Page 138 of The Midnight Lock (Lincoln Rhyme 14)

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The garbage bags and boxes, Sachs realized, must have held more of the Locksmith’s favorite substance: gasoline.

Just as she started down, she could smell the sweet aroma.

A trip wire, maybe on the door, would have started a timer, which he’d set to make sure that as many police as possible were inside before it activated a detonator to ignite the gas.

“Out, out!” She then transmitted into her radio, “We have fire. Need FD now.”

She helped up Sanchez, who appeared to have broken or twisted her ankle when she fell escaping the explosive flames.

The orange and yellow tornado, accompanied by oily black smoke, roiled higher into the old structure.

Choking, Sachs helped Sanchez to the door, where another officer guided her toward the ambulance.

Sachs turned back, swinging her flashlight back and forth through the gathering flames and smoke, to make sure no one else was left inside. She didn’t see anyone but counted heads outside; theentry teams were accounted for and there were no injuries other than Sanchez’s.

Stepping back inside she examined the room—to the extent she could, given the smoke. The floor was solid oak and it would take some time to burn through it. She started toward the Locksmith’s workbench, hoping for some—forany—evidence, thinking of the key trace that Lyle Spencer had snagged before that fire had destroyed the Sandleman Building.

She got halfway to the workstation before she began to feel lightheaded from the fumes.

Forgot aboutthatlittle aspect of fires …

The oxygen thing.

She turned and stumbled through the door, sucking in masses of air and spitting out the smoke residue.

The firefighters arrived and began running hoses.

Just as well she left. Maybe the floor was holding, but the flames had risen through the walls and the entire main floor was now engulfed in a raging blaze. How much gas had he used? Gallons upon gallons.

The loss of clues to the man’s identity was one consequence of the trap.

But it meant something else too. The Locksmith wouldn’t have set it while he was still here. With the arrest of Joanna and Kemp, he’d know it was only a matter of time before they gave up his name in exchange for a plea deal.

Which meant that he’d undoubtedly bundled up his most important possessions, cleaned out his bank account and was presently a hundred miles from the city by now, and still on the run.

He had been as efficient at destroying evidence as he had been at avoiding leaving it at the scenes.

In the parlor of his town house, Lincoln Rhyme was looking at the photos Sachs had taken of the gutted Sebastiano Bakery Supply Company. He noted too that the neighboring structures were destroyed as well.

“Was it gasoline, like at the other site?”

“Yes,” Sachs replied. She’d taken a lengthy shower, but the lavender scent from her shampoo was laced with the aroma of smoke from burnt wood.

“The building wasn’t stable—the floors—but I could stand in the doorway and get some shots.”

“All those are locks?” Rhyme nodded to the screen, noting the scores of scorched devices. “Quite a collection.”

“You’re thinking of the Watchmaker again.”

He smiled briefly. He had been. The “nemesis” owned hundreds of timepieces.

“They’re cut from the same cloth. Intelligent. Tacticians. Dark artists, you could say. And both obsessed with mechanical devices. Very retro.”

“You’re sounding poetic today.”

His focus returned to the case. “And the reporter’s alibi checks out? What’s his name again?”