Jeffery Deaver - The Empty Chair

"Nobody's there now." Garrett paused and looked back. After a moment he muttered, "They're pissed now, the deputies. And they're after us. With all their guns and things. Shit." He turned and led her along a path to the house. He was silent for a few minutes. "You wanta know something, Amelia?"

"What?"

"I was thinking about this moth – the grand emperor moth?"

"What about it?" she asked absently, hearing in her memory the terrible shotgun blasts, meant for her and this boy. Lucy Kerr, trying to kill her. The echoes of the shots obscured everything else in her mind.

"The coloring on its wings?" Garrett told her. "Like, when they're open, they look just like an animal's eyes. I mean, it's pretty cool – there's even a white dot in the corner like a reflection of light in the pupil. Birds see that and think it's a fox or a cat and it scares them off."

"Can't the birds smell that it's a moth and not an animal?" she asked, not concentrating on the conversation.

He looked at her for a moment to see if she was joking. He said, "Birds can't smell," as if she'd just asked if the world was flat. He looked behind them, up the river again. "We'll have to slow ' em down. How close you think they are?"

"Very close," she said.

With all their guns and things.

• • •

"It's them."

Rich Culbeau was looking at the footprints in the mud of the shore. "The trail's only ten, fifteen minutes old."

"And they're heading for the house," Tomel said.

They moved cautiously up a path.

O'Sarian still wasn't acting weird. Which for him actually was weird. And scary. He hadn't snuck any hits of 'shine, hadn't been pranking, hadn't even been talking – and Sean was the number-one motormouth in Tanner's Corner. The shooting at the river had really shaken him. Now, as they walked through the woods, he swung the muzzle of the black soldier rifle around fast at every sound from the brush. "Did you see that nigger shoot?" he said finally. "Must've put ten slugs in that boat in less than a minute."

"Was pellets," Harris Tomel corrected.

And instead of challenging him and trying to impress them with what he knew about guns (and acting like the all-purpose asshole he was), O'Sarian just said, "Oh, buckshot. Right. I should've thought of that." And nodded like a kid in school who'd just learned something new and interesting.

They moved closer to the house. It looked like a nice place, Culbeau thought. A vacation house probably – maybe some lawyer's or doctor's from Raleigh or Winston-Salem. A good hunting lodge, full bar, nice bedrooms, a freezer for venison.

"Hey, Harris," O'Sarian asked.

Culbeau'd never known the boy to use anybody's first name.

"What?"

"This thing shoot high or low?" Holding up the Colt.

Tomel glanced at Culbeau, probably also trying to figure out where the weird part of O'Sarian had gone.

"First one's right on the money but it'll kick higher than you're used to. Drop the muzzle for the next shots."

"Because the stock's plastic," O'Sarian asked, "so it's lighter than wood?"

"Yeah."

He nodded again, his face even more serious than earlier. "Thanks."

Thanks?

The woods ended and the men could see a large clearing around the house – easily fifty yards in all directions without even a sapling for cover. The approach'd be tough.

"Think they're inside?" Tomel asked, kneading his gorgeous shotgun.

"I don't – Wait, get down!"

The three men crouched fast.

"I saw something downstairs. Through that window to the left." Culbeau looked through the 'scope on the deer rifle. "Somebody's moving around. On the ground floor. I can't see too good, with the blinds. But there's definitely somebody there." He scanned the other windows. "Shit!" A panicked whisper. He dropped to the ground.

"What?" O'Sarian asked, alarmed, gripping his gun and spinning around.

"Get down! One of 'em's got a rifle with a 'scope. They're sighting right at us. Upstairs window. Damn."

"Gotta be the girl," Tomel said. "That boy's too much of a faggot to know which end the bullet comes out."

"Fuck that bitch," Culbeau muttered. O'Sarian was easing behind a tree, hugging his ' Nam gun close to his cheek.

"She's got the whole field covered from here," Culbeau said.

"We wait till it's dark?" Tomel asked.

"Oh, with little miss tit-less deputy coming up behind us? I don't think that'll work, now, Harris, will it?"

"Well, can you hit her from here?" Tomel nodded toward the window.

"Probably," Culbeau said, sighing. He was about to start ragging on Tomel when O'Sarian said in a weirdly normal voice, "But if Rich shoots, then Lucy and th'others'll hear. I think we oughta flank 'em. Go around the side and try and get inside. A shot'd be a lot quieter in there."

Which was just what Culbeau was about to say.

"That'll take a half hour," Tomel snapped, probably pissed at being outthought by O'Sarian.

Who remained at the top of his uncrazy form. The young man clicked the safety off his gun and squinted toward the house. "Well, I'd say we gotta make it take less than half an hour. Whatta you think, Rich?"

Steve Farr led Henry Davett into the lab once again. The businessman thanked Farr, who left, and nodded to Rhyme.

"Henry," Rhyme said, "thank you for coming."

As before, the businessman paid no attention to Rhyme's condition. This time, though, Rhyme took no comfort from his attitude. His concern for Sachs was consuming him. He kept hearing Jim Bell's voice.

You usually have twenty-four hours to find the victim; after that they become dehumanized in the kidnapper's eyes and he doesn't think anything about killing them.

This rule, which had applied to Lydia and Mary Beth, now encompassed Amelia Sachs' fate too. The difference was, Rhyme believed, that Sachs might have far fewer than twenty-four hours.

"I thought you'd caught that boy. That's what I heard."

Ben said, "He got away from us."

"No!" Davett frowned.

"Sure did," Ben offered. "Old-fashioned jailbreak."

Rhyme: "I've got some more evidence but I don't know what to make of it. I was hoping you could help again."

The businessman sat down. "I'll do what I can."

A glance at his WWJD tie bar.

Rhyme nodded toward the chart, said, "Could you look that over? The list on the right."

"The mill – is that where he was? That old mill northeast of town?"

"Right."

"I knew about the place." Davett grimaced angrily. "I should've thought of it."

Criminalists can't let the verb "should have" creep into their vocabulary. Rhyme said, "It's impossible to think of everything in this business. But take a look at the chart. Does anything on it seem familiar to you?"

Davett read carefully.

FOUND AT SECONDARY CRIME SCENE -

MILL

Brown Paint on Pants

Sundew Plant

Clay

Peat Moss

Fruit Juice

Paper Fibers

Stinkball Bait

Sugar

Camphene

Alcohol

Kerosene

Yeast

As he gazed at the list he said in a distracted voice, "It's like a puzzle."

"That's the nature of my job," Rhyme said.

"How much can I speculate?" the businessman asked.

"As much as you'd like," Rhyme said.

"All right," Davett said. He thought for a moment then said, "A Carolina bay."

Rhyme asked, "What's that? A horse?"

Davett glanced at Rhyme to see if he was joking. Then said, "No, it's a geologic structure you see on the Eastern Seaboard. Mostly, though, they're found in the Carolinas. North and South. They're basically oval ponds, about three or four feet deep, freshwater. They could be a half-acre big or a couple of hundred. The bottom of them is mostly clay and peat. Just what's on the chart there."