The Stone Monkey (Lincoln Rhyme 4)

"Hey," Sachs said in greeting, entering the room. She kissed Rhyme. He started to tell her about the list of recently carpeted buildings but Sellitto interrupted. "Get some rest last night?" he asked her. The detective's voice had a definite edge to it.

"What?" she asked.

"Rest? Sleep? You get plenty of rest?"

"Not exactly," she replied cautiously. "Why?"

"I tried you at home about one. Had some questions for you."

Rhyme wondered what the reason for the interrogation was.

"Well, I got home at two," she answered, a flare in her eyes. "I went to see a friend."

"Did you?"

"Yeah, I did."

"Well, I couldn't get in touch with you."

"You know, Detective," she said, "I can let you have my mother's phone number. She can give you some pointers on checking up on me. Even though she hasn't done it for about fifteen years."

"Ho, boy, that was good," said Sonny Li.

"Watch yourself, patrolman," Sellitto said to Sachs.

"Watch what?" she snapped. "You got a point to make, make it."

The homicide cop backed down. He muttered, "I couldn't get in touch with you, that's all. Your cell phone was off."

"Was it? Well, I had my pager. Did you try to page me?"

"No."

"Then?" she asked.

The argument mystified Rhyme. True, when she was working, Rhyme insisted that she be instantly available. But after hours it was different. Amelia Sachs was independent. She liked to go for fast drives, she had interests and friends other than him.

Whatever drove her to scratch her skin, to mourn her father, to mourn her former lover, a cop busted for being one of the most crooked in recent history, whatever drove her at the crime scenes--the same force drove her off by herself at times.

Just as there were times when he booted her out, s

ometimes asking nicely, sometimes ordering her away. A crip needs time alone. To gather strength, to let the aide take care of the piss 'n' shit stuff and to consider little questions like Do I want to kill myself today?

Rhyme called the Federal Building and asked for Dellray but he was in Brooklyn checking out leads to the attempted bombing last night. Then he spoke to the assistant special agent in charge and was told that they were meeting that morning about assigning another FBI agent to GHOSTKILL to replace Dellray. Rhyme was angry; he'd assumed the bureau had already picked an SSA for the team.

"What about SPEC-TAC?"

The ASAC replied, "That's on the scroll for the powwow this morning too."

The scroll for the powwow?

"Well, we need people and we need them now," Rhyme snapped.

The slick man said, "We're prioritized."

"Oh, that's fucking reassuring."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Rhyme? I missed that."