Now the woman was whispering something. The rhythm was faster.
The man was saying something too.
And Boyle was wondering: If he made a recording who could he send it to?
Well, of course Dirty Old Tommy on the board cutter. Ginger in Accounting--she was always talking about sex, always flirting. Jose in Receivables.
Boyle pulled out his phone and edged close to his neighbor's door, then recorded the sound show. Smiling to himself.
Who else would appreciate it?
Well, he'd think about it. But he sure wouldn't send the recording to anyone tonight--not after a few hours at Sadie's. He might end up sending it to his ex or his son by mistake. Tomorrow, at work.
Finally his neighbor and whoever his squeeze was sped up and it was over with--a long sigh, which might've been him or might've been her or might've been his imagination.
Boyle shut the recorder of his iPhone off and slipped it away. Staggered up the hall to his apartment. He tried to remember the last time he'd been laid, and couldn't--that's what seven or eight drinks did to you--but he was sure it was sometime during the previous administration.
SATURDAY V
CHECK...
CHAPTER 39
Eight a.m.
Amelia Sachs yawned. She was tired, and her head was throbbing. She'd had, to put it mildly, a restless night. No. Turbulent.
She had left Nick's apartment an hour before and was now in the war room at One PP, where for the second time in a few days, she was reviewing the file of a case that was not on her docket.
First, it had been Nick's.
And now this, a much smaller file, unrelated to his situation.
The hour was early but she'd read it three times already since she'd downloaded it from the archives not long ago. Looking for some positive nuggets that might explain what she suspected. Finding none.
She looked out the window.
Back to the file, which wasn't cooperating in the least.
No gold nuggets. No salvation.
Goddamn it.
A figure appeared in the doorway.
"Got your message," Ron Pulaski said. "Got down here as soon as I could."
"Ron."
Pulaski walked inside. "Empty. Different." He was glancing around the war room. The evidence charts were in the corner but they were incomplete, now that the two cases--Sachs's and Rhyme's--were in fact just one and this facility was no longer part of the Unsub 40 operation. Sunlight poured in, harsh, at an acute angle.
Pulaski looked uneasy. Sometimes he was uncertain--mostly because of the head injury. It had robbed him of confidence and, yes, a little cognitive skill, which he more than made up for in persistence and street instinct. After all, the solutions to most crimes were pretty obvious; police work was built on sweat more than Holmesian deduction. But today? Sachs knew what the issue was.
"Sit down, Ron."
"Sure, Amelia." He noted the file open on the table in front of her. He sat.
She turned the folder around and pushed it forward.