“Sachs,” he began, “it’s not Percey you should’ve been jealous of. She’s not the one that booted you out of bed the other night.”

“No?”

“It was the Dancer.”

Another splash of wine in her glass. She swirled it and looked down at the pale liquid. “I don’t understand.”

“The other night?” He sighed. “I had to draw the line between us, Sachs. I’m already too close to you for my own good. If we’re going to keep working together, I had to keep that barrier up. Don’t you see? I can’t be close to you, not that close, and still send you in harm’s way. I can’t let it happen again.”

“Again?” She was frowning, then her face flooded with understanding.

Ah, that’s my Amelia, he thought. A fine criminalist. A good shot. And she’s quick as a fox.

“Oh no, Lincoln, Claire was . . . ”

He was nodding. “She was the tech I assigned to search the crime scene in Wall Street after the Dancer’s hit five years ago. She was the one who reached into the wastebasket and pulled out the paper that set off the bomb.”

Which is why he’d been so obsessed with the man. Why he’d wanted, so uncharacteristically, to debrief the killer. He wanted to catch the man who’d killed his lover. Wanted to know all about him.

It was revenge, undiluted revenge. When Lon Sellitto—who’d known about Claire—had wondered if it might not be better for Percey and Hale to leave town, he was asking if Rhyme’s personal feelings weren’t intruding into the case.

Well, yes, they were. But Lincoln Rhyme, for all the overwhelming stasis of his present life, was as much a hunter as the falcons on his window ledge. Every criminalist is. And when he scented his prey he wouldn’t be stopped.

“So, that’s it, Sachs. It has nothing to do with Percey. And as much as I wanted you to spend the night—to spend every night—I can’t risk loving you any more than I do.”

It was so astonishing—bewildering—to Lincoln Rhyme to be having this conversation. After the accident he’d come to believe that the oak beam that had snapped his spine actually did its worst damage to his heart, killing all sensation within it. And his ability to love and be loved were as crushed as the thin fiber of his spinal cord. But the other night, Sachs close to him, he’d realized how wrong he was.

“You understand, don’t you, Amelia?” Rhyme whispered.

“Last names only,” she said, smiling, walking close to the bed.

She bent down and kissed him on the mouth. He pressed back into his pillow for a moment then returned the kiss.

“No, no,” he persisted. But he kissed her hard once again.

Her purse dropped to the floor. Her jacket and watch went on the bedside table, followed by the last of the fashion accessories to come off—her Glock 9.

They kissed again.

But he pulled away. “Sachs . . . It’s too risky!”