The Skin Collector (Lincoln Rhyme 11)

IFON

ConEd router

Metropolitan Transit Authority DC current feed

Department of Environmental Protection pipe

Flashlight - Generic, cannot be sourced

Handcuffs - Generic, cannot be sourced

Duct tape - Generic, cannot be sourced

No trace

Purse left as booby trap - Plastic surgeon's hypodermic needle

- Strychnine loaded into needle

Can't locate source

Probably not enough to kill

* * *

Rhyme gazed at the entries and then shrugged. 'It's as mysterious as the message he's trying to send.'

Thom said, 'Witching hour.'

'Okay, you win.'

Cooper pulled his jacket on and said good night.

'Sachs?' Rhyme asked. 'You coming upstairs?'

She'd turned from the board and was staring out the window at the stark, ice-coated branches bending in the persistent wind.

'What?' She hadn't heard, it seemed.

'You coming to bed?'

'I'll be a few more minutes.'

Thom climbed the stairs and Rhyme wheeled to the elevator that would take him to the second floor. Once there, he rolled toward the bedroom. He paused, though, cocked his head, listening. Sachs was on the phone, speaking softly, but he could still make out the words.

'Pam, hey, it's me ... Hope you're checking messages. Really like to talk. Give me a call. Okay, love you. 'Night.'

That was, Rhyme believed, the third such call today.

He heard her footfalls on the stairs and immediately veered into the bedroom and struck up a conversation with Thom - which must have bordered on the surreal to the aide, given that Rhyme was concentrating on his words not one bit; he simply wanted to keep Sachs from knowing he'd overheard her plea to Pam Willoughby.

Sachs crested the top stair and walked into the bedroom. Rhyme was thinking how unsettling it is when the people who are the hubs of our lives are suddenly vulnerable. And worse yet when they mask it with stoic smiles, as Sachs did now.

She saw his glance and asked, 'What?'

Rhyme vamped. 'Just thinking. I have a feeling we're going to get him tomorrow.'

He expected her to look incredulous and say something like, 'You? Have a feeling.'