The Stone Monkey (Lincoln Rhyme 4)

"You're not?"

"No. I want the others to do it. So that I can watch. It's more satisfying that way. It's like a porno tape. I want to see everything, hear everything. I don't want to miss a single detail. And I have them cut his eyelids off first so Tang has to watch me watch him." She whispered, "I want it to keep going on and on."

A whisper. "Ah, good, Sachs. And that means there's a place you're watching from?"

"Yes. There's a chair here, facing Tang, about ten feet away from the body." Her voice cracked. "I'm watching," she whispered. "I'm enjoying it." She swallowed and felt sweat pouring from her scalp. "The screams lasted for five, ten minutes. I'm sitting in front of him all that time, enjoying every scream, every drop of blood, every slice." Her breathing was fast now.

"How you doing, Sachs?"

"Okay," she said.

But she wasn't okay at all. She was trapped--in that very place where she didn't want to be. Suddenly everything good in her life was negated and she slipped further into the core of the Ghost's world.

You're looking like it's bad news . . .

Her hands shook. She was desperate and alone.

You're looking like it's bad--

Stop it! she told herself.

"Sachs?" Rhyme asked.

"I'm fine."

Stop thinking about it, stop thinking about the bits of curled flesh, the smears of blood . . . Stop thinking about how much you're enjoying his pain.

Then she realized that the criminalist wasn't saying anything.

"Rhyme?"

No answer.

"You okay?" she asked.

"Not really," he finally answered.

"What is it?"

"I don't know . . . . What good does knowing where he sat do us? He was wearing those fucking smooth-soled shoes. It's the only place we know the Ghost himself spent any time but what kind of evidence is there?"

Still feeling nauseous, tainted by the Ghost's spirit within her, she glanced at the chair. But she looked away, unable to concentrate.

Discouraged, angry, he continued, "I can't think."

"I . . . "

"There's got to be something," he continued. She heard frustration in his voice and she supposed he was wishing he could come down and walk the grid himself.

"I don't know," she said, her voice weak.

She stared at the chair but she saw in her mind the knife working its way up and down Jerry Tang's flesh.

"Hell," Rhyme said, "I don't know either. Is the chair upright?"

"The one the Ghost sat in to watch from? Yes."

"But what do we do with that fact?" His voice was frustrated.