Jeffery Deaver - The Empty Chair

Lucy Kerr nudged the Crown Victoria up to eighty. You drive fast, Amelia? Well, so do I.

They were speeding along Route 112, the gumball machine on top of the car spinning madly with its red, white and blue lights. The siren was off. Jesse Corn was beside her, on the phone with Pete Gregg in the Elizabeth City state police office. In the squad car directly behind them were Trey Williams and Ned Spoto. Mason Germain and Frank Sturgis – a quiet man and a recent grandfather – were in the third car.

"Where are they now?" Lucy asked.

Jesse asked the state police this question and nodded as he received an answer. He said, "Only five miles away. They turned off the highway, heading south."

Please , Lucy offered yet another prayer, please, stay on the phone just a minute more.

She nudged the accelerator closer to the floor.

You drive fast, Amelia. I drive fast.

You're a good shot.

But I'm a good shot too. I don't make a show of it like you do, what with all that fancy quick-draw crap, but I've lived with guns all my life.

Recalling that when Buddy left her she took every round of live ammo in the house and pitched them into the murky waters of Blackwater Canal. Worrying that she might wake up one night, glance at his empty side of the bed and then wrap her lips around the oily barrel of her service revolver and send herself to the place where her husband, and nature, seemed to want her to be.

Lucy had gone around for three and a half months with an unloaded service pistol, collaring 'shiners and militiamen and big, snotty teens huffed to oblivion on butane. And she'd handled them all on bluff alone.

Then she woke up one morning and, as if a fever had passed, had gone to Shakey's Hardware on Maple Street and bought a box of Winchester.357 shells. ("Jeez, Lucy, the county's in worser shape than I thought, making you buy your own ammo.") She'd gone home and loaded her weapon and kept it that way ever since.

It was a significant event for her. The reloaded gun was an emblem of survival.

Amelia, I shared my darkest moments with you. I told you about the surgery – which is the black hole of my life. I told you about my shyness with men. About my love for children. I backed you up when Sean O'Sarian got your gun. I apologized when you were right and I was wrong.

I trusted you. I –

A hand touched her shoulder. She glanced at Jesse Corn. He was giving her one of his gentle smiles. "The highway curves up ahead," he said. "I'd just as soon we made that curve too."

Lucy exhaled slowly and sat back in the seat, let her shoulders slump. She eased off on the speed.

Still, when they made the curve Jesse'd mentioned, which was posted forty, she was doing sixty-five.

"A hundred feet up the road," Jesse Corn whispered.

They were out of their cars, the deputies, and were clustered around Mason Germain and Lucy Kerr.

The state police had finally lost the signal from Amelia's cell phone but only after it'd been stationary for about five minutes at the location they were now looking at: a barn fifty feet from a house in the woods – a mile off Route 112. It was, Lucy noted, west of Tanner's Corner. Just as Lincoln Rhyme had predicted.

"You don't think Mary Beth's in there , do you?" asked Frank Sturgis, brushing at his yellow-stained moustache. "I mean, it's all of seven miles from downtown. I'd feel pretty foolish, he's been keeping the girl that close to town."

"Naw, they're just waiting for us to go past," Mason said. "Then they're gonna go on to Hobeth Falls and pick up the rental car."

"Anyway," Jesse said, "somebody lives here." He'd called in the address of the house. "Pete Hallburton. Anybody know him?"

"Think so," said Trey Williams. "Married. No connection to Garrett that I know of."

"They have kids?"

Trey shrugged. "Think they might. Seem to recall a soccer game last year…"

"It's summer. The youngsters might be home," Frank muttered. "Garrett might've taken 'em hostage inside."

"Maybe," Lucy said. "But the triangulation on Amelia's phone signal placed them in the barn, not the house. They could've gone inside but I don't know… I can't see 'em takin' hostages. Mason's right, I think: They're just hiding out here until they think it's safe to get up to Hobeth for that rental car."

"Whatta we do?" Frank asked. "Block the drive with our cars?"

"We pull up, do that, they'll hear us," Jesse said.

Lucy nodded. "I think we should just hit the barn on foot – fast – from two directions."

"I've got CS gas," Mason said. CS-38 – a powerful military tear gas kept under lock and key in the Sheriff's Department. Bell hadn't distributed any and Lucy wondered how Mason had gotten his hands on some.

"No, no," Jesse protested. "Might make 'em panic."

Lucy believed that wasn't his concern at all. She bet he didn't want to expose his new girlfriend to the vicious gas. Still, she agreed, feeling that, since the deputies didn't have masks, gas might work against them. "No gas," she said. "I'll go in the front. Trey, you take the -"

"No," Mason said evenly. "I go in the front."

Lucy hesitated then said, "Okay. I'll go in the side door. Trey and Frank, you're on the back and far side." She looked at Jesse. "I want you and Ned to keep an eye on the front and back doors of the house. There."

"Got it," Jesse said.

"And the windows," Mason said sternly to Ned. "I don't want anybody sighting down on our backs from inside."

Lucy said, "If they come out driving, just take out the tires or if you've got a Magnum like Frank there aim for the engine block. Don't shoot Garrett or Amelia unless you have to. You all know the rules of engagement." She was looking at Mason when she said this, thinking of his sniper attack at the mill. But the deputy seemed not to hear her. She called in on her Handi-talkie and told Jim Bell they were about to storm the barn.

"I've got the ambulance standing by," he said.

"This isn't a SWAT operation," Jesse said, overhearing the transmission. "We've gotta be damn careful about any shooting."

Lucy clicked off the radio. She nodded toward the building. "Let's move out."

They ran, crouching, using the oaks and pine for cover. Her eyes were fastened on the dark windows of the barn. Twice she was sure she saw movement inside. It might have been the reflection of trees and clouds as she ran but she couldn't be sure. As they approached she paused and switched her gun to her left hand, wiped her palm. Took the weapon once more in her shooting hand.

The deputies clustered at the windowless back of the barn. Lucy was thinking that she'd never done anything like this.

This isn't a SWAT operation…

But you're wrong, Jesse – that's exactly what it is.

Dear Lord, give me one clear shot at my Judas.

A fat dragonfly strafed her. She brushed it away with her left hand. It returned and hovered nearby ominously, as if Garrett had sent the creature out to distract her.

Stupid thought , she told herself. Then swatted furiously at the bug again.

The Insect Boy…

You're going down , Lucy thought – the message meant for both fugitives.

"I'm not going to say anything," Mason said. "I'm just going in. When you hear me kick in the door, Lucy, you go through the side."

She nodded. And as concerned as she was about Mason being too eager, as desirous as she was to get Amelia Sachs, she was still happy to share some of the burden of this hard job.

"Let me make sure the side door's open," she whispered.

They dispersed, jogging into position. Lucy ducked under one of the windows and hurried to the side door. It wasn't locked and was open a crack. She nodded to Mason, who stood at the corner, watching her. He nodded back and held up ten fingers, meaning, she assumed, to count the seconds down until he went through the door, and then disappeared.