Where the hell was he? Was his weapon up too, pointed at exactly the spot where she’d appear if she stepped forward?

Okay, go. Just go low and get ready to shoot. Watch your backdrop.

One…two…

Now!

Sachs leapt into the main part of the cul-de-sac, gun up, and dropped into a crouch.

Which is when her left knee gave out completely.

Before she got a clear look at where the unsub might be waiting for her, she tumbled sideways onto the cobblestones, managing to lift her finger off the trigger before she pulled off a random round or two. Amelia Sachs rolled once and lay stunned, a perfect target.

Even her vision had deserted her. Tears from the pain.

But she forced herself to ignore the agony and scrabbled into a prone position, gun muzzle aimed down the cul-de-sac, where Unsub 516 would be coming for her. Aiming at her. Sending hollow-point bullets into her.

Except that he wasn’t.

She blinked the moisture from her eyes, then wiped them fiercely with her sleeve.

Empty. The cul-de-sac was empty. Five sixteen was gone.

Struggling to her feet, she holstered her weapon and massaged her knee. She limped to the street and conducted a canvass of those on the sidewalk. But no one had paid any attention to light-colored cars, no one had seen a compact man with brown hair and military bearing acting strangely, no one had seen any weapons.

Standing with hands on hips, looking west then east. All was peaceful, all was normal. A typical day on the Upper West Side.

Sachs returned to the cul-de-sac, fighting the limp. Man, that hurt. She collected the Chinese and tossed it into a Dumpster.

In New York City alleyways the five-second rule about dropped food does not apply.

Chapter 54

CHAPTER 54

YOU WERE RIGHT, CAPTAIN,” Mychal Poitier called from the second-story porch outside Annette Bodel’s apartment in Nassau. “The side window has been jimmied. Barry Shales or your unsub broke in here, either before or after he killed her.”

Rhyme gazed up, squinting into the brilliant sky. He couldn’t see the corporal, just the silhouette of a palm waving lethargically near the roof of the building in which prostitute-student Annette had lived.

This was the other crime scene he’d referred to. He’d known that Annette’s killer had to come here to find any information she might have had about him and his visit to South Cove last week. Poitier and his men had been here before—after she was reported missing—but merely to see if she, or her body, was present. The door locks had not been disturbed and the officers hadn’t investigated further.

“Probably afterward,” Rhyme called. Part of the questions during Annette’s torture would have been about address books and computer files that might have referenced him. Diaries too, of course. All of that would be gone but, he hoped, some trace of the unsub remained.