The Empty Chair (Lincoln Rhyme 3)

Lucy said, "I'm thinking he'd head west. Or south, back across the river."

"That way he could get to Millerton," Jesse suggested.

Lucy nodded. "Couple of big factories around there closed when the companies took their business to Mexico. Banks foreclosed on a lot of property. There're dozens of abandoned houses he could hide in."

"Or southeast," Jesse suggested. "That's where I'd go--follow Route 112 or the rail line. There's a slew of old houses and barns that way too."

Amelia repeated this to Rhyme.

As Lucy Kerr thought: What a strange man he is, so terribly afflicted and yet so supremely confident.

The policewoman from New York listened then hung up. "Lincoln says to keep going. The evidence doesn't suggest he went in those directions."

"Not like there aren't any pine trees to the west and south," Lucy snapped.

But the redhead was shaking her head. "That might be logical but it's not what the evidence shows. We keep going."

Ned and Jesse were looking from one woman to the other. Lucy glanced at Jesse's face and saw the ridiculous crush; she obviously wasn't going to get any support from him. She dug in. "No. I think we should go back, see if we can find where they turned off the path."

Amelia lowered her head, stared right into Lucy's eyes. "I'll tell you what.... We can call Jim Bell if you want."

A reminder that Jim had declared that that damn Lincoln Rhyme was running the operation and that he'd put Amelia in charge of the search party. This was crazy--a man and woman who'd probably never been in the Tar Heel State before this, two people who knew nothing of the people or the geography of the area, telling lifelong residents how to do their job.

But Lucy Kerr knew that she'd signed on to do a job where, like the army, you followed the chain of command. "All right," she muttered angrily. "But for the record I'm against going that way. It doesn't make any sense." She turned and started along the path, leaving the others behind. Her footsteps growing silent suddenly as she walked over a thick blanket of pine needles that covered the path.

Amelia's phone rang and she slowed as she took the call.

Lucy strode quickly ahead of her, over the thick bed of needles, trying to control her anger. There was no way Garrett Hanlon would come this way. It was a waste of time. They should have dogs. They should call Elizabeth City and get the state police choppers out. They should--

Then the world became a blur and she was tumbling forward, giving a short scream--her hands outstretched to catch her fall. "Jesus!"

Lucy fell hard onto the path, the breath knocked out of her, pine needles digging into her palms.

"Don't move," Amelia Sachs said, climbing to her feet after tackling the deputy.

"What the hell d'you do that for?" Lucy gasped, her hands stinging from the impact with the ground.

"Don't move! Ned and Jesse, you either."

Ned and Jesse froze, hands on their weapons, looking around, not sure what was going on.

Amelia, wincing as she stood, stepped cautiously off the pine needles and found a long stick in the woods, picked it up. She moved forward slowly, slipping the branch into the ground.

Two feet in front of Lucy, where she'd been about to step, the stick disappeared through a pile of pine boughs. "It's a trap."

"But there's no trip wire," Lucy said. "I was looking."

Carefully Amelia lifted away the boughs and the needles. They rested on a network of fishing line and covered a pit about two feet deep.

"The fish line wasn't a trip wire," Ned said. "It was to make that--a deadfall pit. Lucy, you nearly stepped right in it."

"And inside? There a bomb?" Jesse asked.

Amelia said to him, "Let me have your flashlight." He handed it to her. She shined the beam into the hole then backed up quickly.

"What is it?" Lucy asked.

"No bomb," Amelia responded. "Hornets' nest."