Page 113 of The Midnight Lock (Lincoln Rhyme 14)

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Iam through the Andersen door lock and the EverStrong deadbolt in twenty-seven seconds. The door opens and closes with a click.

Five, four, three, two, one …

The wireless alarm, a sophisticated one, is under the spell of my RF box. The panel continues to emit its calming green light, oblivious to the intrusion.

I look around me. The apartment is magnificent. The blinds are now closed but I know the view is breathtaking; I’ve seen it in the day thanks to a video blog the owner has posted.

The door click troubles me some, so I pad fast to the bedroom.

The woman is all trundled and bundled, mouth open.

Her face is not beautiful, not like, say, Annabelle Talese’s.

But that has never been important to me. A woman asleep is a woman asleep.

And being inside their abodes is what I really care about.

Being inside …

I return to the living room and survey the sumptuous place.

Original art is on the walls, sensuous marble sculptures sit on black lacquer tables that are polished to dark mirrors. There are leather couches and chairs. A bank of extraterrestrial orchids sits against the window, their colors pink, white, blue.

I silently walk to the windows and, just as silently, draw the curtains.

Tonight is different.

Tonight is not like the Visits in February or March, where I intruded and moved things around and destroyed the tenants’ spiritual connection with their abodes.

Tonight I’m arriving where I belong.

I lift the brass knife from my pocket and open it with a click, just like the opening of a deadbolt.

Until now I’ve been fine opening doors.

Tonight I’ll use this brass key to open what I’m meant to open, explore what I was born to explore.

The lock of flesh.

I step to the kitchen pass-through to unplug the landline. It would be quite the coincidence for her to get a call at this hour. But the organized offender, the tension-bar-and-rake-picker within me, is taking no chances.

I freeze. I believe I’ve heard a noise behind me.

Then: a loud pop and an agonizing burst of pain and my vision is filled with yellow light, perhaps what a Los Zetas victim sees in the moment before thereisno light.

The Taser barb has buried itself just above my kidneys. I drop to the floor as the searing pain rises through my chest and finally finds a home in my jaw and my world goes black.

From the floor where I’m sitting, my hands bound behind me—tied tight—I understand that she was faking sleep the whole while.

She’d heard me enter, I suppose. Goddamn click. Then she’d grabbed a Taser from the bedside table and slipped from the bed as soon as I stepped to the landline.

In the minutes I was out she’d changed clothing. I can see pink pajamas on the floor in the bedroom. She is now in black slacks and white blouse. She emptied the contents of my wallet and pockets on the kitchen counter and is photographing them and then, it seems, uploading or texting the images somewhere. On the island next to her is the Taser. Something else: A pistol. A semiautomatic kind.

She seems to be in no hurry to call 911.

And she’s wearing blue latex gloves.