The Skin Collector (Lincoln Rhyme 11)

A cool chill. 'This's about me and Seth. Not his parents. And this cross-examination is pissing me off.'

'Pam.' Sachs leaned forward. She reached for the girl's hand. It was, of course, eased out of reach. 'Pam, have you told him about what happened to you?'

'I have. And he doesn't care.'

'Everything? Have you told him everything?'

Pam fell silent and looked down. Then she said defensively, 'There's no need to ... No, not everything. I told him my mother was crazy and did some bad things. He knows she's in jail and will be there forever. He's totally fine with it.'

Then he was from The Walking Dead, Sachs reflected. 'And where you grew up? How you grew up? Did you tell him any of that?'

'Not really. But that's in the past. That's over with.'

'I don't think you can ignore it, Pam. He has to know. Your mother did a lot of damage--'

'Oh, I'm crazy too? Like my mother? That's how you look at me?'

Sachs was stung by this comment but she tried to keep a light tone. 'Come on, you're saner than any politician in Washington.' She smiled. It wasn't reciprocated.

'There's nothing wrong with me!' Pam's voice rose.

'Of course not, no! I'm just concerned about you.'

'No. You're saying I'm too fucked up, I'm too immature to make decisions on my own.'

Sachs was growing angry herself. The defensive didn't suit her. 'Then make smart ones.' If you really love him and it's going to work out, a year or so of dating won't mean anything.'

'We're going away, Amelia. And then we're moving in when we get back. I mean, Get over it.'

'Don't talk that way to me,' Sachs snapped back. She knew she was losing it but couldn't stop herself.

The young woman rose abruptly, knocking her cup over and spilling it onto the silver tray.

'Shit.'

She bent forward and angrily mopped it up. Sachs leaned in to help but Pam pulled the tray away and continued cleaning by herself, then tossed down the brown, saturated napkin. She glared at Sachs with shockingly feral eyes. 'I know exactly what's going on. You want to break us up. You're looking for any excuse.' A cold grin. 'It's all about you, isn't it, Amelia? You want to break us up just so you can have the daughter you were too busy being a cop to have.'

Sachs nearly gasped at the searing accusation - perhaps, she admitted silently, because there was a splinter of truth in it.

Pam stormed to the door, paused and said, 'You're not my mother, Amelia. Remember that. You're the woman who put my mother in prison.'

Then she was gone.

CHAPTER 16

Near midnight, Billy Haven cleared away his supper dishes, washing everything that wasn't disposable in bleach to remove DNA.

Which was as dangerous - to him - as some of the poisons he'd extracted and refined.

He sat back down at the rickety table in the kitchen area of his workshop, off Canal Street, and opened the dog-eared, battered notebook, the Commandments.

Delivered, in a way, by the hand of God.

Those stone tablets to Moses.

The notebook, with its dozen or so pages of tightly packed sentences - in Billy's beautiful, flowing cursive writing - described in detail how the Modification should unfold, who should die, when to do what, the risks to avoid, the risks to take, what advantages to seize, how to cope with unexpected reversals. An exact timetable. If Genesis were a how-to guide like the Modification Commandments, the first book of the Bible would read:

Day Three, 11:20 a.m.: Create deciduous trees. Okay, now You have seven minutes to create evergreens ...