The Cold Moon (Lincoln Rhyme 7)

"Bad news? Everything I thought about Dad was a lie."

"Not everything," Rhyme countered. "One part of his life."

"But the most important part. That's who he was first, Rhyme. A cop."

"It was a long time ago. The Sixteenth Avenue Club was closed up when you were a baby."

"That makes him less corrupt?"

Rhyme said nothing.

"You want me to explain it, Rhyme? Like evidence? Add a few drops of reagent and look at the results? I can't. All I know is I have a really bad taste in my mouth. This's affected how I look at the whole job."

He said kindly, "It's gotta be tough. But whatever happened to him doesn't touch you. All that matters is you're a good cop, and a lot fewer cases'll be closed if you leave."

"I'll only close cases if my heart's in it. And it's not. Something's gone." She added, "Pulaski's coming along great. He's better now than I was when I started working with you."

"He's better because you've been training him."

"Don't do that."

"What?"

"Butter me up, drop those little comments. That's what my mother used to do with my father. You don't want me to leave, I understand, but don't play that kind of card."

But he had to play the card. And any other he could think of. After the accident Rhyme had wrestled with suicide on a number of occasions. And though he'd come close he always rejected the choice. What Amelia Sachs was now considering was psychic suicide. If she quit the force he knew that she'd be killing her soul.

"But Argyle? It's not for you." He shook his head. "Nobody takes corporate security seriously, even--especially--the clients."

"No, their assignments're good. And they send you back to school. You learn foreign languages. . . . They even have a forensics department. And the money's good."

He laughed. "Since when has this ever been about money? . . . Give it some time, Sachs. What's the hurry?"

She shook her head. "I'm going to close the St. James case. And I'll do whatever you need to nail the Watchmaker. But after that . . ."

"You know, if you quit, a lot of buttons get pushed. It'll affect you for a long time, if you ever wanted to come back." He looked away, blood pounding in his temple.

"Rhyme." She pulled a chair up, sat and closed her hand around his--the right one, the fingers of which had some sensation and movement. She squeezed. "Whatever I do, it won't affect us, our life." She smiled.

You and me, Rhyme . . .

You and me, Sachs . . .

He looked off. Lincoln Rhyme was a scientist, a man of the brain, not the heart. Some years ago Rhyme and Sachs had met on a hard case--a series of kidnappings by a killer obsessed with human bones. No one could stop him, except these two misfits--Rhyme, the quadriplegic in retirement, and Sachs, the disillusioned rookie betrayed by her cop lover. Yet, somehow, together, they had forged a wholeness, filling the ragged gaps within each of them, and they'd stopped the killer.

Deny it as much as he wanted to, those words, you and me, had been his compass in the precarious world they'd created together. He wasn't at all convinced that she was right that they wouldn't be altered by her decision. Would removing their common purpose change them?

Was he witnessing the transition from Before to After?

"Have you already quit?"

"No." She pulled a white envelope from her jacket pocket. "I wrote the resignation letter. But I wanted to tell you first."

"Give it a couple of days before you decide. You don't owe it to me. But I'm asking. A couple of days."

She stared at the envelope for a long moment. Finally she said, "Okay."

Rhyme was thinking: Here we are working on a case involving a man obsessed with clocks and watches, and the most important thing to me at this moment is buying a little time from Sachs. "Thanks." Then: "Now, let's get to work."