The Broken Window (Lincoln Rhyme 8)

Sachs got her portable crime-scene kit from the trunk of her car, and she and Pam searched together.

Well, Sachs did the searching but Pam, standing clear of the perimeter, described exactly where the killer had been. Though her voice was unsteady, the girl was coolly efficient.

I kind of ran into the kitchen and got a knife.

Since Pam was here, Sachs asked a patrol officer to stand guard in the garden--where the killer had escaped. This didn't allay her concern completely, though, not with 522's uncanny ability to spy on his victims, to learn all about them, to get close. She wanted to search the scene and get Pam away as soon as she could.

With the teenager directing her, Sachs searched the places he'd stepped. But she found no evidence in the town house. The killer had either used gloves when he'd broken in or hadn't touched any receptive surfaces, and the adhesive rollers revealed no signs of foreign trace.

"Where did he go outside?" Sachs asked.

"I'll show you." Pam glanced at Sachs's face, which was apparently revealing her reluctance to expose the girl to more danger. "It'd be better than me just telling you."

Sachs nodded and they walked into the garden. She looked around carefully. She asked the patrol officer, "See anything?"

"Nope. But I've gotta say, when you think somebody's watching you, you see somebody watching you."

"I hear that."

He jerked a thumb toward a row of dark windows across the alley, then toward some thick azaleas and boxwood bushes. "I checked them out. Nothing. But I'll keep on it."

"Thanks."

Pam directed Sachs to the path 522 had taken to escape and Sachs began walking the grid.

"Amelia?"

"What?"

"I was kind of a shit, you know. What I said to you yesterday. I felt, like, all desperate or something. Panicked . . . I guess what I'm saying is, I'm sorry."

"You were the picture of restraint."

"I didn't feel very restrained."

"Love makes us weird, honey."

Pam laughed.

"We'll talk about it later. Maybe tonight, depending on how the case goes. We'

ll get dinner."

"Okay, sure."

Sachs continued her examination, struggling to put aside her uneasiness, the sense that 522 was still here. But despite her effort the search wasn't very fruitful. The ground was mostly gravel and she found no footprints, except one near the gate through which he'd escaped from her yard into the alley. The only mark was the toe of a shoe--he'd been sprinting--and useless forensically. She found no fresh tire treadmarks.

But, returning to her yard, she saw a flash of white in the ivy and periwinkle covering the ground--exactly in the position where it would have landed after falling from 522's pocket as he'd vaulted the locked gate.

"You found something?"

"Maybe." With tweezers, Sachs picked up a small piece of paper. Returning to the town house, she set up a portable examining table and processed the rectangle. She sprayed ninhydrin on it, then, after donning goggles, hit it with an alternative light source. She was disappointed that no prints were revealed.

"Is it helpful?" Pam asked.

"Could be. It's not going to point to his front door. But then evidence usually doesn't. If it did," she added, smiling, "they wouldn't need people like Lincoln and me, right? I'm going to go check it out."

Sachs got her toolbox, took out the drill and screwed shut the broken window. She locked up, setting the alarm.