"Good of you."
A shrug. "The son's twelve. Bryan."
Rhyme didn't ask how they were doing. Verbal empties, questions like that.
Clutching her wine in both hands, Sachs walked to an unsterile table, leaned against it. Returned his gaze. "I was close. Almost had him, Unsub Forty, I mean. But then the accident, the escalator. I had to choose." Sipping wine.
"The right thing, Sachs. Of course. You had to do it."
"It was just a coincidence I tipped to him--there was no time, zero time to put together a full take-down team." She closed her eyes. A slow shake of the head. "A crowded mall. Just couldn't get it together."
Sachs was her own harshest critic and Rhyme knew the difficult circumstances of the impromptu take-down operation might dull the sting for some people but, with Sachs, they did not. He had evidence of this now: Sachs's hand disappeared into her hair and she scratched her scalp. Then she seemed to sense she was doing so and stopped. Started again a moment later. She was a woman of great dynamics, some light, some dark. They came as a package.
"Forensics?" he asked. "On your unsub?"
"Not much at Starbucks, where he was sitting. The unsub heard Greg Frommer's scream and, like everybody else, looked toward it. I was in his line of sight. I guess he saw my piece or the shield on my belt. Knew what was going down. Or suspected. So he left fast, took everything with him. Got some trace at the table but he'd been there only for a few minutes."
"Exit route?" Rhyme was no longer working for the NYPD, but obvious questions naturally flowed.
"Loading dock. Ron, some ECTs and some uniforms from the Eight-Four are on it, canvassing, and may have a secondary to search. We'll see. Oh, and I got a shooting team convened in my honor."
"Why?"
"I blew away a motor."
"You...?"
"You didn't see the news?"
"No."
"The vic wasn't stuck in the steps of the escalator. He fell through onto the gears of the drive motor. No cutoff switch there. I shot out the coils of the motor. It was too late."
Rhyme considered this. "No one was injured by the shot so they wouldn't put you on administrative. You'll get a no-action letter in a week or so."
"Hope so. Captain from the Eight-Four's on my side. As long as there're no reporters trying to make their careers with stories on cops shooting guns in malls, I'll be cool."
"I don't think that's much of a journalistic subspecialty," Rhyme said wryly.
"Well, Madino, the captain, he managed to purgatory the situation for a while."
"Love the word," Rhyme told her. "You end-ran it." Pleased with his own verbing.
She smiled.
Rhyme liked that. She hadn't been smiling a lot lately.
She returned to the rattan chair near Rhyme and sat. The furniture made its distinctive mew, a sound Rhyme had never heard duplicated elsewhere.
"You're thinking," she said slowly, "if I changed clothes at my house, which I did, and if I'm not staying here tonight, which I'm not..." She cocked her head. "Why'd I make the trip?"
"Exactly."
She set down her half-finished wine. "I came by to ask you something. I need a favor. Your initial reaction is going to be to say no but just hear me out. Deal?"
I wasn't brave enough.
Not tonight.