading Lydia deeper and deeper into the wilderness. And Mary Beth McConnell might be close to dying from suffocation or dehydration or a wound.

Jim Bell walked into the room. "Maybe there's some good news from the hospital. Ed Schaeffer said something to one of the nurses. Went unconscious again right after but I'm taking it as a good sign."

"What'd he say?" Rhyme asked. "Something he'd seen on that map?"

"She said it sounded like 'important.' Then 'olive.'" Bell walked to the map. Touched a location to the southeast of Tanner's Corner. "There's a development here. They named the roads after plants and fruits and things. One of them's Olive Street. But that's way south of Stone Creek. Should I tell Lucy and Amelia to check it out? I think we ought to."

Ah, the eternal conflict, Rhyme reflected: trust evidence or trust witnesses? If he picked wrong, Lydia or Mary Beth might die. "They should stay where they are, north of the river."

"You sure?" Bell asked doubtfully.

"Yes."

"Okay," Bell said.

The phone rang and with a firm press of his left ring finger Rhyme answered it.

Sachs' voice clattered into his headset. "We're at a dead end, Rhyme. There're four or five paths here, going in different directions, and we don't have a clue which way Garrett went."

"I don't have anything more for you, Sachs. We're trying to identify more of the evidence."

"Nothing more in the books?"

"Nothing specific. But it's fascinating – they're pretty serious reading for a sixteen-year-old. He's smarter than I would have figured. Where are you exactly, Sachs?" Rhyme looked up. "Ben! Go to the map, please."

He aimed his massive frame at the wall and took up a position beside it.

Sachs consulted someone else in the search party. Then said, "About four miles northeast of where we forded Stone Creek, pretty much in a straight line."

Rhyme repeated this to Ben, who put his hand on a part of the map. Location J-7.

Near Ben's massive forefinger was an unidentified L-shaped formation. "Ben, you have any idea what that square is?"

"Think that's the old quarry."

"Oh, Jesus," Rhyme muttered, shaking his head in frustration.

"What?" Ben asked, alarmed that he'd done something wrong.

"Why the hell didn't anybody tell me there was a quarry near there?"

Ben's round face looked even more puffed up than it had been; he was taking the accusation personally. "I didn't really…"

But Rhyme wasn't even listening. There was no one to blame but himself for this lapse. Someone had told him about the quarry – Henry Davett, when he'd said that limestone was big business in the area at one time. How else do companies produce commercial limestone? Rhyme should've asked about a quarry as soon as he'd heard that. And the nitrates weren't from pipe bombs at all but from blasting out rock – that kind of residue would last for decades.

He said into the phone, "There's an abandoned quarry not far from you. To the southwest."

A pause. Faint words. She said, "Jesse knows about it."

"Garrett was there. I don't know if he still is. So be careful. And remember he may not be leaving bombs but he's rigging traps. Call me when you find something."

Now that Lydia was away from the Outside and wasn't as sick from heat and exhaustion, she realized that she had the Inside to contend with. And that was proving to be just as frightening.

Her captor would pace for a while, look out the window, then squat on his haunches, clicking his fingernails and muttering to himself, looking over her body, then go back to pacing. Once, Garrett glanced down at the floor of the mill and picked up something. He slipped it into his mouth, chewed hungrily. She wondered if it was an insect and the thought of this nearly made her vomit.

They were in what seemed to have been the office of the mill. From here she could look down a corridor, partly burnt in the fire, to another series of rooms – probably the grain storage and the grinding rooms. Brilliant afternoon light flowed through the burnt-out walls and ceiling of the hallway.

Something orange caught her eye. She squinted and saw bags of Doritos. Also Cape Cod potato chips. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. And more of those Planters peanut-butter-and-cheese cracker packages he'd had at the quarry. Sodas and Deer Park water. She hadn't seen them when they first entered the mill.

Why all this food? How long would they be staying here? Garrett had said just for the night but there were enough provisions for a month's stay. Was he going to keep her here longer than he'd originally told her?

Lydia asked, "Is Mary Beth all right? Have you hurt her?"

"Oh, yeah, like I'm going to hurt her," he said sarcastically. "I don't think so." Lydia turned away and studied the shafts of light piercing the remains of the corridor. From beyond it came a squeaking sound – the revolving millstone, she guessed.

