The Steel Kiss (Lincoln Rhyme 12)

"Yeah?" I ask, hand near the hammer.

"What's going on out there?"

"Robbery, I think. That jewelry store. Maybe."

"Fuckers never had security there. I coulda told 'em."

His co-worker: "Only had cheap crap. Zircons, shit like that. Who'd get his ass shot for a zircon?"

I see a sign for Deliveries and dutifully follow the arrow.

I hear voices ahead, stop and look around the corner. One little black guard, skinny as me, a twig, is all. On his radio. I could break him easily with the hammer. Make his face crack into ten pieces. And then--

Oh, no. Why is life such a chore?

Two others show up. One white, one black. Both twice my weight.

I duck back. And then things get worse yet. Behind me, other end of the corridor I've just come down. I hear more voices. Maybe it's Red and some others, making a sweep this way.

And the only exit, ahead of me, has three rental cops, who live for the day they too have a chance to break bones... or Tase or spray.

Me, in the middle and nowhere to go.

CHAPTER 2

Where?"

"Still searching, Amelia," Buddy Everett, the patrolman from the 84, told her. "Six teams. Exits're all covered, us or private security. He's got to be here somewhere."

Wiping away the blood on her boot with a Starbucks napkin. Or trying to, futilely. Her jacket, in a trash bag she'd gotten from the coffee shop too, might not be irreparably ruined but she wasn't inclined to wear a garment that had been saturated with blood. The young patrolman noted the stains on her hands, his eyes troubled. Cops are, of course, human too. Immunity comes eventually but later to some than others, and Buddy Everett was young still.

Through red-framed glasses, he looked at the open access panel. "And he...?"

"He didn't make it."

A nod. Eyes now on the floor, Sachs's bloody boot prints leading away from the escalator.

"No idea which direction he went?" he asked.

"None." She sighed. Only a few minutes had elapsed between the time that Unsub 40 might have seen her and fled, and the deployment of the backup officers. But that seemed to be enough to turn him invisible. "All right. I'll be searching with you."

"They'll need help in the basement. It's a warren down there."

"Sure. But get bodies canvassing in the street too. If he saw me he had a window to get the hell out of Dodge ASAP."

"Sure, Amelia."

The youthful officer with the glasses the shade of cooling blood nodded and headed off.

"Detective?" A man's voice from behind her.

She turned to a compact Latino of about fifty, in a striped navy-blue suit and yellow shirt. His tie was spotless white. Don't see that combo often.

She nodded.

"Captain Madino."

She shook his hand. He was surveying her with dark eyes, lids low. Seductive but not sexual; captivating in the way powerful men--some women too--were.