The Empty Chair (Lincoln Rhyme 3)

"That's true."

"See, Lucy and Jesse--even Jim--they don't appreciate that kid like I do."

"Appreciate?"

"Appreciate the danger's what I mean," Mason said.

"Oh."

"He's killed three people so far, probably Todd Wilkes too, strung that little boy up by his neck. Or at least scared him into killing himself. Which is murder all the same. And that girl got stung--Meg? You see those pictures of her face after the wasps were through with her? Then think about Ed Schaeffer. You and me were out drinking with him just last week. Now he's in the hospital and he might never wake up."

"It's not like I'm a sniper or nothing, Mase."

But Mason Germain wasn't going to give an inch. "You know what the courts're going to do. He's sixteen. They're gonna say, 'Poor boy. Parents're dead. Let's put him in some halfway house.' Then he's going to get out in six months or a year and do it all over again. Kill some other football player headed for Chapel Hill, some other girl in town never hurt a soul."

"But--"

"Don't worry, Nathan. You're doing Tanner's Corner a favor."

"That ain't what I was going to say. The thing is, we kill him, we lose any chance of finding Mary Beth. He's the only one knows where she is."

Mason gave a sour laugh. "Mary Beth? You think she's alive? No way. Garrett raped and killed her, and buried her in a shallow grave someplace. We can stop worrying about her. It's our job now to make sure that don't happen to anybody else. You with me?"

Nathan didn't say anything but the snapping sound of the deputy pressing the long copper-jacketed shells into his rifle's magazine was answer enough.

II

The White Doc

... chapter thirteen

Outside the window was a large hornets' nest.

Resting her head against the greasy glass of her prison, an exhausted Mary Beth McConnell stared at it.

More than anything else about this terrible place, the nest--gray and moist and disgusting--gave her a sense of hopelessness.

More than the bars that Garrett had so carefully bolted outside of the windows. More than the thick oak door, secured with three huge locks. More than the memory of the terrible trek from Blackwater Landing in the company of the Insect Boy.

The wasps' nest was in the shape of a cone, the point facing toward the earth. It rested on a forked branch that Garrett had propped up near the window. The nest must've been home to hundreds of the glossy black-and-yellow insects that oozed in and out of the hole in the bottom.

Garrett had been gone when she'd wakened this morning and after lying in bed for an hour--groggy and nauseated from the vicious blow to her head last night--Mary Beth had climbed unsteadily to her feet and looked out the window. The first thing that she'd noticed was the nest outside the back window, near the bedroom.

The wasps hadn't made the nest here; Garrett had placed it outside the window himself. At first, she couldn't figure out why. But then, with a feeling of despair, she understood: her captor had left it as a flag of victory.

Mary Beth McConnell knew her history. She knew about warfare, knew about armies conquering other armies. The reason for flags and standards wasn't only to identify your side; it was to remind the vanquished who now controlled them.

And Garrett had won.

Well, he'd won the battle; the outcome of the war had yet to be decided.

Mary Beth pressed the gash on her head. It had been a terrible blow to her temple, and had peeled away some skin. She wondered if it would become infected.

She found a rubber band in her backpack and tied her long brunette hair into a ponytail. Sweat trickled down her neck and she felt a fierce aching of thirst. She was breathless from the stifling heat in the closed rooms and thought about taking off her thick denim shirt--worried about snakes and spiders, she always wore long sleeves when she was on a dig around brush or tall grass. But despite the heat now she decided to leave the shirt on. She didn't know when her captor would return; she wore only a lacy pink bra underneath the shirt and Garrett Hanlon sure didn't need any encouragement in that department.

With a last glance at the nest Mary Beth stepped away from the window. Then walked around the three-room shack once more, searching futilely for a breach in the place. It was a solid building, very old. Thick walls--a combination of hand-hewn logs and heavy boards nailed together. Outside the front window was a large field of tall grass that ended in a line of trees a hundred yards away. The cabin itself was in another stand of thick trees. Looking out the back window--the hornets' nest window--she could just see through the trunks to the glistening surface of the pond they'd skirted yesterday to get here.

The rooms themselves were small but surprisingly clean. In the living room was a long brown-and-gold couch, several old chairs around a cheap dining room table, a second table on which were a dozen quart juice jars covered with mesh and filled with insects he'd collected. A second room contained a mattress and a d