“Stay on the line,” Gregg said. “I’ll liaise.”

Please let this work, Lucy thought. Please …

Then she added a footnote to her prayer: And, dear Lord, give me one clear shot at my Judas.

Thom fitted the headset over Rhyme’s head. The aide then punched in a number.

If Sachs’s phone was shut off it would ring only three times and the pleasant lilt of the voice-mail lady would start to speak.

One ring… two …

“Hello?”

Rhyme didn’t believe he’d ever felt such relief, hearing her voice. “Sachs, are you all right?”

A pause. “I’m okay.”

In the other room he saw Lucy Kerr’s sullen face nod.

“Listen to me, Sachs. Listen to me. I know why you did it but you have to give yourself up. You … are you there?”

“I’m here, Rhyme.”

“I know what you’re doing. Garrett’s agreed to take you to Mary Beth.”

“That’s right.”

“You can’t trust him,” Rhyme said. (Thinking in despair: Or me either. He saw Lucy moving her finger in a circle, meaning: Keep her on the line.) “I’ve made a deal with Jim. If you bring him back in they’ll work something out with the charges against you. The state’s not involved yet. And I’ll stay here as long as it takes to find Mary Beth. I’ve postponed the operation.”

He closed his eyes momentarily, pierced with guilt. But he had no choice. He pictured what the death of that woman in Blackwater Landing had been like, the death of Deputy Ed Schaeffer…. Imagining the hornets swarming over Amelia’s body. He had to betray her in order to save her.

“Garrett’s innocent, Rhyme. I know he is. I couldn’t let him go to the detention center. They’d kill him there.”

“Then we’ll arrange for him to be held someplace else. And we’ll look at the evidence again. We’ll find more evidence. We’ll do it together. You and me. That’s what we say, Sachs, right? You and me…. Always you and me. There’s nothing we can’t find.”

There was a pause. “There’s nobody on Garrett’s side. He’s all by himself, Rhyme.”

“We can protect him.”

“You can’t protect somebody from a whole town, Lincoln.”

“No first names,” Rhyme said. “That’s bad luck, remember?”

“This whole thing has been bad luck.”

“Please, Sachs….”

She said, “Sometimes you just have to go on faith.”

“Now who’s dispensing maxims?” He forced himself to laugh—in part to reassure her. In part, himself.

Faint static.

Come home, Sachs, he was thinking. Please! We can still salvage something from this. Your life is as precarious as the thread of the nerve in my neck—the tiny fiber that still works.

And as precious to me.