Page 156 of The Midnight Lock (Lincoln Rhyme 14)

Aaron Douglass might have helped them put together hours of incriminating evidence against Viktor Buryak.

But Aaron Douglass was no more.

“No choice,” she said, clearly troubled that Douglass had given her no option other than to kill him.

Returning on foot northbound on the sidewalk, Sachs had beencarrying two bags of deli food. She’d witnessed Douglass fire the rounds into the Torino and at Rhyme, then run south, to where his car was parked. She’d dumped the groceries, drawn down and demanded that he drop his weapon.

He had chosen to engage—unwisely, given her handgun skills (second place isn’t a blue ribbon, true, but it still means you put the slugs where they’re supposed to be ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time). Apparently his muzzle hadn’t moved more than thirty degrees in her direction, before he received a tight group of rounds.

Rhyme wondered if he’d died curious about whom exactly he’d shot in the driver’s seat of the Torino.

The answer to that question was: Lyle Spencer, the security chief of Whittaker Media Group.

It seemed that Spencer had quite the affection for sports cars, and Sachs had handed over the keys to him, saying, “There’s a blue flasher in the glove compartment. Probably best to keep it under a hundred.” She had then headed off on foot to the deli.

The lending of the car and the pedestrian grocery shopping mission were facts she had not shared with Rhyme until now—which explained his earlier panic.

Lyle Spencer, Rhyme was reflecting: the man who climbed a hundred-foot rope as if it were nothing to save Ron Pulaski’s life.

The man who’d considered a swan dive from a broken window in the Sandleman Building.

The man who had been one hell of a cop but who risked it all, and lost, to try to save his daughter.

The man who now joined Rhyme and Sachs, hobbling slowly and wincing with each step.

“How are you?” Sachs asked him.

“Two ribs cracked and bruises that’re the shape—and the color—of eggplants. Same size too. All right. Maybe I’m exaggerating.”

It seemed that while Spencer’s criminal past prohibited him from carrying weapons, he was never without PPE, personal protective equipment, when he was in the field. In this case a CoolMAX Level 3A vest.

“You’ll have dinner with us.” Sachs was righting the fallen groceries, the only casualty a bottle of Barolo Italian wine, whose shards she dropped into a trash receptacle.

She grimaced at the expensive loss.

“Love to but Mr. Whittaker called. He wants to see me. He’s giving me a promotion.” He glanced at his ruined shirt and jacket. “After a change of clothes.”

“Promotion,” Rhyme said slowly. He and Sachs exchanged glances, conspiratorial.

What came next fell within her bailiwick, so Rhyme remained silent and let her speak. “How’d you like ade-motion?”

“I’m sorry?”

“You caught the eye of some people in this case. Dep com level. They wouldn’t mind if you signed on.”

“Consultants are back in favor, hm? Well, honored, but you can guess what Mr. Whittaker pays me. I don’t think that’s in the city’s budget.”

“No, not consultant. True NYPD. You’d start at detective three. The demotion I mentioned was in terms of rank. You were detective first in Albany, right?”

He gave a hollow laugh. “Well, appreciate that. I really do. But the conviction, remember?”

Like most police departments, the NYPD did not allow felons to join their ranks.

Rhyme now navigated into the conversation. “You wouldn’t be a felon with a pardon and an expungement of your record.”

Spencer’s face was still. “That only happens if there’s a wrongfulconviction. But mine wasn’t. I did the crime, got collared. Anyway, even if the department wanted to, it can’t issue pardons.”

“But the governor can,” Sachs said.