The Empty Chair (Lincoln Rhyme 3)

Then Lydia stumbled into the sedge and mud and lay on her side, gasping, spitting water. After five minutes she'd caught her breath. She rolled into a sitting position and looked around her.

No sign of Garrett. She struggled to her feet. Tried to pull her hands apart but the duct tape held tight, despite the soaking. She could see the burnt chimney of the mill from here. She oriented herself and decided which direction to go in to find the path that would take her back south of the Paquo, back home. She wasn't that far from it; her swim in the creek hadn't taken her downstream much from the mill.

But Lydia couldn't will herself to move.

She felt paralyzed from the fear, from the hopelessness.

Then she thought of her favorite TV show--Touched by an Angel--and when she thought of the program she had another memory, of the last ti

me she'd watched the show. Just as it was over and a commercial came on, the door to her town house swung open and there was her boyfriend with a six-pack. He hardly ever dropped by for surprise visits and she'd been ecstatic. They'd spent a glorious two hours together. She decided that her angel had given her this memory just now as a sign that there was hope when you least expected it.

Clutching this thought firmly in her mind, Lydia rolled awkwardly to her feet and started through the sedge and swamp grass. From nearby she heard a guttural sound. A faint growling. She knew there were bobcats here, north of the river. Bears too and wild boars. But even though she was limping painfully, Lydia moved as confidently toward the path as if she were making the rounds at work, dispensing pills and gossip and cheering up the patients under her care.

Jesse Corn found a bag.

"Here! Look here. I've got something. A crocus sack."

Sachs started down a rocky incline along the edge of the quarry to where the deputy stood, pointing at something on a ledge of limestone that had been blasted flat. She could see the grooves from where the drills had tapped into the dull stone to pack with dynamite. No wonder Rhyme had found so much nitrate; this place was one big demolition field.

She walked up to Jesse. He was standing in front of an old cloth bag. "Rhyme, can you hear me?" Sachs called into her phone.

"Go ahead. There's a lot of static but I can just hear you."

"We've got a bag here," she told him. Then asked Jesse, "What'd you call it?"

"Crocus sack. What they call a burlap bag down here."

She said to Rhyme, "It's an old burlap bag. Looks like there's something in it."

Rhyme asked, "Garrett leave it?"

She looked at the ground. Where the stone floor met the walls. "It's definitely Garrett's and Lydia's footprints. They lead up an incline to the rim of the quarry."

"Let's get after them," Jesse said.

"Not yet," Sachs said. "We need to examine the bag."

"Describe it," the criminalist ordered.

"Burlap. Old. About twenty-four by thirty-six inches. Not much inside. It's closed up. Not tied, just twisted."

"Open it carefully, remember the traps."

Sachs eased a corner of the bag down, peered inside.

"It's clear, Rhyme."

Lucy and Ned came down the path and all four of them stood around the bag as if it were the body of a drowned man pulled from the quarry.

"What's in it?"

Sachs pulled on her latex gloves, which were very soft because of the sun. Immediately her hands began to sweat and tingle from the heat.

"Empty water bottles. Deer Park. No store price or inventory stickers on them. Wrappers from two packages of Planters peanut butter and cheese crackers. No store stickers on them either. You want UPC codes to trace the shipments?"

"If we had a week, maybe," Rhyme muttered. "No, don't bother. More details on the bag," he ordered.

"There's a little printing on it. But it's too faded to read. Anybody make it out?" she asked the others.