The Coffin Dancer (Lincoln Rhyme 2)

"What?" Sellitto asked.

"What was I thinking of? Dealers don't cut prescription drugs! It's too much trouble. Only street drugs!"

Cooper nodded. "Jodie wasn't cutting them with the baby formula. He just dumped out the drugs. He was popping placebos, so we'd think he was a druggie."

"Jodie's the Dancer," Rhyme called. "Get on the phone! Call the safe house now!"

Sellitto picked up the phone and dialed.

Was it too late?

Oh, Amelia, what've I done? Have I killed you?

The sky was turning a metallic rosy color.

A siren sounded far away.

The peregrine falcon--the tiercel, he remembered--was awake and about to go hunting.

Lon Sellitto looked up desperately from the phone. "There's no answer," he said.

. . . Chapter Thirty-seven

Hour 44 of 45

They'd talked for a while, the three of them, in Percey's room.

Talked about airplanes and cars and police work.

Then Bell went off to bed and Percey and Sachs had talked about men.

Finally Percey'd lain back on the bed, closed her eyes. Sachs lifted the bourbon glass from the sleeping woman's hand and shut out the lights. Decided to try to sleep herself.

She now paused in the corridor to look out at the dim dawn sky--pink and orange--when she realized that the phone in the compound's main hallway had been ringing for a long time.

Why wasn't anybody answering it?

She continued down the corridor.

She couldn't see the two guards nearby. The enclave seemed darker than before. Most of the lights had been shut off. A gloomy place, she thought. Spooky. Smelling of pine and mold. Something else? Another smell that was very familiar to her. What?

Something from crime scenes. In her exhaustion she couldn't place it.

The phone continued to chirp.

She passed Roland Bell's room. The door was partly open and she looked

in. His back was to the door. He was sitting in an armchair that faced a curtained window, his head forward on his chest, arms crossed.

"Detective?" she asked.

He didn't answer.

Sound asleep. Just what she wanted to be. She closed his door softly and continued down the corridor, toward her room.

She thought about Rhyme. She hoped he was getting some sleep too. She'd seen one of his dysreflexia attacks. It had been terrifying and she didn't want him to go through another one.

The phone went quiet, cut off in the middle of a ring. She glanced toward where she'd heard it, wondering if it was for her. She couldn't hear whoever'd answered. She waited a moment, but no one summoned her.