Jeffery Deaver - The Cold Moon

Another glance at the Breguet. He put it away. "We should go," Duncan said, nodding at the women. "They'll be leaving soon."

He put the car in gear, signaled and pulled into the street, leaving behind their victim, about to lose her life to one man and, soon after, her dignity to another. They couldn't take her tonight, though, because Duncan had learned that she had a husband who worked odd hours and could be home at any moment.

Vincent was breathing deeply, trying to keep the hunger at bay. He ate a pack of chips. He asked, "How are you going to do it? Kill her, I mean."

Duncan was silent for a few moments. "You asked me a question earlier. About how long it took the first two victims to die."

Vincent nodded.

"Well, it's going to take Lucy a long time." Although they'd lost the book on torture, Duncan had apparently memorized much of it. He now described the technique he'd use to murder her. It was called water boarding. You suspend the victim on her back with her feet up. Then you tape her mouth shut and pour water up her nose. You can take as long as you like to kill the person if you give her air from time to time.

"I'm going to try to keep her going for a half hour. Or forty minutes, if I can."

"She deserves it, hm?" Vincent asked.

Duncan paused. "The question you're really asking is why am I killing these particular people."

"Well…" It was true.

"I've never told you."

"No, you haven't."

Trust is nearly as precious as time…

Duncan glanced at Vincent then back to the street. "You know, we're all on earth for a certain period of time. Maybe only days or months. Many years, we hope."

"Right."

"It's as if God-or whatever you believe in-has a huge list of everybody on earth. When the hands of His clock hit a certain time, that's it. They're gone… Well, I have my own list."

"Ten people."

"Ten people… The difference is that God doesn't have any good reason for killing them. I do."

Vincent was quiet. For a moment he wasn't clever and he wasn't hungry. He was just regular Vincent, listening to a friend sharing something that was important.

"I'm finally comfortable enough telling you what that reason is."

And he proceeded to do just that.

The moon was a band of white light on the hood of the car, reflecting into her eyes.

Amelia Sachs was now speeding along the East River, the emergency flasher sitting cockeyed on the dash.

She felt a weight crushing her, the consequences from all the events of the past few days: The likelihood that corrupt officers were involved with killers who'd murdered Ben Creeley and Frank Sarkowski. The risk that Inspector Flaherty might take the case away from her at any minute. Dennis Baker's espionage and the vote of no confidence from the brass about Nick. Deputy Inspector Jefferies's tantrum.

And, most of all, the terrible news about her father.

Thinking: What hope is there in doing your job, working hard, giving up your peace of mind, risking your life, if the business of being a cop ultimately spoils the decent core within you?

She slammed the shifter into fourth, nudging the car to seventy. The engine howled like a wolf at midnight.

No cop was better than her father, more solid, more conscientious. And yet look at what had happened to him… But then she realized that no, no, she couldn't think of it that way. Nothing had happened to him. Turning bad was his own decision.

She remembered Herman Sachs as a calm, humorous man, who enjoyed his afternoons with friends, watching car races, roaming with his daughter through Nassau County junkyards in treasure hunts for elusive carburetors or gaskets or tailpipes. But now she knew that that persona was merely the facade, beneath which was a much darker person, someone she hadn't known at all.

Within Amelia Sachs's soul was an edgy force, something that made her doubt and made her question and compelled her to take risks, however great. She suffered for this. But the reward was the exhilaration when an innocent life was saved or a dangerous perp collared.

That fire drove her in one direction; it had apparently pushed her father in another.

The Chevy fishtailed. She easily brought the skid under control.

Over the Brooklyn Bridge, a skidding turn off the highway. A dozen more turns, this way, that way, heading south.

Finally she found the pier she was looking for and hit the brakes, coming to a stop at the end of ten-foot skid marks. She got out of the car, slamming the door hard. Making her way through a small park, over a concrete barricade. Sachs ignored the warning sign and walked out onto the pier, through a steady, hissing wind.

Man, it was cold.

She stopped at a low wooden railing, gripped it in her gloved hands. Memories assaulted her:

At age ten, a warm summer night, her father boosting her up onto the pylon halfway out on the pier-it was still there-holding her tight. She wasn't afraid because he'd taught her to swim at the community pool and, even if a gust of wind had blown them off the pier into the East River, they'd simply swim back to the ladder, laughing and racing, climb back up-and maybe they'd even jump off again together, holding hands as they plummeted ten feet into the murky, warm water.

At age fourteen, her father with his coffee and she with a soda, looking at the water as he spoke about Rose. "Your mother, she has her moods, Amie. It doesn't mean she doesn't love you. Remember that. She's just that way. But she's proud of you. Know what she just told me the other day?"

And later, after she'd become a cop, standing here, beside the very same Camaro she'd driven tonight (though painted yellow at the time, a beautiful shade for a muscle car). Sachs in her uniform, Herman in his tweed jacket and cords.

"I've got a problem, Amie."

"Problem?"

"Sort of a physical thing."

She'd waited, feeling her fingernail dig into her thumb.

"It's a bit of cancer. Nothing serious. I'll be going through the treatment." He gave her the details-he'd always talked straight to his daughter-and then he grew uncharacteristically grave, shaking his head. "But the big problem…I just paid five bucks for a haircut and now I'm going to lose it all." Rubbing his scalp. "Wish I'd saved the money."

The tears now rolled down her cheeks. "Goddamn it," Sachs muttered to herself. Stop.

But she couldn't. The tears continued and the icy moisture stung her face.

Returning to the car, she fired up the big engine and returned to Rhyme's. When she got home he was upstairs in bed, asleep.

Sachs stepped into the exercise room, where Pulaski had written up the evidence charts on the Creeley/Sarkowski cases. She couldn't help but smile. The diligent rookie had not only stashed the whiteboard here but he'd covered it with a sheet. She pulled the cloth off and looked over his careful writing then added a few notations of her own.

BENJAMIN CREELEY HOMICIDE

56-year-old Creeley, apparently suicide by hanging. Clothesline. But had broken thumb, couldn't tie noose.

Computer-written suicide note about depression. But appeared not to be suicidally depressed, no history of mental/emotional problems.

Around Thanksgiving two men broke into his house and possibly burned evidence. White men, but faces not observed. One bigger than other. They were inside for about an hour.

Evidence in Westchester house:

Broke through lock; skillful job.

Leather texture marks on fireplace tools and Creeley's desk.

Soil in front of fireplace has higher acid content than soil around house and contains pollutants. From industrial site?

Traces of burned cocaine in fireplace.

Ash in fireplace.