• No indication where it went in the 158th.

• DI Jefferies not cooperative.

• No known connection with Creeley.

• No criminal record—Sarkowski or company.

• Rumors—money going to cops at the 118th Precinct. Ended up someplace/someone with a Maryland connection. Baltimore mob involved?

• No leads.

Sachs stared at the chart for a half hour until her head began to nod. She returned upstairs, stripped, stepped into the shower and let the hot water pulse down on her, hard, stinging, for a long time. She dried off, pulled on a T-shirt and silk boxers, and returned to the bedroom.

She climbed into bed beside Rhyme and rested her head on his chest.

“You all right?” he asked groggily.

She said nothing but reached up and kissed his cheek. Then she lay back and stared at the bedside clock as the digital numbers flipped forward. The minutes passed slowly, slowly, each one an entire long day passing, until finally, close to 3 A.M., she slept.

II

9:02 A.M. WEDNESDAY

Time is the fire in which we burn.

—DELMORE SCHWARTZ

Chapter 23

Lincoln Rhyme had been awake for more than an hour. A young officer from the Coast Guard had delivered a jacket found floating in New York Harbor, a man’s size 44. It was, the captain of the boat deduced, probably the missing victim’s; both sleeves were covered in blood, the cuffs slashed.

The jacket was a Macy’s house brand and contained no other trace or evidence that could lead back to the owner.

He was now alone in the bedroom with Thom, who’d just finished Rhyme’s morning routine—his physical therapy exercises and what the aide delicately called “hygienic duties.” (Rhyme referred to them as the “piss ’n’ shit detail,” though usually only when easy-to-shock visitors were present.)

Amelia Sachs now walked up the stairs and joined him. She dropped her jacket in a chair, walked past him, opened the curtains. She looked out the window, into Central Park.

The slim young man sensed immediately that something was up. “I’ll go make coffee. Or toast. Or something.” He vanished, closing the door behind him.

So what was this? Rhyme wondered unhappily. He’d had more than enough personal issues recently than he wanted to deal with.

Her eyes were still looking over the painful brightness of the park. He asked, “So what was this errand that was so important?”

“I stopped by Argyle Security.”

Rhyme blinked and looked at her face closely. “They’re the ones that called after you got written up in the Times, when we closed that case about the illusionist.”

“Right.”

Argyle was an international company that specialized in safeguarding corporate executives and negotiating the release of kidnapped employees—a popular crime in some foreign countries. They’d offered Sachs a job making twice what she did as a cop. And promised her a carry permit—a license for a concealed weapon—in most jurisdictions, unusual for security companies. That and the promise to send her to exotic and dangerous locations caught her interest, though she’d turned them down immediately.