The intercom buzzer rang and she answered. “Yes?”

“Ms. Foster, I’m with the NYPD,” a male voice said. “Detective Sachs spoke to you earlier? She’s been delayed and asked me to come by and ask you a few questions about Robert Moreno.”

“Sure, come on up. Twelve B.”

“Thank you.”

A few minutes later a knock on the door. She looked out through the peephole, to see a pleasant-looking man in his thirties, wearing a suit. He was holding up a leather wallet containing a gold badge.

“Come on in,” she said, unbolting and unchaining.

He nodded a greeting and stepped inside.

As soon as she closed the door she noted that there was something wrong with his hands. They were wrinkled. No, he was wearing flesh-colored gloves.

She frowned. “Wait—”

Before she could scream he struck her hard in the throat with an open hand.

Gurgling, crying, she dropped to the floor.

Chapter 40

CHAPTER 40

HE SOMETIMES WONDERED ABOUT PEOPLE, Jacob Swann did.

Either you were conscientious or you weren’t. Either you scrubbed every bit of scorch off your copper-bottomed, stainless-steel sauté pan or you didn’t. Either you went the distance with the soufflé, and saw it rise five inches over the top of the ramekin, or you said to hell with it and for dessert served Häagen-Dazs, spelled in faux Scandinavian but made in the U.S. of A.

Standing over a crumpled, gasping Lydia Foster, he was thinking of Amelia Sachs.

She’d been smart enough to destroy her cell phone (and it was destroyed, not simply castrated, his tech people had learned). But then she’d made the mistake of calling Detective Sellitto back from a pay phone only about twenty-five feet from Java Hut. By the time she called, those same tech gurus at headquarters had rammed a tap on this phone—and several others nearby.

(While of course officially claiming they didn’t know how to do it and, even if they had known, never would.)

Sometimes your Miele oven conks out—just before you’re ready to slip the lamb roast in, natch—and you have to improvise.

Sure enough, Sachs had delivered to Lon Sellitto—and inadvertently to Jacob Swann—the vitals about Lydia Foster.

He now moved through the apartment quietly, verifying that they were alone. He probably didn’t have a lot of time. Sachs had said she’d be delayed but presumably she’d call or arrive soon. Should he wait for her? He’d have to consider that. She might not show up alone, of course. There was that and while he did have a pistol, shooting, as opposed to cutting, was the sloppiest (and least enjoyable) way of solving problems.

But if Sachs was alone? Several options presented themselves.