The Steel Kiss (Lincoln Rhyme 12)

Sachs had then stopped by One PP briefly and was now here on her second mission--in Little Italy, little indeed, having been taken over by hipsters from the north and Chinese restaurants and gift stores from the south. She climbed out of the car, snagged her briefcase and walked south. Slowing her pace to a stop, she noted the man's silhouette in a window of the coffeehouse before her.

This place had been here for years, a classic espresso-and-pastry shop right out of a 1940s film. The name was Antonios (there had been only one owner by that name; the family, or the sign-painter, had never bothered with an apostrophe). Sachs preferred it to the three or four other surviving bistros here in south-central Greenwich Village, all of them resiliently resisting the chain-store approach to caffeine.

Sachs pushed inside, a bell mounted to the door jingling cheerfully, and she was assaulted by the smells of rich coffee, cinnamon, nutmeg, yeast.

Eyes still on Nick Carelli, who was scrolling through an iPad.

After a brief pause she walked up to him and said, "Hi."

"Hey." He stood up, looked into her eyes and kept his gaze there. No embrace.

She sat and set the briefcase on her lap. Defensive, the way suspects being grilled sometimes crossed their arms.

"What would you like?" Nick asked.

He was drinking black coffee, and she had a memory of a cold Sunday morning, both Nick and she off duty, she in a pajama top, he in the matching bottoms, as she made two cups of coffee, pouring boiling water through a cone filter, the sound like crinkling cellophane. She would sip hers immediately while he would set his cup in the fridge for a few minutes; he liked tepid drinks, never hot.

"Nothing. I can't stay."

Did he seem disappointed? She believed so.

"Newfangled." He pointed to the iPad with a smile.

"A lot's changed."

"I think I'm at a disadvantage. Don't you need to be about thirteen to master something like this?"

"That's the upper limit," Sachs said. She couldn't help but note once more that Nick looked good. Even better than when she'd seen him las

t. Less gaunt than then. More upright, the slouch gone. He'd had a haircut too. His appearance seemed better now than in his younger days when he'd been, she thought, too skinny. The sprinkles of gray among the black strands helped. And the years--and prison--didn't seem to have dimmed his sparkly-eyed boyishness. A bit of frat was forever inside. Sachs had believed back then that he hadn't so much ruthlessly planned and executed the hijackings, as fallen in with the wrong crowd and, for the hell of it, thought he'd try something daring, without considering the consequences.

"So. Here you are." She opened her briefcase and handed over three thick folders containing about eight hundred sheets of paper. The documentation on his case and related investigations. She'd skimmed the file years ago--not wanting to, but unable to resist. She'd learned that back then there'd been several hijacking rings operating in the city. Nick's arrest was one of seven in a three-month period. Some other perps had been cops as well. If he had been a sole hijacker--especially one going for a plea--the file would have been much skimpier. He flipped through one of the folders fast, smiled and touched her arm.

Not her hand. That would have seemed inappropriate. Just her forearm. Still, even through layers of wool and cotton, she felt the electricity that she remembered from years ago. Wished she hadn't. Really wished that.

He must have felt her stiffen. Certainly he saw her look away. Nick lifted his hand off her sleeve.

She said, "You've got to be careful, Nick. You can't associate with anybody's got a record. Your PO's told you that."

"If there's anybody who can help me and there's any risk, or it even looks like they're connected, I'll use, you know, an intermediary to contact them, a friend. Promise."

"Make sure."

She stood.

"You're positive you don't have time for a fast dinner?"

"I've got to get home to my mother."

"How is she?"

"Well enough for the surgery."

"I don't know how to thank you, Amelia."

"Prove you're innocent," she said. "That's how."

CHAPTER 24