Garrett continued, offering: "The only reason I took her away is to make sure she's okay. She wanted to get out of Tanner's Corner. She likes it at the beach. I mean, fuck, who wouldn't? Better than shitty Tanner's Corner." Snapping his nails faster now, louder. He was agitated and nervous. With his huge hands he ripped open one of the bags of chips. He ate several handfuls, chewing them sloppily, bits falling from his mouth. He drank down an entire can of Coke at once. Ate more chips.

"This place burned down two years ago," he said. "I don't know who did it. You like that sound? The waterwheel? It's pretty cool. The wheel going round and round. Like, reminds me of this song my father used to sing around the house all the time. 'Big wheel keep on turning …'" He shoveled more food into his mouth and started speaking. She couldn't understand him for a moment. He swallowed. " – here a lot. You sit here at night, listen to the cicada and the bloodnouns – you know, the bullfrogs. If I'm going all the way to the ocean – like now – I spend the night here. You'll like it at night." He stopped talking and leaned toward her suddenly. Too scared to look directly at him, she kept her eyes downcast but sensed he was studying her closely. Then, in an instant, he leapt up and crouched close beside her.

Lydia winced as she smelled his body odor. She waited for his hands to crawl over her chest, between her legs.

But he wasn't interested in her, it seemed. Garrett moved aside a rock and lifted something out from underneath.

"A millipede." He smiled. The creature was long and yellow-green and the sight of it sickened her.

"They feel neat. I like them." He let it climb over his hand and wrist. "They're not insects," he lectured. "They're like cousins. They're dangerous if you try to hurt them. Their bite is really bad. The Indians around here used to grind them up and put the poison on arrowheads. When a millipede is scared it shits poison and then escapes. A predator crawls through the gas and dies. That's pretty wild, huh?"

Garrett grew silent and studied the millipede intently, the way Lydia herself would look at her niece and nephew – with affection, amusement, almost love.

Lydia felt the horror rising in her. She knew she should stay calm, knew she shouldn't antagonize Garrett, should just play along with him. But seeing that disgusting bug slither over his arm, hearing his fingernails click, watching his blotched skin and wet, red eyes, the flecks of food on his chin, she convulsed in panic.

As the disgust and the fear boiled up in her Lydia imagined she heard a faint voice, urging, "Yes, yes, yes!" A voice that could only belong to a guardian angel.

Yes, yes, yes!

She rolled onto her back. Garrett looked up, smiling from the sensation of the animal on his skin, curious about what she was doing. And Lydia lashed out as hard as she could with both feet. She had strong legs, used to carrying her big frame for eight-hour shifts at the hospital, and the kick sent him tumbling backward. He hit his head against the wall with a dull thud and rolled to the floor, stunned. Then he cried out, a raw scream, and grabbed his arm; the millipede must have bit him.

Yes! Lydia thought triumphantly as she rolled upright. She struggled to her feet and ran blindly toward the grinding room at the end of the corridor.

12

According to Jesse Corn's reckoning they were almost to the quarry.

"About five minutes ahead," he told Sachs. Then he glanced at her twice and after some tacit debate said, "You know, I was going to ask you… When you drew your weapon, when that turkey came outa the brush. Well, and at Blackwater Landing too when Rich Culbeau surprised us… That was… well, that was something. You know how to drive a nail, looks like."

She knew, from Roland Bell, the Southern expression meant "to shoot."

"One of my hobbies," she said.

"Nofoolin'."

"Easier than running," she said. "Cheaper than joining a health club."

"You in competition?"

Sachs nodded. " North Shore Pistol Club on Long Island."

"How 'bout that," he said with a daunting enthusiasm. "NRA Bullseye matches?"

"Right."

"That's my sport too! Well, skeet and trap, course. But sidearms're my specialty."

Hers too but she thought it best not to find too much in common with adoring Jesse Corn.

"You reload your own ammo?" he asked.

"Uh-huh. Well, the.38s and.45s. Not the rimfire, of course. Getting the bubbles out of slugs – that's the big problem."

"Whoa, you're not telling me you cast your own bullets?"

