Jeffery Deaver - The Empty Chair

Then he had recalled how Garrett had willingly told Lydia that Mary Beth was being held on the Outer Banks – and how she was happy, how she didn't need to be rescued. Why would he volunteer that information? And the evidence at the mill – the ocean sand, the map of the Outer Banks…

Lucy had found it easily, according to Sachs. Too easily. The scene, he had decided, had been staged, as forensic scientists call evidence planted to lead investigators off.

Rhyme had shouted bitterly, "We've been set up!"

"What do you mean, Lincoln?" Ben had asked.

"He tricked us," the criminalist had said. A sixteen-year-old boy had fooled them all. From the beginning. Rhyme had explained that Garrett had intentionally kicked off one shoe at the scene when he kidnapped Lydia. He'd filled it with limestone dust, which would lead anyone with knowledge of the area – Davett, for instance – to think of the quarry, where he'd planted the other evidence, the scorched bag and corn – that in turn led to the mill.

The searchers were supposed to find Lydia, along with the rest of the planted evidence – to convince them that Mary Beth was being held in a house on the Outer Banks.

Which meant of course that she was being held in the opposite direction – west of Tanner's Corner.

Garrett's plan was brilliant but he had made one mistake – assuming that it would take the search party several days to find Lydia (which is why he'd left all the food for her). By then he'd have been with Mary Beth in the real hiding place and the searchers would be combing the Outer Banks.

And so Rhyme had asked Bell what was the best route west from Tanner's Corner. "Blackwater Landing," the sheriff had answered. "Route 112." And Rhyme had ordered Lucy and the other deputies there as fast as possible.

There was a chance that Garrett and Sachs had been through the intersection already and were on their way west. But Rhyme had calculated distances and didn't think that on foot – and keeping under cover – they could have gotten that far in so little time.

Lucy now called in from the roadblock. Thom put the call on the speakerphone. The policewoman, undoubtedly still suspicious and wondering whose side Rhyme was really on, said skeptically, "I don't see any sign of them here and we've checked every car that's come by. Are you sure about this?"

"Yes," he announced. "I'm sure."

And whatever she chose to think of this arrogant response she said nothing other than "Let's hope you're right. There's a chance for some real sorrow here." She hung up.

A moment later Bell 's phone rang. He listened. Looked up at Rhyme. "Three more deputies just got to Canal Road, about a mile south of 112. They're going to do a sweep north on foot toward Lucy and the others and pin Garrett and Sachs in." He listened into the phone for a moment longer. Glanced at Rhyme, then away, and continued into the phone: "Yeah, she's armed… And, yeah, I hear tell she's a good shot."

Sachs and Garrett crouched in the bushes, watching the passenger cars waiting to get through the roadblock.

Then, behind them, another sound that even without a moth's sensitive hearing Sachs could detect: sirens. They saw a second set of flashing lights – coming from the other – the southern – end of Canal Road. Another squad car parked and three more deputies got out, also armed with shotguns. They started slowly through the bushes, moving toward Garrett and Sachs. In ten minutes they'd walk right through the nest of sedge where the fugitives were hiding.

Garrett looked at her expectantly.

"What?" she asked.

He glanced at her gun.

"Aren't you going to use that?"

She stared at him in shock. "No. Of course not."

Garrett nodded toward the roadblock. " They will."

"Nobody's going to be doing any shooting!" she whispered fiercely, horrified that he'd even consider it. She looked behind her into the woods. It was marshy and impossible to get through without being seen or heard. Ahead of them was the chain-link fence surrounding Davett Industries. Through the mesh she saw the cars in the parking lot.

Amelia Sachs had worked street crimes for a year. That experience, combined with what she knew about cars, meant that she could break into and hot-wire a vehicle in under thirty seconds.

But even if she boosted wheels how could they get out of the factory grounds? There was a delivery and shipping entrance to the factory but it too opened onto Canal Road. They'd still have to drive past the roadblock. Could they steal a four-by-four or pickup and make it through the fence where nobody could see them, then drive off the road to Route 112? There were steep hills and sharp drop-offs into marshes everywhere around Blackwater Landing; could they escape without rolling a truck and killing themselves?

The deputies on foot were now only two hundred feet away.

Whatever they were going to do, now was the time. Sachs decided they had no choice. "Come on, Garrett. We've got to get over the fence."

Crouching, they moved forward toward the parking lot.

"Are you thinking of a car?" he said, noticing where they were headed.

Sachs glanced back. The deputies were a hundred yards away.

Garrett continued, "I don't like cars. They scare me."

But she wasn't paying attention. She kept hearing his earlier words, circulating through her thoughts.

Moths fold their wings and drop to the ground.

• • •

"Where are they now?" Rhyme demanded. "The deputies making the sweep?"

Bell relayed the question into his phone, listened then touched a spot on the map about halfway up square G-10. "They're close to here. That's the entrance to Davett's company. Eighty, a hundred yards, moving north."

"Can Amelia and Garrett get around the factory to the east?"

"Naw, Davett's property's all fenced. Beyond that it's serious swamp. If they went west they'd have to swim the canal and they probably couldn't climb the banks. Anyway there's no cover there. Lucy and Trey'd spot 'em for sure."

Waiting was so hard. Rhyme knew that Sachs would scratch and pick at her flesh in an attempt to relieve the anxiety that was a dark corollary to her drive and talent. Destructive habits, yes, but how he envied her them. Before the accident Rhyme himself would bleed off tension by pacing and walking. Now he had nothing to do but stare at the map and obsess about how much at risk she was.

A secretary stuck her head in the door.

"Sheriff Bell, state police on line two."

Jim Bell stepped into the office across the hall and took the call. He spoke for a few minutes then trotted back into the lab. He said excitedly, "We've got 'em! They pinpointed her cell phone signal. She's on the move, going west on Route 112. They got past the roadblock."

Rhyme asked, "How?"

"Looks like they snuck into Davett's parking lot and stole a truck or four-by-four then drove off the road for a while and got back on the highway. Man, that took some serious driving."

That's my Amelia , Rhyme thought. That woman can drive up walls…

Bell continued, "She's going to ditch the car and get another one."

"How do you know?"

"She's on the phone with a car rental company in Hobeth Falls. Lucy and the others're after her, silent pursuit. We're talking to Davett's people to see who's missing a vehicle from the lot. But we don't need a description if she just stays on the line a little longer. Another few minutes and the tech people'll have the exact location."

Lincoln Rhyme stared at the map – though it was by now imprinted on his mind. After a moment he sighed then muttered, "Good luck."

But whether that wish was directed toward predator or toward prey, he couldn't have said.