The Bone Collector (Lincoln Rhyme 1)

She was no longer in sweats. Or uniform. She wore jeans and a forest-green blouse. Her beautiful face sported several scratches Rhyme didn't recognize, though given the events of the past three days he guessed the wounds weren't self-inflicted.

"Yuck," she said, walking around the portion of the floor where Stanton and Polling had died. It had been mopped with bleach--with the perp body-bagged, forensics became moot--but the pink island of stain was huge.

Rhyme watched Sachs pause and nod a cold greeting to Dr. William Berger, who stood by the falcon window with his infamous briefcase at his side.

"So you got him, did you?" she asked, nodding at the bloodstain.

"Yeah," Rhyme said. "He's got."

"All by yourself?"

"It was hardly a fair fight," he offered. "I forced myself to hold back."

Outside, the liquid, ruddy light of the low sun ignited treetops and the marching line of elegant buildings along Fifth Avenue across the park.

Sachs glanced at Berger, who said, "Lincoln and I were just having a little talk."

"Were you?"

There was a long pause.

"Amelia," he began. "I'm going to go through with it. I've decided."

"I see." Her gorgeous lips, marred by the black lines of tiny stitches, tightened slightly. It was her only visible reaction. "You know, I hate it when you use my first name. I goddamn hate it."

How could he explain to her that she was largely the reason he was going ahead with his death? Waking that morning, with her beside him, he realized with a piquant sorrow that she would soon climb from the bed and dress and walk out the door--to her own life, to a normal life. Why, they were as doomed as lovers could be--if he dared even to think of them as lovers. It was only a matter of time until she met another Nick and fell in love. The 823 case was over, and without that binding them together, their lives would have to drift apart. Inevitable.

Oh, Stanton was smarter than he could've guessed. Rhyme had been drawn to the brink of the real world once again and, yes, he'd moved far over it.

Sachs, I lied. Sometimes you can't give up the dead. Sometimes you just have to go with them. . . .

Hands clenched, she walked to the window. "I tried to come up with a ballbuster of an argument to talk you out of it. You know, something real slick. But I couldn't. All I can say is, I just don't want you to do it."

"A deal's a deal, Sachs."

She looked at Berger. "Shit, Rhyme." Walking over to the bed, crouching down. She put her hand on his shoulder, brushed his hair off his forehead. "But will you do one thing for me?"

"What?"

"Give me a few hours."

"I'm not changing my mind."

"I understand. Just two hours. There's something you have to do first."

Rhyme looked at Berger, who said, "I can't stay much longer, Lincoln. My plane . . . If you want to wait a week I can come back. . . ."

"That's okay, doctor," Sachs said. "I'll help him do it."

"You?" the doctor asked cautiously.

Reluctantly she nodded. "Yes."

This wasn't her nature. Rhyme could see that clearly. But he glanced into her blue eyes, which though tearful were remarkably clear.

She said, "When I was . . . when he was burying me, Rhyme, I couldn't move. Not an inch. For an instant I was desperate to die. Not to live, just to have it over with. I understood how you feel."

Rhyme nodded slowly then said to Berger, "It's all right, doctor. Could you just leave the--what's the euphemism of the day?"