The Vanished Man (Lincoln Rhyme 5)

"Stubborn. There's an armed perpetrator who's after this little girl and her family. And if I do see anybody in our line of sight without a badge, they're gonna get handcuffed and in a pretty impatient way."

"This's an emergency room in a city hospital, Detective," the woman responded testily. "Do you know how many people I'm looking at right now?"

"No, ma'am, I do not. But imagine lookin' at every one of 'em on their bellies and hog-tied. Which is what they're gonna be if they're not gone by the time we get there. And, by the by, that's looking to be all of two minutes from right now."

Chapter Forty-three

"Cases change color."

Charles Grady sat hunched forward in an orange plastic chair in a room off the Urgent Care waiting area, staring at the green linoleum, scuffed by thousands of despairing feet.

"Criminal cases, I mean."

Roland Bell sat next to him. Luis's vigilant form filled one doorway and nearby, at the entrance to a busy hallway, was another of Bell's SWAT officers, Graham Wilson, a handsome, intense detective with keen, stern eyes and a talent for spotting people packing weapons as if he had X-ray vison.

Grady's wife had accompanied Chrissy into the ER itself, along with Luis and another protection team officer.

"I had a law school professor one time," Grady continued, still as wood. "He'd been a prosecutor and then a judge. He told us once in class that in all his years of practicing law he'd never seen a black-and-white case come through the door. They were all different shades of gray. There was pretty damn dark gray and there was damn light gray. But they were all gray."

Bell glanced up the corridor, toward the impromptu waiting room that the duty nurse had made for the injured skateboarders and bicyclists. As Bell had insisted, this portion of the hospital had been cleared.

"But then, once you got involved in the case yourself, it changed color. It became black and white. Whether you were prosecuting or defending, the gray disappeared. Your side was one hundred percent good. The other side was one hundred percent evil. Right or wrong. My professor said you have to guard against that. You have to keep reminding yourself that cases were really gray."

Bell noticed an orderly. The young Latino seemed harmless but the detective nodded to Wilson, who stopped him and checked his badge nonetheless. He gave an okay sign to Bell.

Chrissy'd been in an operating room for fifteen minutes. Why couldn't somebody come out and at least give them some progress?

Grady continued, "But you know, Roland, all these months since we found out about that conspiracy in Canton Falls I kept seeing the Constable case as black and white. I never once considered it gray. I went after him with everything I had." A sad laugh. He looked up the hall again, the grim smile fading. "Where the hell's that doctor?"

Lowered his head again.

"But maybe if I'd seen more gray, maybe if I hadn't gone after him so hard, if I'd compromised more, he might not've hired Weir. He might not've . . ." He nodded toward where his daughter was at the moment. He choked and cried silently for a moment.

Bell said, "I'm thinking your professor was wrong, Charles. At least about people like Constable. Anybody who'd do what he's done, well, there is no gray with people like that."

Grady wiped his face.

"Your boys, Roland. They ever been in the hospital?"

Visiting their mother toward the end was the detective's first thought. But Bell didn't say anything about that. "Off and on. Nothing serious--fixin' up whatever a softball can do to a forehead or a little finger. Or a shortstop running you down armed with a softball."

"Well," Grady said, "it takes your breath away." Another look up the empty hall. "Takes it clean away."

A few minutes later the detective was aware of motion in the corridor. A doctor wearing green scrubs noticed Grady and walked slowly toward them. Bell could read nothing on his face.

"Charles," the detective said softly.

But, though his head was down, Grady was already watching the man's approach.

"Black and white," he whispered. "Lord." He rose to meet the doctor.

*

Gazing out the window at the evening sky, Lincoln Rhyme heard his phone ring.

"Command, answer phone."

Click.