Jeffery Deaver - The Empty Chair

"Will do, Rhyme."

"Sit tight. I hope to have some directions for you soon."

Garrett and Lydia had covered another three or four miles.

The sun was high now. It was noon maybe, or close to it, and the day was hot as a tailpipe. The bottled water that Lydia had drunk at the quarry had quickly leached from her system and she was faint from the heat and thirst.

As if he sensed this Garrett said, "We'll be there soon. It's cooler. And I got more water."

The ground was open here. Broken forests, marshes. No houses, no roads. There were many old paths branching in different directions. It would be almost impossible for anyone searching for them to figure out which way they'd gone – the paths were like a maze.

Garrett nodded down one of these narrow paths, rocks to the left, a twenty-foot drop off to the right. They walked about a half-mile along this route and then he stopped. He looked back.

When he seemed satisfied that no one was nearby he stepped into the bushes and returned with a nylon string – like thin fishing line – that he ran across the path just above the ground. It was nearly impossible to see. He connected it to a stick, which in turn propped up a three- or four-gallon glass bottle, filled with a milky liquid. There was some residue on the side and she got a whiff of it – ammonia. She was horrified. Was it a bomb? she wondered. As a nurse on ER duty she'd treated several teenagers who'd been hurt making homemade explosives. She remembered how their blackened skin had actually been shattered by the detonation.

"You can't do that," she whispered.

"I don't want any shit from you." He snapped his fingernails. "I'm gonna finish up here and then we're going home."

Home?

Lydia stared, numb, at the large bottle as he covered it with boughs.

Garrett pulled her down the path once more. Despite the increasing heat of the day he was moving faster now and she struggled to keep up with Garrett, who seemed to get dirtier by the minute, covered with dust and flecks of dead leaves. It was as if he were slowly turning into an insect himself every step they got farther from civilization. It reminded her of some story she was supposed to read in school but never finished.

"Up there." Garrett nodded toward a hill. "There's a place we'll stay. Go on to the ocean in the morning."

Her uniform was soaked with sweat. The top two buttons of the white outfit were undone and the white of her bra was visible. The boy kept glancing at the rounded skin of her breasts. But she hardly cared; at the moment she wanted only to escape from the Outside, to get into some cooling shade, wherever he was taking her.

Fifteen minutes later they broke from the woods and into a clearing. In front of them was an old gristmill, surrounded by reeds, cattails, tall grass. It sat beside a stream that had largely been taken over by the swamp. One wing of the mill had burnt down. Amid the rubble stood a scorched chimney – what was called a " Sherman Monument," after the Union general who burned houses and buildings during his march to the sea, leaving a landscape of blackened chimneys behind him.

Garrett led her into the front part of the mill, the portion that had been untouched by the fire. He pushed her through the doorway and swung the heavy oak door shut, bolted it. For a long moment he stood listening. When he seemed satisfied that no one was following he handed her another bottle of water. She fought the urge to gulp down the whole container. She filled her mouth, let it sit, feeling the sting against her parched mouth, then swallowed slowly.

When she finished he took the bottle away from her, untaped her hands and retaped them behind her back. "You have to do that?" she asked angrily.

He rolled his eyes at the foolishness of the question. He eased her to the floor. "Sit there and keep your goddamn mouth shut." Garrett sat against the opposite wall and closed his eyes. Lydia cocked her head toward the window and listened for the sounds of helicopters or swamp boats or the baying of the search party's dogs. But she heard only Garrett's breathing, which she decided in her despair was really the sound of God Himself abandoning her.

A figure appeared in the doorway, accompanying Jim Bell.

He was a man in his fifties, thinning hair and a round, distinguished face. A blue blazer was over his arm and his white shirt was perfectly pressed and heavily starched though darkened with sweat stains under the arms. A striped tie was stuck in place with a bar.

Rhyme had thought this might be Henry Davett but the criminalist's eyes were one aspect of his physical body that had come through his accident unscathed – his vision was perfect – and he read the monogram on the man's tie bar from ten feet away: WWJD.

William? Walter? Wayne?

Rhyme didn't have a clue who he might be.

The man looked at Rhyme, squinted appraisingly and nodded. Then Jim Bell said, "Henry, I'd like you to meet Lincoln Rhyme."

So, not a monogram. This was Davett. Rhyme nodded back to the man, concluding that the tie bar had probably been his father's. William Ward Jonathan Davett.

He stepped into the room. His fast eyes took in the equipment. "Ah, you know chromatographs?" Rhyme asked, observing a flicker of recognition.

"My Research and Development Department has a couple of them. But this model…" He shook his head critically. "They don't even make it anymore. Why're you using it?"

"State budget, Henry," Bell said.

"I'll send one over."

"Not necessary."

"This is garbage," the man said gruffly. "I'll get a new one here in twenty minutes."

Rhyme said, " Getting the evidence isn't the problem. Interpreting it is. That's why I can use your help. This is Ben Kerr, my forensic assistant."

They shook hands. Ben seemed relieved that another able-bodied person was in the room.

"Sit down, Henry," Bell said, rolling an office chair up to him. The man sat and, leaning forward somewhat, carefully smoothed his tie. The gesture, his posture, the tiny dots of his confident eyes coalesced in Rhyme's perception and he thought: charming, smart… and one hell of a tough businessman.

Rhyme wondered again about WWJD. He wasn't sure he'd solved the puzzle.

"This is about those women who got kidnapped, isn't it?"

Bell nodded. "Nobody's really coming right out and saying it but in the back of our minds…" He looked at Rhyme and Ben. "… We're thinking Garrett might've already raped and killed Mary Beth, dumped her body someplace."

Twenty-four hours…

The sheriff continued, "But we've still got a chance to save Lydia, we're hoping. And we have to stop Garrett before he goes after somebody else."

The businessman said angrily, "And Billy, that was such a shame. I heard he was just being a Good Samaritan, trying to save Mary Beth, and got himself killed."

"Garrett crushed his head in with a shovel. It was pretty bad."

"So time's at a premium. What can I do?" Davett turned to Rhyme. "You said interpreting something?"

"We have some clues as to where Garrett's been and where he might be headed with Lydia. I was hoping you might know something about the area around here and might be able to help us."

Davett nodded. "I know the lay of the land pretty well. I have geology and chemical engineering degrees. I've also lived in Tanner's Corner all my life so I'm pretty familiar with Paquenoke County."

Rhyme nodded toward the evidence charts. "Can you look at those and give us any thoughts? We're trying to link those clues to a specific location."

Bell added, "It'll probably be someplace they could get to by foot. Garrett doesn't like cars. He won't drive."

Davett put on eyeglasses and eased his head back, looking up at the wall.