The Broken Window (Lincoln Rhyme 8)

Finally Sachs made a decision--just run for it. Now! All out for the front door!

And hope he's not behind you or hasn't snuck toward the front via a different passageway.

Go!

Sachs pushed off, sprinting past more corridors, canyons of books, glassware, paintings, wires and electronic equipment, cans. Was she going the right way?

Yes, she was. Ahead of her was Gordon's desk, surrounded by the yellow pads. Robert Jorgensen's body was on the floor. Move faster. Move! Forget the phone on the desk, she told herself after briefly considering calling 911.

Get out. Get out now.

Speeding toward the closet door.

The closer she got, the more fierce the panic. Waiting for the gunshot, any moment.

Only twenty feet now . . .

Maybe Gordon believed she was hiding in the back. Maybe he was on his knees, mourning madly the destruction of his precious porcelain.

Ten feet . . .

Around a corner, pausing only to grab the crowbar, slick with his blood.

No, out the door.

Then she stopped, gasping.

Directly in front of her, she saw him, in silhouette, backlit by the glare from the closet doorway. He apparently had taken another route here, she realized in despair. She lifted the heavy iron rod.

For a moment, he didn't see her but her hope of going undetected vanished as he turned her way and dropped to the floor, lifting the gun her way, as an image of her father, then one of Lincoln Rhyme, filled her thoughts.

*

There she is, Amelia 7303, clear in my sights.

The woman who destroyed hundreds of my treasures, the woman who would take everything away from me, deprive me of all my future transactions, expose my Closet to the world. I have no time for fun with her. No time for recorded screams. She has to die. Now.

I hate her I hate her I hate her I hate her I hate her I hate her I hate her I hate her I hate her . . .

No one is going to take anything away from me, never again.

Aim and squeeze.

*

Amelia Sachs stumbled backward as the gun in front of her fired.

Then another shot. Two more.

As she fell to the floor, she covered her head with her arms, numb at first, then aware of growing pain.

I'm dying . . . I'm dying . . .

Only . . . only the only painful sensation was in her arthritic knees, where she'd landed hard on the floor, not from where the bullets must have struck her. Her hand rose to her face, her neck. No wound, no blood. He couldn't have missed her from this range.

But he had.

Then he was running forward toward her. Her eyes cold, her muscles tense as iron, Sachs gasped and gripped the crowbar.