The Vanished Man (Lincoln Rhyme 5)

"Well, for the time being you're still on active duty."

"Yessir. When will I know?"

"A day or two."

Walking toward the door.

She stopped, turned back. "Sir?"

Marlow glanced up as if he was surprised she was still there.

"Ramos was in the middle of my crime scene. If it'd been you there, or the mayor, or the president himself, I would've done exactly the same thing."

"That's why you're your father's daughter, Officer, and why he'd be proud of you." Marlow lifted his phone off the cradle. "We'll hope for the best."

Chapter Fifty Thom let Lon Sellitto into the front hallway, where Lincoln Rhyme sat in his candy-apple red chair, grumbling at construction workers to mind the woodwork as they carted refuse downstairs from the repair work currently going on in his fire-damaged bedroom.

Passing by on his way to the kitchen to fix lunch, Thom grumbled back, "Leave 'em alone, Lincoln. You couldn't care less about the woodwork."

"It's the principle," the criminalist replied tautly. "It's my woodwork and their clumsiness."

"He's always this way when a case's over," the aide said to Sellitto. "Have you got some really thorny robbery or murder for him? A good pacifier?"

"I don't need a pacifier," Rhyme snapped as the aide vanished. "I need people to be careful with the walls!"

Sellitto said, "Hey, Linc. We've got to talk."

The criminalist noted the tone--and the look in Sellitto's eyes. They'd been working together for years and he could read every emotion the cop broadcast, especially when he was troubled. What now? he wondered.

"Just heard from the head of Patrol. It's about Amelia." Sellitto cleared his throat.

Rhyme's heart undoubtedly gave an extra slam in his chest. He never felt it, of course, though he did sense a surge of blood in his neck and head and face.

Thinking: Bullet, car crash.

He said evenly in a low voice, "Go on."

"She washed out. The sergeant's exam."

"What?"

"Yup."

Rhyme's hot relief turned instantly to sorrow for her.

The detective continued, "It's not official yet. But I know."

"Where'd you hear?"

"Cop radar. A fucking bird. I don't know. Sachs's a star. When something like this happens, word gets out."

"What about her score on the exam?"

"Despite her score on the exam."

Rhyme wheeled into the lab. The detective, looking particularly rumpled today, followed.

The explanation was pure Sachs, it turned out. She'd ordered somebody out of an active crime scene and, when he wouldn't leave, had him cuffed.