Page 23 of The Midnight Lock (Lincoln Rhyme 14)

The woman scanned the streets, tugged at her hair. Pulled a scrunchie out of her purse, a bright red one, and started to bind her hair with it, but then stopped. She dug into the bag again and exchanged it for a rubber band, presumably so she wouldn’t stand out quite so much. She sighed and lowered her head. Sachs wondered if she’d cry. She didn’t.

“I’m sure you know quite a bit about computers and the internet,” Sachs said.

“Not a lot. Enough to make the vids and post them is all.”

“I’m thinking we could contact all the platforms you post on and talk to security there. That’d give us the IPs of everybody who’s watched you. Might get us some names to work with.”

Now, Talese gave an ever-so-faint smile. “Detective, the thing is, I post on five different platforms and the analytics show I have a total of, um, about two hundred and thirty thousand subscribers and fans. And you can triple that to get the number of people who just hit the site to watch me and never subscribe.”

Well, that answered that.

“Anyone in the building who might be an issue?”

A shrug. “I don’t know most of my neighbors. It’s New York, right?”

“Have you noticed anybody following you or watching you over the past few weeks?”

“No.”

“And as far as you know, he only took the knife and your underwear?”

“I think that’s it. No jewelry, checkbooks, computer, TV. What a normal thief would take.”

Sachs closed the notebook and shut off the recorder.

Talese stared at the façade of the building. “I’m going to stay with my mother. Long Island. Until I sell it and buy something new. Can I pack a suitcase?”

“Of course.”

“Will you come with me?”

Sachs smiled. “Sure.”

They climbed from the car and Talese stood with her hands on her hips, staring up at the tall building once again.

“Hedidtake something else, Detective.”

Sachs looked her way.

Annabelle Talese’s voice dropped to a whisper. “He stole my home. I loved it so much, and he took it away from me.”

13

Rhyme glanced up as Amelia Sachs entered.

He was in the hallway and he looked outside, past her, noting the remnants of construction work on the street.

These samples of sand came from a work site on the west side of Central Park West, in the three hundred block …

His heart accelerated some, wondering what the verdict against Viktor Buryak would be. It was so important. Lives depended on it.

Sachs had just returned from walking the grid at Annabelle Talese’s apartment, which was located about five blocks from Rhyme’s town house on the Upper West Side.

She was carrying a milk carton, in which she’d put the evidence bags of what she’d collected. There didn’t seem to be much, he was disappointed to see.

“Amelia!” Mel Cooper, Rhyme’s primary lab man, was an NYPD detective. He was slight and balding. His shoes vied with his thick-framed eyeglasses to be the less stylish accessory, though Rhyme had seen pictures of him tuxed-up in a ballroom dancingcompetition with his gorgeous Scandinavian girlfriend, and he cut quite the figure. He was presently gloved and was dressing in a mask, lab coat, booties and bonnet.

“I’ll take that, thank you,” said Cooper, lifting the crate away from her. He stepped into the sterile portion of the lab.