That you could also dub Unsub 11-5 the Skin Collector wasn’t enough for Rhyme. There was more to his purpose, he sensed, than being a legacy of a psychotic killer stalking the streets of New York more than a decade ago.

TT Gordon broke the silence, ‘Anything else you need me for?’

‘No,’ Rhyme said. ‘Thanks for your help. Appreciate it.’

Drawing a raised eyebrow from Amelia Sachs. Civility was not a Lincoln Rhyme quality. But he found he was enjoying the company of this man with elaborate facial hair and a command of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style.

Gordon pulled his tuxedo jacket on. Again, Rhyme thought, it seemed too thin for such a slight frame on a foul, gray day like this one. ‘Good luck.’ He paused in front of Rhyme, looking him over. ‘Hey, looks like you’re one of us, dude.’

Rhyme looked up. ‘One of who?’

‘You’re modded.’

‘How’s that?’

He pointed to Rhyme’s arm, where scars were prominent, from the surgery to restore motion to his right arm and hand. ‘Looks like Mount Everest, those scars there. Upside down to you.’

True, curiously, the triangular pattern did look like the famous mountain.

‘You want me to fill it in, just let me know. Or I could do something else. Oh, dude, I know. I could add a bird.’ He nodded toward the window. ‘One of those hawks or whatever they are. Flying over the mountains.’

Rhyme laughed. What a crazy thought. Then his eyes strayed to the peregrine falcons. There was something intriguing about the idea.

‘Trauma to the skin is contraindicated for someone in his condition.’ Thom was in the doorway, arms crossed.

Gordon nodded. ‘Guess that means no.’

‘No.’

He looked around the room. ‘Well, anybody else?’

‘My mother would kill me,’ near-middle-aged Mel Cooper said.

‘My wife,’ Pulaski said.

Amelia Sachs only shook her head.

Thom said, ‘I’ll stick with the one I have.’

‘What?’ Sachs asked, laughing. But the aide said nothing more.

‘Okay, but you’ve got my number. Good luck, dudes.’

Then the man was gone.

The team was looking at the images of the tattoos once more. Lon Sellitto wasn’t picking up so Sachs called Major Cases and had the team at headquarters add ‘17th’ to the list of numbers they were searching for.

Just after she’d disconnected, her phone hummed again and she answered. Rhyme saw immediately that she stiffened. She asked breathlessly, ‘What? You have somebody on the way?’

She slammed the disconnect button and looked at Rhyme, eyes wide. ‘That was a sergeant at the Eight-Four. A neighbor just called in a nine one one, intruder outside Pam’s apartment. White male in a stocking cap and short gray coat. Seemed to be wearing a mask. Yellow. Jesus.’

Sachs flipped open her phone and hit a speed-dial button.

CHAPTER 40

Answer!