This is what Amelia Sachs now did.

She didn’t think she was a natural at forensic analysis. She was no scientist. Her mind didn’t make those breathtaking deductions that came so quickly to Rhyme. But one thing that did work to her advantage was her empathy.

When they’d first started working together, Rhyme had apparently spotted within her a skill he himself did not have: the ability to get into the mind of the perpetrator. When she walked the grid she found she was actually able to mentally become the killer or rapist or kidnapper or thief. This could be a harrowing, exhausting endeavor. But when it worked, the process meant she would think of places in the scene to examine that a typical searcher might not, hiding places, improbable entrance and escape routes, vantage points.

It was there that she would discover evidence that would otherwise have remained hidden forever.

The techs from Crime Scene in Queens arrived. But, as before, she was handling the preliminary work alone. You’d think more people made for a better search but that was true only in an expansive area like those involving mass shootings. In a typical scene a single searcher is less distracted—and is also aware that there’s no one else to catch what he misses, so he concentrates that much harder.

And one truth about crime scene work: You’ve only got one chance to find the critical clue; you can’t go back and try again.

As she walked through the apartment where Lydia Foster’s corpse sat, head back and bloody, tied to a chair, Sachs felt an urge to speak to Rhyme to tell him what she was seeing and smelling and thinking. And once again, as when walking the grid at Java Hut, the emptiness at being unable to hear his voice chilled her heart. Rhyme was only a thousand miles away but she felt as if he’d ceased to exist.

Involuntarily she thought again of the surgery scheduled for later in the month. Didn’t want to consider it, but couldn’t help herself.

What if he didn’t survive?

Both Sachs and Rhyme lived on the edge—her lifestyle of speed and danger, his physical condition. Possibly, probably, this element of risk made life together more intense, their connection closer. And she accepted this most of the time. But now, with him away and her searching a particularly difficult scene involving a perp all too aware of her, she couldn’t help but think that they were always just a gunshot or heartbeat away from being alone forever.

Forget this, Sachs thought harshly. Possibly said it aloud. She didn’t know. Get to work.