"I do," she admitted, recalling that when everyone else's apartment in her building smelled of waffles and bacon on Sunday morning hers often was redolent of the unique aroma of molten lead.

"I don't do that," he said apologetically. "I buy match rounds."

They walked for another few minutes in silence, all eyes on the ground, looking for more deadfall traps.

"So," Jesse Corn said, offering a coy grin, swiping his blond hair off his damp forehead. "I'll show you mine…" Sachs looked at him quizzically and he continued. "I mean, what's your best score? On the Bull's-eye circuit?" When she hesitated he encouraged: "Come on, you can tell me. It's only a sport… And, hey, I've been competing for ten years. I got a little edge on you."

"Twenty-seven hundred," Sachs said.

Jesse nodded. "Right, that's the match I mean – the three-pistol rotation, nine hundred points max for each gun. What's your best?"

"No, that's my score," she said, wincing as a jolt of arthritic pain coursed through her stiff legs. "Twenty-seven hundred."

Jesse turned to her, looking for signs of a joke. When she didn't grin or guffaw, he exhaled a fast laugh. "But that's a perfect score."

"Oh, I don't shoot that every match. But you asked what my best was."

"But…" His eyes were wide. "I've never even met anybody shot a twenty-seven hundred."

"You have now," Ned said, laughing hard. "And don't feel bad, Jess – it's only a sport."

"Twenty-seven…" The young deputy shook his head.

Sachs decided she should have lied. With this information about her ballistic prowess it seemed that Jesse Corn's love for her was sealed.

"Say, after this is over," he said shyly, "you have some free time, maybe you and me could go out to the range, waste us some ammo."

And Sachs thought: Better a box of Winchester.38 specials than a cup of Starbucks accompanied by talk of how hard it is to meet women in Tanner's Corner.

"Let's see how things go."

"It's a date," he said, using the word she'd hoped wouldn't surface.

"There," Lucy said. "Look." They stopped at the edge of the forest and saw the quarry in front of them.

Sachs motioned them into a crouch. Damn, that hurts. She popped condroitin and glucosamine daily but this Carolina humidity and heat – it was hell on her poor joints. She gazed at the huge pit – two hundred yards across and easily a hundred feet deep. The walls were yellow, like old bone, and they dropped straight down into green, brackish water that smelled sour. The vegetation for twenty yards around the perimeter had died bad deaths.

"Keep clear of the water," Lucy warned in a whisper. "It's bad. Kids used to swim here. Not long after they shut it down. My nephew did once – Ben's younger brother. But I just showed him the coroner's picture from when they fished Kevin Dobbs out after he'd drowned and been in the water for a week. Never went back."

"I think Dr. Spock recommends that approach," Sachs said. Lucy laughed.

Sachs, thinking about children again.

Not now, not now…

Her phone vibrated. As they'd gotten closer to their prey she'd turned off the ringer. She answered. Rhyme's voice crackled, "Sachs. Where are you?"

"The rim of the quarry," she whispered.

"Any sign of him?"

"We just got here. Nothing yet. We're about to start searching. All the buildings've been torn down and I don't see anywhere he could be hiding. But there're a dozen places he could've left a trap."

"Sachs…"

"What is it, Rhyme?" His solemn tone chilled her.

"There's something I have to tell you. I just got the DNA and serologic results from the medical center. On that Kleenex you found at the scene this morning."

"And?"

"It was Garrett's semen all right. And the blood – it was Mary Beth's."

"He raped her," Sachs whispered.

"Be careful, Sachs, but move fast. I don't think Lydia has much time left."

She was hiding in a dark, filthy bin that had been used to store grain long ago.

Hands behind her, still dizzy from the heat and dehydration, Lydia Johansson had stumbled down the bright corridor away from where Garrett lay writhing and had found this hiding space on the floor below the grinding room. When she slipped inside and closed the door a dozen mice had skittered over her feet and it took every ounce of willpower within her to keep from screaming.

Now listening for Garrett's footsteps over the low-gear sound of the grinding wheel nearby.

Panic was filling her and she was starting to regret her defiant escape. But there was no going back, she decided. She'd hurt Garrett and now he was going to hurt her back if he found her. Maybe do worse. There was nothing to do but try to escape.

