Jeffery Deaver - The Empty Chair

"What was that?" Sachs asked, nodding at it. To her the creature had looked like a cross between a dog and a large alley cat.

"Gray fox," Jesse said. "Don't see 'em too often. But then I don't usually go for walks north of the Paquo."

They moved slowly as they tried to follow the frail indications of Garrett's passage. And all the while they kept their eyes out for more deadfall traps and ambush from the surrounding trees and brush.

Once again Sachs felt the foreboding that had dogged her since they'd driven past the child's funeral that morning. They'd left the pines behind and were in a different type of forest. The trees were what you'd see in a tropical jungle. When she asked about them Lucy told her they were tupelo gum, old-growth bald cypress, cedar. They were bound together with webby moss and clinging vines that absorbed sound like thick fog and accentuated her sense of claustrophobia. There were mushrooms and mold and fungus everywhere and scummy marshes all around them. The aroma in the air was that of decay.

Sachs looked at the trodden ground. She asked Jesse, "We're miles from town. Who makes these paths?"

He shrugged. "Mostly bad pay."

"What's that?" she asked, recalling that Rich Culbeau had used the phrase.

"You know, somebody who doesn't pay his debts. Basically, it just means trash. Moonshiners, kids, swamp people, PCP cookers."

Ned Spoto took a drink of water and said, "We get calls sometimes: there's been a shooting, somebody's screaming, calls for help, mysterious lights flashing signals. Stuff like that. Only by the time we get out here, there's nothing… No body, no perp, no complaining witness. Sometimes we find a blood trail but it don't lead anywhere. We make the run – we have to – but nobody in the department ever comes out in these parts alone."

Jesse said, "You feel different out here. You feel that – this sounds funny – but you feel that life's different, cheaper. I'd rather be arresting a couple of armed kids pumped up on angel dust at a mini-mart than come out here on a call. At least there, there're rules. You kinda know what to expect. Out here…" He shrugged.

Lucy nodded. "That's true. And normal rules don't apply to anybody north of the Paquo. Us or them. You can see yourself shooting before you read anybody their rights and that'd be perfectly all right. Hard to explain."

Sachs didn't like the edgy talk. If the other deputies hadn't been so somber and unnerved themselves she would have thought they were putting on a show to scare the city girl.

Finally they stopped at a place where the path branched out into three directions. They walked about fifty feet down each but could find no sign of which one Garrett and Lydia had chosen. They returned to the crossroads.

She heard Rhyme's words echoing in her mind. Be careful, Sachs, but move fast. I don't think we have much time left.

Move fast…

But there was no hint of where they ought to be moving to and as Sachs looked down the choked paths it seemed impossible that anyone, even Lincoln Rhyme, could figure out where their prey had gone.

Then her cell phone rang and both Lucy and Jesse Corn looked at her expectantly, hoping, as did Sachs, that Rhyme had come up with a new suggestion about which way to go.

Sachs answered, listened to the criminalist and then nodded. Hung up. She took a breath and looked at the three deputies.

"What?" asked Jesse Corn.

"Lincoln and Jim just heard from the hospital about Ed Schaeffer. Looks like he woke up long enough to say, 'I love my kids,' and then he died… They thought he'd said something earlier about 'Olive' Street but it turned out he was just trying to say 'I love.' That's all he said. I'm so sorry."

"Oh, Jesus," Ned muttered.

Lucy lowered her head and Jesse put his arm around her shoulders. "What do we do now?" he asked.

Lucy looked up. Sachs could see tears in her eyes. "We're gonna get that boy, that's what," she said with a grim determination. "We're going to pick the most logical path and keep in that direction till we find him. And we're going to go fast. That all right with you?" she asked Sachs, who had no problem momentarily yielding command to the deputy. "You bet it is."

Lydia had seen this look in men's eyes a hundred times.

A need. A desire. A hunger.

Sometimes, a pointless itch. Sometimes, an inept expression of love.

This big girl, with stringy hair, a spotted face in her teens and a pocked face now, believed she had little to offer men. But she knew too that they would, for a few years at least, ask one thing from her and she'd decided long ago that to get by in the world she would have to exploit the little power that she had. And so Lydia Johansson was now on a playing field that was very familiar to her.

They were back in the mill, in the dark office once again. Garrett was standing over her, his scalp glistening with sweat through the patchy crew cut. His erection was obvious through his slacks.

His eyes slid over her chest, where her soaked, translucent uniform had ripped open in her fall down the sluice (or had he done it when he grabbed her on the trail?), her bra strap snapped (or had he torn it?).

Lydia eased away from him, wincing at the pain in her ankle. Pressing against the wall, sitting, legs splayed, as she studied that look in the boy's eyes. Feeling a cold, spidery repulsion.

And yet she thought: Should I let him?

He was young. He'd come instantly and it would be over with. Maybe afterward he'd fall asleep and she could find that knife of his and cut her hands free. Then knock him out and tape him up.

But those red bony hands of his, his welty face next to her cheek, his disgusting breath and body stench… How could she face it? Lydia closed her eyes momentarily. Uttered a prayer as insubstantial as her Blue Sunset eye shadow. Yes or no?

But any angels in the vicinity remained silent on this particular decision.

All she'd have to do was smile at him. He'd be inside her in a minute. Or she could take him into her mouth… It wouldn't mean anything.

Fuck me fast then let's watch a movie … A joke between her boyfriend and her. She'd greet him at the door, in the red teddy she'd bought mail-order from Sears. She'd throw her arms around his shoulders and whisper those words to him.

You do this , she thought to herself, and you might be able to escape.

But I can't!

Garrett's eyes were locked onto her. Coursing over her body. His prick couldn't violate her any more thoroughly than his red eyes were doing right now. Jesus, he wasn't just an insect – he was a mutation out of one of Lydia 's horror books, something that Dean Koontz or Stephen King could have made up.

Fingernails clicking.

He was examining her legs now, round and smooth – her best feature, she believed.

Garrett snapped, "Why're you crying? It's your fault you hurt yourself. You shouldn't've run. Let me see it." Nodding toward her swollen ankle.

"It's okay," Lydia said quickly but then, almost involuntarily, she held her foot out to him.

"Some assholes at school pushed me down the hill behind the Mobil station last year," he said. "Sprained my ankle. Looked like that. Hurt like a bitch."

Get it over with , she told herself. You'll be that much closer to home.

Fuck me fast…

No!

But she didn't pull away when Garrett sat down in front of her. He took her leg. His long fingers – God, they were huge – were gripping her around the calf, then around the ankle. He was trembling. Looking at the holes in her white pantyhose, where her pink flesh ballooned out. He studied her foot.