Jeffery Deaver - The Empty Chair

"Stands for 'What Would Jesus Do?' That's what all those good Christians 'round here ask themselves when they're facing a big decision. I myself don't have a clue what He'd do in a case like this. But I'll tell you what I'm doing: calling up Lucy and your friend and gettin' ' em on Garrett's trail."

• • •

"Stone Creek?" Jesse Corn said after Sachs had relayed Rhyme's message to the search party. The deputy pointed. "A half-mile that way."

He started through the brush, followed by Lucy and Amelia. Ned Spoto was in the rear, his pale eyes scanning the surroundings uneasily.

In five minutes they broke out of the tangle and stepped onto a well-trod path. Jesse motioned them along it, to the right – east.

"This is the path?" Sachs asked Lucy. "The one you thought he'd gone down?"

"That's right," Lucy responded.

"You were right," Sachs said quietly, for her ears only. "But we still had to wait."

"No, you had to show who was in charge," Lucy said brusquely.

That's absolutely right , Sachs thought. Then added: "But now we know there's probably a bomb on the trail. We didn't know that before."

"I would've been looking for traps anyway." Lucy fell silent and she continued along the path, eyes fixed on the ground, proving that she would, in fact, have been looking.

In ten minutes they came to Stone Creek, its water milky and frothing with pollutant suds. On the bank they found two sets of footprints – sneaker prints in a small size, but deep, probably left by a heavyset woman. Lydia, undoubtedly. And a man's bare feet. Garrett had apparently discarded his remaining shoe.

"Let's cross here," Jesse said. "I know the pine woods that Mr. Rhyme mentioned. This's the shortest way to get to them."

Sachs started toward the water.

"Stop!" Jesse called abruptly.

She froze, hand on her pistol, crouching. "What's the matter?" she asked. Lucy and Ned, snickering at her reaction, were sitting on rocks, taking off their shoes and socks.

"You get your socks wet and keep walking," Lucy said, "you'll be standing in need of about a dozen bandages 'fore you go a hundred yards. Blisters."

"Don't know much 'bout hiking, do you?" Ned asked the policewoman.

Jesse Corn gave an exasperated laugh at his fellow deputy. "'Cause she lives in the city , Ned. Just like I don't figure you'd be an expert on subways and skyscrapers."

Sachs ignored both the chide and the gallant defense, and pulled off her short boots and black ankle-length socks. Rolled her jeans cuffs up.

They started through the stream. The water was ice-cold and felt wonderful. She regretted when the short trek through the creek – which Jesse pronounced "crick" – was over.

They waited a few minutes on the other side for their feet to dry then pulled on socks and shoes. Then searched the shore until they found the footprints once more. The party followed the trail into the woods but, as the ground grew drier and more tangled with brush, they lost the tracks.

"The pine trees're that way," Jesse said. He pointed northeast. "Makes the most sense for them to go straight through there."

Following his general guidance, they hiked for another twenty minutes, single-file, scanning the ground for trip wires. Then the oak and holly and sedge gave way to juniper and hemlock. Ahead of them, a quarter mile, was a huge line of pine trees. But there was no longer any sign of the kidnapper's or his victim's footprints – no clue as to where they'd entered the forest.

"Too damn big," Lucy muttered. "How're we going to find the trail in there?"

"Let's fan out," Ned suggested. He too looked dismayed at the tangle of flora in front of them. "If he's left a bomb here it'll be the dickens to see it."

They were about to spread out when Sachs lifted her head. "Wait. Stay here," she ordered then started slowly through the brush, eyes on the ground, looking for traps. Only fifty feet away from the deputies, in a grove of some flowering trees, now barren and surrounded by rotting petals, she found Garrett's and Lydia's footprints in the dusty earth. They led to a clear path that headed into the forest.

"They came this way!" she called. "Follow my footprints. I checked it for traps."

A moment later the three deputies joined her.

"How'd you find it?" asked infatuated Jesse Corn.

"What do you smell?" she asked.

"Skunk," Ned said.

Sachs said, "Garrett had skunk scent on the pants I found in his house. I figured he'd come this way before. I just followed the smell here."

Jesse laughed and said to Ned, "How's that for a city girl?"

Ned rolled his eyes and they all started up the path, moving slowly toward the line of pine trees.

Several times along this route they passed large, barren areas – the trees and bushes were dead. Sachs felt uneasy as they trekked through these – the search party was completely exposed to attack. Halfway through the second clearing, and after another bad scare when an animal or bird rustled the brush ringing the bare dirt, she pulled out her cell phone.

"Rhyme, you there?"

"What is it? Found anything?"

"We've picked up the trail. But tell me – did any of the evidence point to Garrett doing any shooting?"

"No," he answered. "Why?"

"There're some big barren patches in the woods here – acid rain or pollution's killed all the plants. We have zero cover. It's a perfect place for an ambush."

"I don't see any trace that's consistent with firearms. We've got the nitrates but if that was from ammunition we'd've found burnt powder grains, cleaning solvent, grease, cordite, fulminate of mercury. There's none of that."

"Which just means he hasn't fired a weapon in a while," she said.

"True."

She hung up.

Looking around cautiously now, skittish, they walked for several miles more, surrounded by the turpentiney scent of the air. Lulled by the heat, the buzzing of insects, they were still on the path that Garrett and Lydia had started along, though their footsteps were no longer visible. Sachs wondered if they'd missed -

"Stop!" Lucy Kerr cried. She dropped to her knees. Ned and Jesse froze. Sachs drew her pistol in a fraction of a second. Then she noticed what Lucy was referring to – the silvery glimmer of a wire across the path.

"Man," Ned said, "how'd you see that? It's full-up invisible."

Lucy didn't respond. She crawled to the side of the path, following the wire. Gently pulled aside bushes. Hot, crisp leaves rustled as she lifted them out one by one.

"Want me to get the bomb squad over here from Elizabeth City?" Jesse asked.

"Shhhh," Lucy ordered.

The deputy's careful hands moved aside the leaves a millimeter at a time.

Sachs was holding her breath. In a recent case she'd been the victim of an antipersonnel bomb. She hadn't been badly injured but she remembered that in a portion of a second the astonishing noise, the heat, the pressure wave and debris had enveloped her completely. She didn't want that to happen again. She knew too that many homemade pipe bombs were filled with BBs or ball bearings – sometimes dimes or pennies – as deadly shrapnel. Would Garrett do this too? She remembered his picture: his dim, sunken eyes. She remembered the jars of insects. Remembered the death of that woman in Blackwater Landing – stung to death. Remembered Ed Schaeffer in a wasp-venom coma. Yes, she decided, Garrett would definitely rig the most vicious trap he could think of.

She cringed as Lucy eased the last leaf off the pile. The deputy sighed, sat back on her haunches. "It's a spider," she muttered.

Sachs saw it too. It wasn't fishing line at all, just a long string of web.

They rose to their feet.

"Spider," Ned said, laughing. Jesse chuckled too.