Page 79 of The Midnight Lock (Lincoln Rhyme 14)

It occurs to me that maybe what’s bothering her is that by frustrating the stalker, he decided to assault someone else.

Is her gut pinging with guilt at the moment that she might have set in motion a chain of events that will end in an assault, a rape, a murder?

Well, I think, that faint trickle of remorse is nothing compared to the pain you’re going to feel, Taylor.

And, Roonie, you too.

The girl now pulls her phone from her back right pocket and shows me a video of some famous gymnast. Jenna Whoever.

“She’s amazing.”

“That’s the routine I’m working up now.”

“Maybe Mr. Nelson and Meghan can come to your next meet?”

“Yeah, like, sure.”

We cross the street. Taylor points ahead and says, “That’s our building, right there.”

And I think: I know.

“Friends: Follow-up to my news from my home, the West Coast. Remember the post about the government contracts for infrastructure projects around the country, using steel produced by a well-known company, based in California? They were using pig iron from eastern Europe in forging beams for bridges and highways, recall?

“Well, now I’ve learned that in a construction site in NorthernCalifornia, two workers are in serious condition after beams, made with the substandard steel, shattered. And what was the project? A highway bridge over a two-hundred-foot chasm.

“Next time you drive over a bridge, ask yourself: Was it built with defective steel?

“This is corruption at its worst.

“Why isn’t the General Services Administration in Washington doing anything about it? Because, of course, they’re controlled by the Hidden!

“Say your prayers and stay prepared!

“My name is Verum, Latin for ‘true.’ That is what my message is. What you do with it is up to you.”

42

There but for the grace …

One of the two lead shields on the Alekos Gregorios homicide, Detective Tye Kelly, stood in the double doorway of the old gym, now a homeless shelter, brightly lit and clean but smelling to the back of his nose like disinfectant. Men were the only occupants here. The Department of Homeless Services—a very different DHS than the one that first comes to mind—wanted no trouble. Homeless people were just like homed people with regard to impulse control, or lack thereof. The problem here was that there were no doors you could hide behind and lock.

His partner, the other detective on the case, walked up behind him and looked over the huge room.

“Cleaner than I thought,” Crystal Wilson said, hands on her trim hips. Today, coincidentally, they both wore dark gray suits. Her top was a black sweater, his a powder blue shirt. Each had jet black hair. His was thinning. Hers was done in neat cornrows. Kelly was at firstsurprised she’d never seen a shelter, but she’d come up in the 112, where there were none.

This one, the Deloitte House, was in a different precinct, west, where there were several official and unofficial shelters.

Wilson said, “It’s bed B-eighty-six.”

He wondered if she’d be thinking the same thing as he, a play on Bingo.

But under the circumstances—the location and their mission at the moment—neither of them acknowledged the thought.

Kelly was aware of the eyes following them and certain hand movements, as things were slipped away. Weapons, drugs and alcohol were forbidden in the shelters of New York City, but that had nothing to do with therealityof weapons, drugs and alcohol—especially in a shelter that was woefully understaffed and featured virtually no security. Still Kelly knew from experience that there was little to be gained from rousts and as long as no one flaunted their contraband, or threatened anyone, then let them be.

Leave themsomething, Kelly thought.

After all, there but for the grace …