The Twelfth Card (Lincoln Rhyme 6)

Or throat.

She held up a single finger. One . . .

Go in fast, go in low, with two pounds of pressure on the two-and-a-half-pound trigger.

You sure about this, girl?

An image of Lincoln Rhyme came to mind.

Two . . .

Then a memory of her patrolman father imparting his philosophy of life from his deathbed, "Remember, Amie, when you move they can't getcha."

So, move!

Three.

She nodded. An officer kicked the door open--nobody was going near any metal doorknobs--and Sachs lunged forward, dropping into a painful crouch and spraying the flashlight beam around the small, windowless bathroom.

Empty.

She backed out and turned to the other door. The same routine here.

On three, another powerful kick. The door cracked inward.

Guns and flashlights up. Sachs thoug

ht, Brother, never easy, is it? She was looking down a long stairway that descended into pitch-black darkness. She noted that there were no backs on the stairs, which meant that the unsub could stand behind them and shoot into their ankles, calves or backs as they descended.

"Dark," she whispered.

The men shut out their flashlights, mounted to the barrels of their machine guns. Sachs went first, knees aching. Twice she nearly tumbled down the uneven, loose steps. Four ESU officers followed her.

"Corner formation," she whispered, knowing she wasn't technically in charge, but unable to stop herself at this point. The troops didn't question her. Touching one another's shoulders to orient themselves, they formed a rough square, each facing outward and guarding a quadrant of the basement.

"Lights!"

The beams of the powerful halogens suddenly filled the small space as the guns sought targets.

She saw no threat, heard no sounds. Except one fucking loud heartbeat, she thought.

But that's mine.

The basement contained a furnace, pipes, oil tanks, about a thousand empty beer bottles. Piles of trash. A half dozen edgy rats.

Two officers probed the stinking garbage bags, but the perp was clearly not here.

She radioed Haumann what they'd found. No one else had seen a sign of the unsub. All the officers were going to rendezvous at the command post truck to continue the canvass of the neighborhood, while Sachs searched the scenes for evidence--with everybody keeping in mind that, as at the museum earlier, the killer might still be nearby.

. . . watch your back.

Sighing, she replaced her weapon and turned toward the stairs. Then paused. If she took the same flight of steps back up to the main floor--a nightmare on her arthritic knees--she'd still have to walk down another flight to street level. An easier alternative was to take the much shorter stairway directly to the sidewalk.

Sometimes, she reflected, turning toward it, you just have to pamper yourself.

*

Lon Sellitto had become obsessed with one particular window.