The Broken Window

the windows.
    Haumann had to admit he hadn’t seen anything like this in all his years in the military or the police department. Lincoln Rhyme was using some kind of computer program that had tracked Amelia Sachs to this area, only it wasn’t through her phone or a wire or GPS tracker. Maybe this was the future of police work.
    The device hadn’t given the actual location where the teams now were—a private residence. But a witness had seen a woman pause at both shops where the computer had spotted her, then she’d headed to this town house across the street.
    Where she was presumably being held by the perp they were calling 522.
    Finally, the team in the back called in. “B Team to One. We’re in position. Can’t see anything. Which floor is she on, K?”
    “No idea. We just go in and sweep. Move fast. She’s been in there a while. I’ll hit the bell and when he comes to the door, we move in.”
    “Roger, K.”
    “Team C. We’ll be on the roof in three or four minutes.”
    “Move it!” Haumann grumbled.
    “Yes, sir.”
    Haumann had worked with Amelia Sachs for years. She had more balls than most of the men who served under him. He wasn’t sure he liked her—she was pigheaded and abrupt and often bluffed her way onto point when she should have held back—but he sure as hell respected her.
    And he wasn’t going to let her go down to a rapist like this 522. He nodded an ESU detective up to the porch—dressed in a business suit so that when he knocked on the door, a glance through the peephole wouldn’t tip off the killer. Once he opened the door, officers crouching against the front of the town house would leap up and rush him. The officer buttoned his jacket and nodded.
    “Goddamnit,” Haumann radioed impatiently to the team in the back. “You in place yet or not?”

Chapter Forty-seven
    The door opened and she heard the killer’s footsteps enter the stinking, claustrophobic room.
    Amelia Sachs was in a crouch, her knees in agony, struggling to get to the handcuff key in her front pocket. But surrounded by the towering stacks of newspapers, she hadn’t been able to turn far enough to reach into her front pocket. She’d touched it through the cloth, felt its shape, tantalizing, but couldn’t slip her fingers into the slit.
    She was racked with frustration.
    More footsteps.
    Where, where?
    One more lunge for the key . . . Almost but not quite.
    Then his steps moved closer. She gave up.
    Okay, it was time to fight. Fine with her. She’d seen his eyes, the lust, the hunger. She knew he’d be coming for her at any moment. She didn’t know how she’d hurt him, with her hands cuffed behind her and the terrible pain in her shoulder and face from the fight earlier. But the bastard’d pay for every touch.
    Only, where was he?
    The footsteps had stopped.
    Where? Sachs had no perspective on the room. The corridor he’d have to come through to get to her was a two-foot-wide path through the towers of moldy newspapers. She could see his desk and the piles of junk, the stacks of magazines.
    Come on, come for me.
    I’m ready. I’ll act scared, shy away. Rapists are all about control. He’ll be empowered—and careless—when he sees me cower. Then when he leans close, I’ll go for his throat with my teeth. Hold on and don’t let go, whatever happens. I’ll—
    It was then that the building collapsed, a bomb detonated.
    A massive crushing tide tumbled over her, slamming her to the floor and pinning her immobile.
    She grunted in pain.
    Only after a minute did Sachs realize what he’d done—maybe anticipating that she was going to fight, he’d simply pushed over stacks of the newspapers.
    Legs and hands frozen, her chest, shoulders and head exposed, she was trapped by hundreds of pounds of stinking newspaper.
    The claustrophobia grabbed her, the panic indescribable, and she barked a scream with staccato breath. She struggled to control the fear.
    Peter Gordon appeared at the end of the tunnel. She saw in one of his hands the steel blade of a razor. In the other was a tape recorder. He studied her closely.
    “Please,” she whimpered. The panic was only partly feigned.
    “You’re lovely,” he whispered.
    He began to say something else but the words were lost in the sound of a doorbell, which chimed in here as well as the main part of the town house.
    Gordon paused.
    Then the bell rang again.
    He rose and walked to the desk, typed on the keyboard and studied the computer