The Empty Chair (Lincoln Rhyme 3)

Ned looked. "Christ, what a bastard ..."

Amelia carefully lifted off the rest of the boughs, exposing the hole and the nest, which was about the size of a football.

"Man," Ned muttered, closing his eyes, undoubtedly considering what it would have been like to find a hundred stinging wasps clustered around your thighs and waist.

Lucy rubbed her hands together--they smarted from the fall. She rose to her feet. "How'd you know?"

"I didn't. That was Lincoln on the phone. He was reading through Garrett's books. There was an underlined passage about some insect called an ant lion. It digs a pit and stings its enemy to death when it falls in. Garrett had circled it and the ink was just a few days old. Rhyme remembered the cut pine needles and the fishing line. He figured that the boy might dig a trap and told me to look for a bed of pine boughs on the path."

"Let's burn the nest out," Jesse said.

"No," Amelia said.

"But it's dangerous."

Lucy agreed with the policewoman. "A fire'd give away our position and Garrett'd know where we are. Just leave it uncovered so people can see it. We'll come back afterward and take care of it. Hardly anybody comes along here anyway."

Amelia nodded. She made a call on her phone. "We found it, Rhyme. Nobody got hurt. There was no bomb--he put a hornets' nest inside.... Okay. We'll be careful.... Keep reading that book. Let us know if you find anything else."

They started down the path once more and covered a good quarter mile before Lucy found it in her to say, "Thanks. Y'all were right about him coming this way. I was wrong." She hesitated for another long moment then added, "Jim made a good choice--bringing you down from New York for this. I wasn't real crazy about it at first but I won't argue with results."

Amelia frowned. "Bringing us down? What do you mean?"

"To help out."

"Jim didn't do that."

"What?" Lucy asked.

"No, no, we were over at the medical center in Avery. Lincoln's having some surgery. Jim heard we were going to be here so he came by this morning to ask if we'd look at some evidence."

A long pause. Then Lucy gave a laugh as the relief flooded through her. "I thought he'd scrounged up county money to fly y'all down here after the kidnapping yesterday."

Amelia shook her head. "The surgery's not till day after tomorrow. We had some free time. That's all."

"That boy--Jim. He never said a word about it. He can be the quiet one sometimes."

"You were worried he didn't think you could handle the case?"

"I guess that's exactly what I thought."

"Jim's cousin works with us in New York. He told Jim we were coming down for a couple of weeks."

"Wait, you mean Roland?" Lucy asked. "Sure, I know him. Knew his wife too, before she passed. His boys're dears."

"Had them over for a barbecue not long ago," Amelia said.

Lucy laughed again. "I guess I was being paranoid here.... So, you were over at Avery? The medical center?"

"That's right."

"That's where Lydia Johansson works. You know, she's a nurse there."

"I didn't."

A dozen memories flickered through Lucy Kerr's mind. Some she was warmly touched by, some she wanted to avoid like the swarm of wasps she'd nearly stirred up in Garrett's trap. She didn't know whether she wanted to tell any of this to Amelia Sachs or not. What she settled for was: "That's why I'm pretty eager to save her. I had some medical problems a few years ago and Lydia was one of my nurses. She's a good person. The best."

"We'll save her," Amelia said, a