Jeffery Deaver - The Empty Chair

After a moment he said, "I know it's not going to cure me, Sachs. But what's the nature of our business? It's little victories. We find a fiber here, a partial latent friction ridge there, a few grains of sand that might lead to the killer's house. That's all I'm after here – a little improvement. I'm not climbing out of this chair, I know that. But I need a little victory."

Maybe the chance to hold your hand for real.

She bent down, kissed him hard, then sat on the bed.

"What's that look, Sachs? You seem a bit coy."

"That passage in Garrett's book?"

"Right."

"There was another characteristic of living creatures I wanted to mention."

"Which is?" he asked.

"All living creatures strive to continue the species."

Rhyme grumbled, "Do I sense another plea bargain here? A deal of some kind?"

She said, "Maybe we can talk about some things when we get back to New York."

A nurse appeared in the doorway. "I need to take you to pre-op, Mr. Rhyme. You ready for a ride?"

"Oh, you bet I am…" He turned back to Sachs. "Sure, we'll talk."

She kissed him again and squeezed his left hand, where he could, just faintly, feel the pressure in his ring finger.

The two women sat side by side in a thick shaft of sunlight.

Two paper cups of very bad vending-machine coffee were in front of them, perched on an orange table covered with brown burn marks from the days when smoking had been permitted in hospitals.

Amelia Sachs glanced at Lucy Kerr, who sat forward, hands together, subdued.

"What's up?" Sachs asked her. "You all right?"

The deputy hesitated then finally said, "Oncology's on the next wing over. I spent months there. Before and after the operation." She shook her head. "I never told anybody this but the Thanksgiving Day after Buddy left me I came here. Just hung out. Had coffee and tuna sandwiches with the nurses. Isn't that a kick? I could've gone to see my parents and cousins in Raleigh for turkey and dressing. Or my sister in Martinsville and her husband – Ben's parents. But I wanted to be where I felt at home. Which sure wasn't in my house."

Sachs said, "When my father was dying my mom and I spent three holidays in the hospital. Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's. Pop made a joke. He said we had to make our Easter reservations early. He didn't live that long, though."

"Your mom's still alive?"

"Oh, yeah. She gets around better than I do. I got Pop's arthritis. Only in spades." Sachs nearly made a joke about that being why she was such a good shot – so she wouldn't have to run down the perps. But then she thought of Jesse Corn, flashed back to the dot of the bullet on his forehead, and she remained silent.

Lucy said, "He'll be all right, you know. Lincoln."

"No, I don't know," Sachs responded.

"I've got a feeling. When you've been through as much as I have – in hospitals, I mean – you get a feeling."

"Appreciate that," Sachs said.

"How long do you think it'll be?" Lucy asked.

Forever…

"Four hours, Dr. Weaver was saying."

In the distance they could just hear the tinny, forced dialogue of a soap opera. A distant page for a doctor. A chime. A laugh.

Someone walked past then paused.

"Hey, ladies."

" Lydia," Lucy said, smiling. "How you doing?"

Lydia Johansson. Sachs hadn't recognized her at first because she was wearing a green robe and cap. She recalled that the woman was a nurse here.

"You heard?" Lucy asked. "About Jim and Steve getting arrested? Who would've thought?"

"Never in a million years," Lydia said. "The whole town's talking." Then the nurse asked Lucy, "You have an onco appointment?"

"No. Mr. Rhyme's having his operation today. On his spine. We're his cheerleaders."

"Well, I wish him all the best," Lydia said to Sachs.

"Thank you."

The big girl continued down the corridor, waved, then pushed through a doorway.

"Sweet girl," Sachs said.

"You imagine that job, being an oncology nurse? When I was having my surgery she was on the ward every day. Being just as cheerful as could be. More guts than I have."

But Lydia was far from Sachs' thoughts. She looked at the clock. It was eleven A.M. The operation would start any minute now.

He tried to be on good behavior.

The prep nurse was explaining things to him and Lincoln Rhyme was nodding but they'd already given him a Valium and he wasn't paying attention.

He wanted to tell the woman to be quiet and just get on with it yet he supposed that you should be extremely civil to the people who're about to slice your neck open.

"Really?" he said when she paused. "That's interesting." Not having a clue what she'd just told him.

Then an orderly arrived and wheeled him from pre-op into the operating room itself.

Two nurses made the transfer from the gurney to the operating table. One went to the far end of the room and began removing instruments from the autoclave.

The operating room was more informal than he'd thought. The clichéd green tile, stainless-steel equipment, instruments, tubes. But also lots of cardboard boxes. And a boom box. He was going to ask what kind of music they'd be listening to but then he remembered he'd be out cold and wouldn't care about the sound track.

"It's pretty funny," he muttered drunkenly to a nurse who was standing next to him. She turned. He could see only her eyes over the face mask.

"What's that?" she asked.

"They're operating on the one place where I need anesthetic. If I had my appendix out they could cut without gas."

"That's pretty funny, Mr. Rhyme."

He laughed briefly, thinking: So, she knows me.

He stared at the ceiling, in a hazy, reflective mood.

Lincoln Rhyme divided people into two categories: traveling people and arrival people. Some enjoyed the journey more than the destination. He, by his nature, was an arrival person – finding the answers to forensic questions was his goal and he enjoyed getting the solutions more than the process of seeking them. Yet now, lying on his back, staring into the chromium hood of the surgical lamp, he felt just the opposite. He preferred to exist in this state of hope – enjoying the buoyant sensation of anticipation.

The anesthesiologist, an Indian woman, came in and ran a needle into his arm, prepared an injection, fitted it into the tube connected to the needle. She had very skillful hands.

"You ready to take a nap?" she asked with a faint, lilting accent.

"As I'll ever be," he mumbled.

"When I inject this I'm going to ask you to count down from one hundred. You'll be out before you know it."

"What's the record?" Rhyme joked.

"Counting down? One man, he was much bigger than you, got to seventy-nine before he went under."

"I'll go for seventy-five."

"You'll get this operating suite named after you if you do that," she replied, deadpan.

He watched her slip a tube of clear liquid into the IV. She turned away to look at a monitor. Rhyme began counting. "One hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-seven…"

The other nurse, the one who'd mentioned him by name, crouched down. In a low voice she said, "Hi, there."

An odd tone in the voice.

He glanced at her.

She continued, "I'm Lydia Johansson. Remember me?" Before he could say of course he did, she added in a dark whisper, "Jim Bell asked me to say good-bye."

"No!" he muttered.

The anesthesiologist, eyes on a monitor, said, "It' s okay. Just relax. Everything's fine."

Her mouth inches from his ear, Lydia whispered, "Didn't you wonder how Jim and Steve Farr found out about the cancer patients?"

"No! Stop!"

"I gave Jim their names so Culbeau could make sure they had accidents. Jim Bell's my boyfriend. We've been having an affair for years. He's the one sent me to Blackwater Landing after Mary Beth'd been kidnapped. That morning I went to put flowers down and just hang out in case Garrett showed up. I was going to talk to him and give Jesse and Ed Schaeffer a chance to get him – Ed was with us too. Then they were going to force him to tell us where Mary Beth was. But nobody thought he'd kidnap me ."