An hour ago, at five-thirty A.M., he’d finally gotten a call from a very put-out drone in the Real Estate Division of the North Carolina Department of Taxation. The man had been awakened at one-thirty and given the assignment of tracking down delinquent taxes on any land on which a claimed residence was a McPherson trailer. Rhyme had first checked to see if Garrett’s parents had owned one and—when he learned they hadn’t—reasoned that if the boy was using the place as a hideout it was abandoned. And if it was abandoned the owner had defaulted on the taxes.

The assistant director told him there’d been two such properties in the state. In one case, near the Blue Ridge, to the west, the land and trailer had been sold at a tax lien foreclosure to a couple who currently lived there. The other, on an acre in Paquenoke County, wasn’t worth the time or money to foreclose on. He’d given Rhyme the address, an RFD route about a half mile from the Paquenoke River. Location C-6 on the map.

Rhyme had called Lucy and the others and sent them there. They were going to approach at first light and, if Garrett and Amelia were inside, surround them and talk them into surrendering.

The last Rhyme had heard they’d spotted the trailer and were moving in slowly.

Unhappy that his boss had gotten virtually no sleep, Thom sent Ben out of the room and went through the morning ritual carefully. The four Bs: bladder, bowel, brushing teeth and blood pressure.

“It’s high, Lincoln,” Thom muttered, putting away the sphygmomanometer. Excessive blood pressure in a quad could lead to an attack of dysreflexia, which in turn could result in a stroke. But Rhyme didn’t pay any attention. He was riding on pure energy. He wanted desperately to find Amelia. He wanted—

Rhyme looked up. Jim Bell, an alarmed expression on his face, walked through the doorway. Ben Kerr, equally upset, entered behind him.

“What happened?” Rhyme asked. “Is she all right? Is Amelia—”

“She killed Jesse,” Bell said in a whisper. “Shot him in the head.”

Thom froze. Glanced at Rhyme. The sheriff continued, “He was about to arrest Garrett. She shot him. They took off.”

“No, it’s impossible,” Rhyme whispered. “There’s a mistake. Somebody else did it.”

But Bell was shaking his head. “No. Ned Spoto was there. He saw the whole thing…. I’m not saying she did it on purpose—Ned went for her and her gun went off—but it’s still felony murder.”

Oh, my God …

Amelia … second-generation cop, the Portable’s Daughter. And now she’d killed one of her own. The worst crime a police officer could commit.

“This’s way past us now, Lincoln. I’ve got to get the state involved.”