No, she decided, that wasn't the right way to think. One of her angel books said there was no such thing as "trying to." You either did or you didn't. She wasn't going to try to get away. She was going to escape. She just had to have faith.

Lydia looked through a crack in the bin door, listened carefully. She heard him in one of the rooms nearby, muttering to himself and ripping open bins and closet doors. She'd hoped that he'd think she'd run outside through the collapsed wall in the burnt-out corridor but it was obvious from his methodical search that he knew she was still here. She couldn't stay in the storage closet any longer. He'd find her. She glanced out through a crack in the door and, not seeing him, she slipped out of the bin and ran into an adjoining room, moving silently on her white sneakers. The only exit from this room was a stairway leading up to the second floor. She staggered up it, gasping for breath and, not having her hands for balance, bounding off the walls and the wrought-iron railing.

She heard his voice echoing in the corridor. "You made him bite me!" he cried. "It hurts, it hurts."

Wish it had stung you in the eye or crotch, she thought and struggled up the stairs. Fuck you fuck you fuck you!

She heard him ripping open closet doors in the room below. Heard his guttural moaning. Imagined she could hear the snick, snick of his nails.

That shiver of panic again. Nausea swelling.

The room at the top of the stairs was large and had a number of windows facing the burnt portion of the mill. There was one door, which was unlocked, and she pushed it open, stepped into the grinding area itself – two large millstones sat in the center. The wooden mechanism was rotted; the sound she'd heard wasn't the stones but the waterwheel, powered by the diverted stream. It still turned slowly. Rust-colored water cascaded off it into a deep, narrow pit, like a well. Lydia couldn't see the bottom. The water must've drained back into the stream somewhere below the surface.

"Stop!" Garrett cried.

She jumped in shock at the angry sound. He stood in the doorway. His eyes were red and wide and he was cradling his arm, on which was a huge black-and-yellow bruise. "You made it sting me," he muttered, staring at her with hatred. "It's dead. You made me kill it! I didn't want to but you made me! Now get your ass downstairs. I've gotta tape your legs up now."

He started forward.

She looked at his bony face, brows knit together, his huge hands, his angry eyes. Into her thoughts came a burst of images: a cancer patient of hers, slowly wasting to death. Mary Beth McConnell locked away somewhere. The boy madly chewing his chips. The scuttling millipede. The fingernails snapping. The Outside. Her long nights alone, waiting – desperately – for a brief phone call from her boyfriend. Taking the flowers to Blackwater Landing, even though she didn't really want to…

It was all too much for her.

"Wait," Lydia said placidly.

He blinked. Stopped walking.

She smiled at him – the way she'd smile at a terminal patient – and, sending a good-bye prayer to her boyfriend, Lydia, hands still bound behind her, plunged headfirst into the narrow pit of dark water.

The crosshairs of the Hitech telescopic sight rested on the redheaded cop's shoulders.

That was some hair, Mason Germain thought.

He and Nathan Groomer were on a rise overlooking the old Anderson Rock Products quarry. About a hundred yards away from the search party.

Nathan finally stated the conclusion he must've come to a half hour ago. "This don't have anything to do with Rich Culbeau."

"No, it doesn't. Not exactly."

"What's that mean? 'Not exactly'?"

"Culbeau's out here someplace. With Sean O'Sarian -"

"That boy's scarier than two Culbeaus."

"No argument there," Mason said. "And Harris Tomel too. But that's not what we're doing."

Nathan looked back at the deputies and the redhead. "Guess not. Why're you sighting down on Lucy Kerr with my gun?"

After a moment Mason handed back the Ruger M77 and said, "'Cause I didn't bring my fucking binoculars. And it wasn't Lucy I was looking at."

They started along the ridge. Mason was thinking about the redhead. Thinking about pretty Mary Beth McConnell. And Lydia. Thinking too how sometimes life just doesn't go the way you want it to. Mason Germain knew, for instance, that he should've advanced further than senior deputy by now. He knew he should've handled his request for promotion different. Just like he should've handled things different when Kelley left him for that trucker five years ago and, for that matter, handled his whole marriage different before she left him.

And should've handled the first Garrett Hanlon case a lot different too. The case where Meg Blanchard woke from her nap and found the hornets clustered on her chest and face and arms… One hundred thirty-seven stings and a terrible slow death.

