Jeffery Deaver - The Vanished Man

For a moment her mother's eyebrow arched in recognition and Kara's heart began to pound. She leaned forward.

"I found the tin. I never thought I'd see it again."

Head back in the pillow.

Kara's hands clenched into knotted fists. Her breath came fast. "It's me, Mum! Me! The Royal Kid. Can't you see me?"

"You?"

Goddamnit! Kara raged silently to the demon who'd possessed the poor woman and muffled her soul. Leave her alone! Give her back to me!

"Hi there." A woman's voice from the doorway startled Kara, who subtly lifted several tears off her cheek, as smoothly as executing a French drop, before she turned around.

"Hey," she said to Amelia Sachs. "You tracked me down."

"I'm a cop. That's what we do." She walked into the room, holding two Starbucks cups. She glanced at the container in Kara's hand. "Sorry. Redundant present."

Kara thumped the carton she was holding. Almost out. She took the second cup gratefully. "Caffeine'll never go to waste around me." She started sipping.

"Thanks. You guys have fun?"

"Sure did. That woman's a scream. Jaynene. Thom's in love with her. And she actually made Lincoln laugh."

"She has that effect on people," Kara said. "A way good soul."

Amelia said, "Balzac dragged you away pretty fast at the end of the show. I just wanted to come by and thank you again. And to say that you should send us a bill for your time."

"I never thought about it. You introduced me to Cuban coffee. That's payment enough."

"No, invoice us something. Send it to me and I'll make sure it goes to the city."

"Playing G-woman," Kara said. "It'll be a story I'll tell my grandkids… Hey, I'm free for the rest of the night – Mr. Balzac's off with his friend. I was going to see some people down in SoHo. You want to come?"

"Sure," the policewoman said. "We could -" She looked up, over Kara's shoulder. "Hello."

Kara glanced behind her and saw her mother, looking with curiosity at the policewoman, and sized up the gaze. "She's not really with us right now."

"It was during the summer," the elderly woman said. "June, I'm pretty sure." She closed her eyes and lay back.

"Is she okay?"

"Just a temporary thing. She'll come back soon. Her mind's a little funny sometimes." Kara stroked the old woman's arm then asked Sachs, "Your parents?"

"It'll sound familiar, I've got a feeling. Father's dead. My mother lives near me in Brooklyn. Little too close for comfort. But we've come to an… understanding."

Kara knew that understandings between mother and daughter were as complex as international treaties and she didn't ask Amelia to elaborate, not now. There'd be time for that in the future.

A piercing beep filled the room and both women reached for the pagers on their belts. Amelia won. "I shut my cell off when I got here. There was a sign in the lobby that said I couldn't use it. You mind?" She nodded toward the telephone on the table.

"No, go ahead."

She picked up the phone and dialed and Kara rose to straighten the blankets on her mother's bed. "Remember that bed-and-breakfast we stayed at in Warwick, Mum? Near the castle?"

Do you remember? Tell me you remember!

Amelia's voice: "Rhyme? Me."

Kara's unilateral conversation was interrupted a few seconds later, though, when she heard the officer's voice ask a sharp, "What? When?"

Turning to the policewoman, Kara frowned. Amelia was looking at her, shaking her head. "I'll get right down there… I'm with her now. I'll tell her." She hung up.

"What's the matter?" Kara asked.

"Looks like I can't join you guys after all. We must've missed a lock pick or key. Weir got out of his cuffs at detention and went for somebody's gun. He was killed."

"Oh, my God."

Amelia walked to the doorway. "I've got to run the scene down there." She paused and glanced at Kara. "You know, I was worried about keeping him under guard during the trial. That man was just too slippery. But I guess sometimes there is justice. Oh, that bill? Whatever you were going to charge, double it."

• • •

"Constable's got some information," the man's voice came crisply through the phone.

"He's been playing detective, has he?" Charles Grady asked the lawyer wryly.

Wryly – but not sarcastically. The prosecutor had nothing against Joseph Roth, who – though he represented scum – was a defense lawyer who managed to step around the slime trail left by his clients and who treated D. A.'s and cops with honesty and respect. Grady reciprocated.

"Yeah, he has. Made some calls up to Canton Falls and put the fear of God into a couple of the Patriot Assembly folks. They checked things out. Looks like some of the former members've gone rogue."

"Who is it? Barnes? Stemple?"

"We didn't go into it in-depth. All I know is he's pretty upset. He kept saying, 'Judas, Judas, Judas.' Over and over."

Grady couldn't stir up much sympathy. You lie down with dogs. … He said to the lawyer, "He knows I'm not letting him off scot-free."

"He understands that, Charles."

"You know Weir's dead?"

"Yep… I've got to tell you Andrew was happy to hear it. I really believe he didn't have anything to do with trying to hurt you, Charles."

Grady didn't have any use for opinions from defense counsel, even forthright ones like Roth. He asked, "And he's got solid information?"

"He does, yes."

Grady believed him. Roth was a man you simply could not fool; if he thought Constable was going to dime out some of his people then it was going to happen. How successful the resulting case would be was a different matter, of course.

But if Constable gave relatively hard information and if the troopers did a halfway decent job with their investigation and arrest he was confident he could put the perps away. Grady would also make sure that Lincoln Rhyme oversaw the forensics.

Grady had mixed feelings about Weir's death. While he'd publicly express his concern at the man's shooting and promise to look into it officially, he was privately delighted that the fucker'd been disposed of. He was still shocked and infuriated that a killer had walked right into the apartment where his wife and daughter lived, willing to murder them too.

Grady looked at the glass of wine he so dearly wanted a sip of, but realized that a consequence of this phone call was that it precluded alcohol for the time being. The Constable case was so important that he needed all his wits about him.

"He wants to meet you face-to-face," Roth said.

The wine was a Grgich Hills Cabernet Sauvignon. A 1997, no less. Great vineyard, great year.

Roth continued, "How soon can you get down to detention?"

"A half hour. I'll leave now."

Grady hung up and announced to his wife, "The good news is no trial."

Luis, the still-eyed bodyguard, said, "I'll go with you."

After Weir's death Lon Sellitto had cut back the protection team to one officer.

"No, you stay here with my family, Luis. I'd feel better."

His wife asked cautiously, "If that's the good news, honey, what's the bad news?"

"I have to miss dinner," the prosecutor said, tossing a handful of Goldfish crackers into his mouth and washing them down with a very large sip of very nice wine, thinking, hell with it, let's celebrate.

• • •

Sachs's war-torn yellow Camaro SS pulled to a stop outside 100 Center Street.

She tossed the NYPD placard onto the dash then climbed out. She nodded to a crime-scene crew standing beside their RRV. "Where's the scene?"

"First floor in the back. The corridor to intake."

"Sealed?"

"Yep."

"Whose weapon?"

"Linda Welles'. DOC. She's pretty shook up. Asshole broke her nose."

Sachs grabbed one of the suitcases and, hooking it up to a wheelie luggage carrier, started for the front door of the Criminal Courts building. The other CS techs did the same and followed.