Jeffery Deaver - The Broken Window

“Is it helpful?” Pam asked.

“Could be. It’s not going to point to his front door. But then evidence usually doesn’t. If it did,” she added, smiling, “they wouldn’t need people like Lincoln and me, right? I’m going to go check it out.”

Sachs got her toolbox, took out the drill and screwed shut the broken window. She locked up, setting the alarm.

She had called Rhyme briefly earlier to tell him Pam was all right but she now wanted to let him know about the possible lead. She pulled out her cell phone but, before she called, she paused on the curb and looked around.

“What’s the matter, Amelia?”

She put the phone back in its holster. “My car.” The Camaro was gone. Sachs felt a surge of alarm. Her gaze swiveled up and down the street, her hand strayed to the Glock. Was 522 here? Had he stolen the car?

The patrol officer was just leaving the backyard and she asked if he’d seen anybody.

“That car, that old one? It was yours?”

“Yeah, I think the perp might’ve boosted it.”

“Sorry, Detective, I think it got towed. I woulda said something if I’d known it was yours.”

Towed? Maybe she’d forgotten to put the NYPD placard on the dash.

She and Pam walked up the street to the girl’s beat-up Honda Civic and drove to the local precinct. The desk sergeant there, whom she knew, had heard about the break-in. “Hi, Amelia. The boys canvassed the hood real careful. Nobody saw the perp.”

“Listen, Vinnie, my wheels’re gone. They were by the hydrant across the street from my place.”

“Pool car?”

“No.”

“Not your old Chevy?”

“Yep.”

“Aw, no. That’s lousy.”

“Somebody said it got towed. I don’t know if I had the official-business sign on the dash.”

“Still, they ought to’ve run the plate, seen who it was registered to. Shit, that sucks. Sorry, miss.”

Pam smiled to show her immunity to words that she’d just uttered herself occasionally.

Sachs gave the sergeant the plate number and he made some calls, checked the computer. “Naw, it wasn’t Parking Violations. Hold on a second.” He made some other calls.

Son of a bitch. She couldn’t afford to be without her wheels. She wanted desperately to check out the lead she’d found at her town house.

But her frustration became concern when she noticed the frown on Vinnie’s face. “You sure?…Okay. Where’d it go to?…Yeah? Well, gimme a call back as soon as you know.” He hung up.

“What?”

“The Camaro, you have it financed?”

“Financed? No.”

“This is weird. A repo team got it.”

“Somebody repossessed it?”

“According to them, you missed six months’ payments.”

“Vinnie, it’s a ’sixty-nine. My dad bought it for cash in the seventies. It’s never had a lien on it. Who was the lender supposed to be?”

“My guy didn’t know. He’s going to check it out and call back. He’ll find out where they took it.”

“Goddamn last thing I need. You have wheels here?”

“Sorry, nope.”

She thanked him and walked outside, Pam beside her. “If there’s one scratch on her, heads’re going to roll,” she muttered. Could 522 have been behind the towing? It wouldn’t have surprised her, though how he’d arrange it she couldn’t imagine.

Another stab of uneasiness at how close he’d gotten to her, how much information about her he could access.

The man who knows everything…

She asked Pam, “Can I borrow your Civic?”

“Sure. Only, can you drop me at Rachel’s? We’re going to do our homework together.”

“Tell you what, honey, how ’bout if I have one of the guys from the precinct run you into the city?”

“Sure. How come?”

“This guy knows way too much about me already. Think it’s best just to keep a little distance.” She and the girl walked back into the precinct house to arrange for the ride. Outside once again, Sachs looked up and down the sidewalk. No sign of anyone watching her.

She glanced up fast at motion in a window across the street. She thought immediately of the SSD logo-the window in the watchtower. The person who’d glanced out was an elderly woman but that didn’t stop the chill from trickling down Sachs’s spine yet again. She walked quickly to Pam’s car and fired it up.

With a snap of systems shutting down, deprived of their lifeblood, the town house went dark.

“What the hell is going on?” Rhyme shouted.

“The electricity’s out,” Thom announced.

“That part I figured,” the criminalist snapped. “What I’d like to know is why.”

“We weren’t running the GC,” Mel Cooper said defensively. He looked out the window, as if checking to see if the rest of the neighborhood grid had gone down too, but since it was not yet dusk there were no ConEd references to tell the story.

“We can’t afford to be offline now. Goddamnit. Get it taken care of!”

Rhyme, Sellitto, Pulaski and Cooper remained in the silent, dim room, while Thom walked into the hall and, on his cell phone, made a call. He was soon talking with somebody at the electric company. “Impossible. I pay the bills online. Every month. Never missed one. I have receipts… Well, they’re in the computer and I can’t go online because there’s no electricity, now can I?…Canceled checks, yes, but once again, how can I fax them to you if there’s no electricity?…I don’t know where there’s a Kinko’s, no.”

“It’s him, you know,” Rhyme said to the others.

“Five Twenty-Two? He got your power shut off?”

“Yep. He found out about me and where I live. Malloy must’ve told him this is our command post.”

The silence was eerie. The first thing Rhyme thought of was how completely vulnerable he was. The devices that he relied on were useless now and he had no way to communicate, no way to lock or unlock the doors or use the ESU. If the blackout continued and Thom couldn’t recharge his wheelchair’s battery he’d be immobilized completely.

He couldn’t remember that last time he’d felt so vulnerable. Even having others around didn’t allay the concern; 522 was a threat to anybody, anywhere.

He was also wondering: Is the blackout a diversion, or the prelude to an attack?

“Keep an eye out, everybody,” he announced. “He could be moving in on us.”

Pulaski glanced out the window. Cooper too.

Sellitto pulled out his cell phone and called someone downtown. He explained the situation. He rolled his eyes-Sellitto was never one for stoic faces-then ended the conversation with: “Well, I don’t care. Whatever it takes. This asshole’s a killer. And we can’t do a thing to find him without any fucking electricity… Thanks.”

“Thom, any luck?”

“No,” came the aide’s abrupt reply.

“Shit.” Rhyme then reflected on something. “Lon, call Roland Bell. I think we need protection. Five Twenty-Two went after Pam, he went after Amelia.” The criminalist nodded at a dark monitor. “He knows about us. I want officers on Amelia’s mother’s place. Pam’s foster home. Pulaski’s house, Mel’s mother’s place. Your house too, Lon.”

“You think it’s that much of a risk?” the big detective asked. Then shook his head. “What the hell am I saying? Sure, it is.” He got the information-addresses and phone numbers-then called Bell and had him arrange for officers. After hanging up he said, “It’ll take a few hours but he’ll get it done.”

A loud knock on the door shattered the silence. Still clutching the phone, Thom started for it.

“Wait!” Rhyme shouted.

The aide paused.

“Pulaski, go with him.” Rhyme nodded at the pistol on his hip.