Page 102 of The Midnight Lock (Lincoln Rhyme 14)

And, as Arnie had recommended, it was nondescript white.

“Good,” Douglass said, nodding at the wheels.

“I figured this’d be best.” The small, wiry man looked over at the rescue workers, all the cars and trucks, the millions of lights.

He continued, “That’s them. The ones we saw when we was at the food truck. She’s hot.”

Echoing Viktor Buryak’s more elegant observation about the policewoman.

“The fuck’s that got to do with anything?”

“Yeah, but,” Arnie said, going nowhere after that.

Douglass pointed. “There’s her car. We’ll wait until they head back to it and the Sprinter. That’s Rhyme’s. I need them together.”

“Can he drive?”

“No. The guy with him. He’s his aide or something.”

“Does it have a ramp?”

“Let’s focus, here, Arnie.”

“Sure. When they’re headed back to the car and the van.”

Douglass was now pointing to the middle of the block. “That’s a good spot. When she’s right about there.”

“By the containers and trash.”

“That’s right.” He thought for a moment. “How fast should you go to hurt somebody bad but not kill them?”

Arnie considered this.

“I’d say forty.”

“Too fast. Thirty.”

Amelia Sachs looked once more at the ropes dangling from the rappel window, now filled with flames. First one cord then the other fell to the roof of the building before, their ends burning.

“Don’t know I could have done that, Rhyme.”

Her essential fear was claustrophobia and she had no particular concern about heights, other than the usual. But still.

The criminalist said nothing but his eyes too strayed to the window.

“What’d they say?” she asked.

“Beaufort and Potter? Wanted a public apology because I wrote a memo for the Gregorios case.”

“Seriously?” Her lips tightened in disgust.

“It’s gone away. But they’re persistent. Oh, and Brett Evans wants me to move to Trenton or Newark. Or some such. It’s a curious time, Sachs …” His voice lowered. “So, Kitt’s the one?” he asked.

She nodded. “All the bad blood within the family, I told you—hating his father’s brand of journalism. Always an activist, they said. Did Izzy drop off the evidence at your place?”

“Mel divided it in half, and she went on to Queens. He’s working on it now.”

“I’ll get back there,” she said and turned, heading for her car.