‘Yeah, that looks like what he had. He was pissed off I’d come to and gave me another shot. But then he suddenly stopped. He kind of cocked his head. I saw he had an earbud in. It was like somebody warned him.’

Sachs grimaced. ‘There’s no evidence he’s working with anybody. It was probably a police scanner.’

Costing all of $59.99. And if you act now, you get a list of frequencies of your favorite police department.

‘He just shoved his stuff into his backpack and ran. I passed out again.’

She asked for a description and learned what she expected: ‘White male around thirty, I’d guess. What I could see of his hair it was dark, round face. Light eyes. Blue or gray. Kind of weird, that color. But I really couldn’t see much. He had this yellowish see-through mask on.’ His voice was soft. ‘Scared the hell out of me. And this tattoo. On his … yeah, his left arm. Red. A snake with legs.’

‘A centipede?’

‘Could be. A human face. Way creepy.’ He closed his eyes for a minute, actually shivered.

Sachs showed him the Identi-Kit picture that the near-victim Harriet Stanton had done at the hospital. Seth looked at it but just shook his head. ‘Could be – the face was round like that. The eyes’re the same. But I just can’t be sure. I’m trying to think about what he was wearing. I really can’t remember. Something dark, I think. But it could’ve been orange tie-dye, for all I know. Seeing that mask and the tattoo, I was really freaked out.’

‘Wonder why?’ Sachs offered with a droll smile.

‘I better call my parents. They might hear about this. I want to tell them I’m okay.’

‘Sure.’

While Seth did this, dialing with shaking hands, Sachs called Rhyme. She gave him the details. ‘Cheyenne’s running the scene.’

‘Good.’

‘She’ll get everything over to you in a half hour.’

He disconnected.

Seth winced as he pressed his bandaged left wrist, the one that had taken the bulk of his weight and been cut by the handcuffs. ‘What does he want, Amelia? Why’s he doing this?’

‘We aren’t sure. It seems he was inspired by a perp Lincoln and I investigated years go. The first case we worked together.’

‘Oh, Pam told me about that. The Bone Collector, right?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘Serial killer?’

‘Not technically. Serial killing’s a sado-sexual crime – if the perp’s male. The criminal a decade ago had another agenda and so does this one. The first killer was obsessed with bones; our unsub’s obsessed with skin. ’Cause we stopped him a few times, he’s turned on us. He must’ve found out Pam and I are close and he went after her. You had the bad luck to be here at the wrong time.’

‘Better me than Pam. I—’

‘Seth!’