Page 110 of The Midnight Lock (Lincoln Rhyme 14)

He nodded. “I didn’t do the one thing that anybody serious would have done: claimed he went for a weapon and took him out. Couldn’t do that, of course.

“If there was any good news, it was that my daughter died a month before I got busted. She never knew what I’d done.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I cut a deal. I pled guilty and the state waived restitution. They could have taken our house, car, pension, everything. See, I didn’t technically steal from Geiger: I stole from us. Confiscated money goes into the police budget, or somebody’s budget in Albany. I was never too clear on that. Anyway, the prosecutors thought it’d look bad with our daughter dying to penalize my wife too.

“I got thirteen months. Medium security upstate. My wife divorced me, married a nice guy and they’ve got a kid, his.”

“Amelia said you talked about a family.”

“Technically. They’re just not mine. I needed the security job to give them something every month. They don’t have a lot of money.” He looked Rhyme in the eyes. “So if it seemed like an ex-cop—a disgraced butdecoratedex-cop—died saving another cop from a burning building the insurance company wouldn’t say suicide and deny the claim. That’s what you spotted when I was up in the window.”

“I could tell.”

“Amelia didn’t. She lit me up in the Bechtel Building and this thought came over me. Fuck it. That’d be it. I had the pipe. I could’ve gone for her. And that would be it.” A shake of his head. “I remember her eyes. She was wondering why I was hesitating. She didn’t get it.”

“No. That’s not something that would occur to her.”

Amelia Sachs might dig a nail into her skin, she might drive on the edge, she might be first through the door in a dynamic entry, but Rhyme knew she had never asked the to-be-or-not-to-be question.

Spencer continued, “It wouldn’t’ve been right under those circumstances. Not for her. And the insurance company would probably’ve balked. Suicide by cop. They know about that.”

Rhyme nodded.

Spencer asked, “But you … you got it.”

“I knew, yes.”

“Because of what happened?” A nod at the wheelchair.

“That’s right. I’ve been there.”

“Why’d you change your mind?”

Rhyme sipped the scotch. “Funny thing happened. A while ago there was a serial kidnapper here in the city. The Bone Collector.”

“I know about him.”

“He was targeting me because of a mistake I made at a crime scene. I cleared it too soon. A perp was still there. When he tried to escape he killed the wife and the child of the man who’d become the Bone Collector. He decided to come after me. Revenge. But then he discovered I was planning on killing myself.”

“Put a crimp in his plans, didn’t it?”

Rhyme chuckled. “How do you get revenge by killing someone whowantsto die? You’re doing them a favor. So, he planned a series of crimes.”

“The kidnappings?”

A nod. “And ones that I was particularly suited to run. And so I ran them.”

“And, because of that, you changed your mind about killing yourself.”

“That’s right.”

“Andthenhe tried to kill you.”

“Exactly. That plan didn’t work either.”

Spencer eased back in the chair. Rattan is noisy to start with and under his weight the piece of furniture groaned. “I lost the three things that mattered to me. My daughter. My wife. My cop job. That’s why I’m always a footstep away from rappelling without a rope.”