"He was a good boy," Rose said slowly. "I didn't realize he had problems."
"He wanted to get straight, but... addiction's tough. I should've done more. I got him into a few programs but I didn't follow up the way I should have."
Rose Sachs was never one to pat hands. There, there, you did the best you could. She simply nodded, her lips tight. Saying, in effect: Yes, Nick, you should have. Then you wouldn't've gone to prison. And Donnie might still be alive. And you wouldn't have broken my daughter's heart.
"Rose, you might not want to have anything to do with me." A wan smile, a glance at Amelia. "I imagine neither of you do. And I completely understand. I just wanted to tell you I had to make a decision and I chose my brother over Amelia and you and dozens of other people. I almost didn't. I almost threw him to the wolves but I went the other way. I'm sorry." He rose and extended his hand.
Slowly Rose took it and said, "Thank you, Nick. Apologies are very difficult for some people. Now, I'm feeling a little tired."
"Sure. I'll be going."
Sachs walked him to the door.
"I know you didn't expect this. Just something I had to do. Like Donnie? In the Twelve Steps? He had to make the rounds and say he was sorry." A shrug. "Or he would have if he'd gotten that far."
He gave her a spontaneous embrace. Brief. But she felt his hand trembling as it pressed against her neck--her upper spine, she reflected, exactly where Lincoln Rhyme's vertebrae had been snapped. She stepped back. And for a moment debated asking him to tell her what he'd found--this mysterious lead. But she didn't.
Not your issue, she reminded herself.
She closed the door behind him. Then returned to the living room.
"That was odd," Rose said. "Speaking of the devil."
The daughter wondered about the mother's choice of word. Sachs re-nuked her coffee, sipped and threw out the cardboard cup.
"I don't know." The older woman shook her head.
"I believe him, Mom. He's not going to lie to me."
"Oh, I think I believe him too. I think he's innocent. That's not what I mean."
"Then what is it?"
"Nick's decided he made a mistake back then. You should have come first."
"He's making amends, sure. Why is that a problem?"
"Why did he contact you for help?"
A leading question. Sachs hadn't told her that he'd done that. Nor had she shared with her mother that she'd engaged in the legal, but morally murky, effort to download and give him his case files. She'd told her only that he claimed he was innocent, that Sachs believed him and that he was working to prove it.
"Isn't there a procedure--lawyers, review boards--for vindicating yourself?"
Sachs addressed what her mother was really asking: "Mom. Nick'll get on with his life. I'll get on with mine. That's the end of it. I probably won't ever see him again."
Rose Sachs smiled. "I see. Could I please have some more tea?"
Sachs stepped into the kitchen and returned a moment later with a fresh mug. Just as she handed it to her mother, her phone hummed. She pulled it from her pocket, regarded caller ID and answered, "Rhyme."
"We have a positive hit, Sachs. Real time. Unsub Forty's in Times Square. Maybe going after a target right now. Get moving. I'll tell you more on the way."
CHAPTER 31
Sachs was speeding toward Times Square. In Manhattan on the FDR expressway, racing north.
The traffic wasn't terrible... but the drivers were.
They wove; her Torino wove. The consequences of an error in this mutual ballet would have been steel on steel at a speed differential of about forty miles per hour. Potentially bloody and fracturing, if not fatal.