Now he was paying for those bad choices. His life was just a series of still days, worrying, sitting on his porch and drinking too much, not even finding the energy to put his boat in the Paquo and go after bass. Trying desperately to figure out how to fix what maybe couldn't be fixed. He -

"So you gonna tell me what we're doing?" Nathan asked.

"We're looking for Culbeau."

"But you just said…" Nathan's voice faded. When Mason said nothing else the deputy sighed loudly. "Culbeau's house, where we're s'posed to be, is six or seven miles away and here we are north of the Paquo, me with my deer gun and you with that zipped mouth of yours."

"I'm saying if Jim asks, we were out here looking for Culbeau," Mason said.

"And what we're really doing is…?"

Nathan Groomer could prune trees at five hundred yards with this Ruger of his. He could charm a point-five-oh DUI out of his car in three minutes. He could carve decoys that'd sell for five hundred bucks each to collectors if he ever bothered to try to sell any. But his talents and smarts didn't go much beyond that.

"We're going to get that boy," Mason said.

"Garrett."

"Yeah, Garrett. Who else? They're going to flush him for us." Nodding toward the redhead and the deputies. "And we're going to get him."

"Whatta you mean by 'get'?"

"You're going to shoot him, Nathan. And kill him dead as a stick."

"Shoot him?"

"Yessir," Mason said.

"Hold on there. You're not ramshagging my career 'cause you're hot to get that boy."

"You don't have a career," Mason snapped. "You got a job. And if you want to keep it you'll do what I'm telling you. Listen here – I've talked to him. Garrett. During those other investigations, when he killed those people."

"Yeah. Did you? I guess you would, sure."

"And know what he told me?"

"No. What?"

Mason was trying to think if this was credible. Then recalling Nathan's dog-eyed concentration as he spent hour after hour sanding the back of a pinewood duck, lost in happy oblivion, the senior deputy continued, "Garrett said if he was standing in need to he'd kill any law tried to stop him."

"He said that? That boy?"

"Yep. Looked me right in the eye and said so. And said he was looking forward to it too. Hoped I was in the lead but he'd take anybody that happened to be handy."

"That son of a bitch. You tell Jim?"

"Course I did. You think I wouldn't? But he didn't pay it a lick of mind. I like Jim Bell. You know I do. But the truth is he's more concerned about keeping his cushy job than he is with doing it."

The deputy was nodding and a portion of Mason was astonished that Nathan had bought this so easily and never even guessed that there might be another reason he was so hot to get that boy.

The sharpshooter thought for a moment. "Has Garrett got a gun?"

"I don't know, Nathan. But tell me: 'Bout how hard is it to get a firearm in North Carolina? The phrase 'fallin' off a log' come to mind?"

"That's true."

"See, Lucy and Jesse – even Jim – they don't appreciate that kid like I do."

"Appreciate?"

"Appreciate the danger's what I mean," Mason said.

"Oh."

"He's killed three people so far, probably Todd Wilkes too, strung that little boy up by his neck. Or at least scared him into killing himself. Which is murder all the same. And that girl got stung – Meg? You see those pictures of her face after the wasps were through with her? Then think about Ed Schaeffer. You and me were out drinking with him just last week. Now he's in the hospital and he might never wake up."

"It's not like I'm a sniper or nothing, Mase."

But Mason Germain wasn't going to give an inch. "You know what the courts're going to do. He's sixteen. They're gonna say, 'Poor boy. Parents're dead. Let's put him in some halfway house.' Then he's going to get out in six months or a year and do it all over again. Kill some other football player headed for Chapel Hill, some other girl in town never hurt a soul."

"But -"

"Don't worry, Nathan. You're doing Tanner's Corner a favor."

"That ain't what I was going to say. The thing is, we kill him, we lose any chance of finding Mary Beth. He's the only one knows where she is."

Mason gave a sour laugh. "Mary Beth? You think she's alive? No way. Garrett raped and killed her, and buried her in a shallow grave someplace. We can stop worrying about her. It's our job now to make sure that don't happen to anybody else. You with me?"

Nathan didn't say anything but the snapping sound of the deputy pressing the long copper-jacketed shells into his rifle's magazine was answer enough.