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 …