“Amelia. The Special Services canvass team is about halfway through the building where Moreno and the driver picked up Lydia. Nothing yet. They’re running into a lot of Lydias—who’da thought?—but none of ’em are the one. You know, how hard is it to name your kid Tiara or Estanzia? They’d be a fuck of a lot easier to track down.”

She told him about the lead to the coffee shop and that she was on her way there now.

“Good. A security cam, excellent. Hey, Linc’s really down in the Caribbean?”

“Yep, landed safe. I don’t know how he’s going to be treated. Interloper, you know.”

“Bet he can handle it.”

There was silence.

Something’s up. Lon Sellitto brooded some but it was usually noisy brooding.

“What?” she asked.

“Okay, you didn’t hear this.”

“Go on.”

The senior detective said, “Bill came by my office.”

“Bill Myers, the captain?”

So how does it feel to be repurposed into a granular-level player…

“Yeah.”

“And?”

Sellitto said, “He asked about you. Wanted to know if you were okay. Physically.”

Shit.

“Because I was limping?”

“Maybe, I don’t know. Anyway, s’what he said. Listen, a fat old fart like me, you can get away with some bad days, hobbling around. But you’re a kid, Amelia. And skinny. He checked your reports and the ten-seventeens. Saw you volunteered for a lot of tactical work, first through the door on the lead teams sometimes. He just asked if you’d had any problems in the field or if anybody’d said they weren’t comfortable with you on take-downs or rescues. I told him no, absolutely not. You were prime.”

“Thanks, Lon,” she whispered. “Is he thinking of ordering a physical?”

“The subject didn’t come up. But that doesn’t mean no.”

To become an NYPD officer an applicant has to take a medical exam but once on the force—unlike firefighters or emergency medical techs—he or she never has to again, unless a supervisor orders one in specific cases or the officers want to earn promotion credit. Aside from that first checkup, years ago, Sachs had never had a department physical. The only record of her arthritis was on file with her private orthopedists. Myers wouldn’t have access to that but if he ordered a physical, the extent of her condition would be revealed.

And that would be a disaster.

“Thanks, Lon.”

They disconnected and she stood motionless for a moment, reflecting: Why was it that only part of this case seemed to involve worrying about the perps? Just as critical, you had to guard against your allies too, it seemed.

Sachs checked her weapon once more and walked toward the door, defiantly refusing to give in to the nearly overwhelming urge to limp.

Chapter 28

CHAPTER 28

AMELIA SACHS HAD A 3G MOBILE PHONE, Jacob Swann had discovered.