Page 101 of The Midnight Lock (Lincoln Rhyme 14)

“Thanks, Brett. I will think about it.”

“Will you really?” Evans kept a stone face for a moment. Then laughed.

“But I appreciate it.”

The man then grew serious. “Just be careful.”

Rhyme glanced toward Beaufort and Potter. “I will.”

“Well,them, yes. But that’s not what I mean. I heard that Buryak isn’t happy he was brought to trial and one of the people he’s the least happy with is you. Some blogger was saying that there was a conspiracy to get him arrested and convicted. And you might be involved.”

Now Rhyme was the one who smiled. “Lon told me about that. Crazy. But I’m sure I’m well into Buryak’s rearview mirror by now.”

53

Forty minutes ago Aaron Douglass had watched Lincoln Rhyme, accompanied by a trim, athletic man in a nice shirt and slacks and tie leave the town house. They got into a Sprinter, which featured a wheelchair-accessible ramp, and pulled away from the curb.

Once again driving his gray Cadillac, Douglass had put the sleek car into gear and followed. The vehicles made their way south—eventually arriving here, the site of a building fire.

He had no idea what was going on but he did note with pleasure that someone else was present too—the person he was actually most interested in seeing and had hoped to catch: Amelia Sachs.

Parking on a side street, he’d called his “masseur,” broad-chested Arnie Cavall. “Need you. Now. With the van.” And gave the address.

Douglass had joined a small crowd, where he asked what was going on.

A man said, “Heard it was that serial killer, the Locksmith. He tried to kill somebody in the building.”

Ah, the man who could break into any place, the man AmeliaSachs was pursuing when she and Rhyme were not trying to nail Viktor Buryak. He asked, “Did they catch him?”

A toothy middle-aged woman in a large hat muttered, “They’ll never catch him. He works for the police.”

“You’re crazy.” This was from somebody else in the crowd.

“I heard that online,” the woman countered angrily. “It’s a trusted source!”

Douglass left them to have it out—or not—and stepped to a vantage point where he could see both Rhyme and Sachs. They were near an FDNY command post. There was a cluster of firefighters and police—some uniforms and some detectives. He then circled the scene, spotting her distinctive car parked not far away, on a side street. Douglass watched Rhyme have a conversation with two men in suits, who left when a third man showed up. Finally Rhyme returned to Amelia and the mountain climber—the man who’d accompanied her from Whittaker Tower when he and Arnie were at the maple-flavored tempeh burger food truck.

The big man had just rescued someone from the building.

A spectacular feat.

The man was massaging his shoulder and taking occasional whiffs of oxygen.

Douglass noted with interest that Rhyme’s wheelchair had climbed right over thick fire department hoses. It was quite a piece of machinery.

He texted Arnie.

Where are you?

The reply:

Three minutes.

He walked slowly around the neighborhood and side streets, studying the layout. He thought, Yeah, it could work.

Soon Arnie pulled up to the intersection Douglass had sent him. He was in a battered Econoline van. He parked and nodded.

Douglass looked over the beat-up vehicle, perfect for transporting meth or disposing bodies or delivering flowers. Whatever it was ordinarily used for, the important thing is that it was nondescript and looked like a thousand others on the streets of the city—just the sort of vehicle to use when you ran down a policewoman.