Jeffery Deaver - The Empty Chair

"And you don't want him to go through with it?"

"I don't, no."

"Why not?"

Amelia hesitated. "Because it could kill him. Or make him even worse."

"You talked to him about it?"

"Yes."

"But it didn't do any good," Lucy said.

"Not a bit."

Lucy nodded. "I figured he's a man who's a bit muley."

Amelia said, "That's putting it mildly."

A crash sounded near them, in the brush, and by the time Lucy's hand found her pistol Amelia had drawn a careful bead on a wild turkey's chest. The four members of the search party smiled but the amusement lasted for only a moment, replaced by edginess as adrenaline eased through their hearts.

Guns replaced in holsters, eyes scanning the path, they continued forward, conversation on hold for the time being.

• • •

There were several categories people fell into when it came to Rhyme's injury.

Some took the joking, in-your-face approach. Crip humor, no prisoners taken.

Some, like Henry Davett, ignored his condition completely.

Most did what Ben was doing – tried to pretend that Rhyme didn't exist and prayed that they could escape at the earliest possible moment.

It was this response that Rhyme hated the most – it was one of the most blatant reminders of how different he was. But he had no time to dwell on his surrogate assistant's attitude. Garrett was leading Lydia deeper and deeper into the wilderness. And Mary Beth McConnell might be close to dying from suffocation or dehydration or a wound.

Jim Bell walked into the room. "Maybe there's some good news from the hospital. Ed Schaeffer said something to one of the nurses. Went unconscious again right after but I'm taking it as a good sign."

"What'd he say?" Rhyme asked. "Something he'd seen on that map?"

"She said it sounded like 'important.' Then 'olive.'" Bell walked to the map. Touched a location to the southeast of Tanner's Corner. "There's a development here. They named the roads after plants and fruits and things. One of them's Olive Street. But that's way south of Stone Creek. Should I tell Lucy and Amelia to check it out? I think we ought to."

Ah, the eternal conflict , Rhyme reflected: trust evidence or trust witnesses? If he picked wrong, Lydia or Mary Beth might die. "They should stay where they are, north of the river."

"You sure?" Bell asked doubtfully.

"Yes."

"Okay," Bell said.

The phone rang and with a firm press of his left ring finger Rhyme answered it.

Sachs' voice clattered into his headset. "We're at a dead end, Rhyme. There're four or five paths here, going in different directions, and we don't have a clue which way Garrett went."

"I don't have anything more for you, Sachs. We're trying to identify more of the evidence."

"Nothing more in the books?"

"Nothing specific. But it's fascinating – they're pretty serious reading for a sixteen-year-old. He's smarter than I would have figured. Where are you exactly, Sachs?" Rhyme looked up. "Ben! Go to the map, please."

He aimed his massive frame at the wall and took up a position beside it.

Sachs consulted someone else in the search party. Then said, "About four miles northeast of where we forded Stone Creek, pretty much in a straight line."

Rhyme repeated this to Ben, who put his hand on a part of the map. Location J-7.

Near Ben's massive forefinger was an unidentified L-shaped formation. "Ben, you have any idea what that square is?"

"Think that's the old quarry."

"Oh, Jesus," Rhyme muttered, shaking his head in frustration.

"What?" Ben asked, alarmed that he'd done something wrong.

"Why the hell didn't anybody tell me there was a quarry near there?"

Ben's round face looked even more puffed up than it had been; he was taking the accusation personally. "I didn't really…"

But Rhyme wasn't even listening. There was no one to blame but himself for this lapse. Someone had told him about the quarry – Henry Davett, when he'd said that limestone was big business in the area at one time. How else do companies produce commercial limestone? Rhyme should've asked about a quarry as soon as he'd heard that. And the nitrates weren't from pipe bombs at all but from blasting out rock – that kind of residue would last for decades.

He said into the phone, "There's an abandoned quarry not far from you. To the southwest."

A pause. Faint words. She said, "Jesse knows about it."

"Garrett was there. I don't know if he still is. So be careful. And remember he may not be leaving bombs but he's rigging traps. Call me when you find something."

Now that Lydia was away from the Outside and wasn't as sick from heat and exhaustion, she realized that she had the Inside to contend with. And that was proving to be just as frightening.

Her captor would pace for a while, look out the window, then squat on his haunches, clicking his fingernails and muttering to himself, looking over her body, then go back to pacing. Once, Garrett glanced down at the floor of the mill and picked up something. He slipped it into his mouth, chewed hungrily. She wondered if it was an insect and the thought of this nearly made her vomit.

They were in what seemed to have been the office of the mill. From here she could look down a corridor, partly burnt in the fire, to another series of rooms – probably the grain storage and the grinding rooms. Brilliant afternoon light flowed through the burnt-out walls and ceiling of the hallway.

Something orange caught her eye. She squinted and saw bags of Doritos. Also Cape Cod potato chips. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. And more of those Planters peanut-butter-and-cheese cracker packages he'd had at the quarry. Sodas and Deer Park water. She hadn't seen them when they first entered the mill.

Why all this food? How long would they be staying here? Garrett had said just for the night but there were enough provisions for a month's stay. Was he going to keep her here longer than he'd originally told her?

Lydia asked, "Is Mary Beth all right? Have you hurt her?"

"Oh, yeah, like I'm going to hurt her," he said sarcastically. "I don't think so." Lydia turned away and studied the shafts of light piercing the remains of the corridor. From beyond it came a squeaking sound – the revolving millstone, she guessed.

Garrett continued, offering: "The only reason I took her away is to make sure she's okay. She wanted to get out of Tanner's Corner. She likes it at the beach. I mean, fuck, who wouldn't? Better than shitty Tanner's Corner." Snapping his nails faster now, louder. He was agitated and nervous. With his huge hands he ripped open one of the bags of chips. He ate several handfuls, chewing them sloppily, bits falling from his mouth. He drank down an entire can of Coke at once. Ate more chips.

"This place burned down two years ago," he said. "I don't know who did it. You like that sound? The waterwheel? It's pretty cool. The wheel going round and round. Like, reminds me of this song my father used to sing around the house all the time. ' Big wheel keep on turning …'" He shoveled more food into his mouth and started speaking. She couldn't understand him for a moment. He swallowed. " – here a lot. You sit here at night, listen to the cicada and the bloodnouns – you know, the bullfrogs. If I'm going all the way to the ocean – like now – I spend the night here. You'll like it at night." He stopped talking and leaned toward her suddenly. Too scared to look directly at him, she kept her eyes downcast but sensed he was studying her closely. Then, in an instant, he leapt up and crouched close beside her.

Lydia winced as she smelled his body odor. She waited for his hands to crawl over her chest, between her legs.

But he wasn't interested in her, it seemed. Garrett moved aside a rock and lifted something out from underneath.