The Broken Window

precious porcelain.
    Ten feet . . .
    Around a corner, pausing only to grab the crowbar, slick with his blood.
    No, out the door.
    Then she stopped, gasping.
    Directly in front of her, she saw him, in silhouette, backlit by the glare from the closet doorway. He apparently had taken another route here, she realized in despair. She lifted the heavy iron rod.
    For a moment, he didn’t see her but her hope of going undetected vanished as he turned her way and dropped to the floor, lifting the gun her way, as an imageof her father, then one of Lincoln Rhyme, filled her thoughts.
    •   •   •
    There she is, Amelia 7303, clear in my sights.
    The woman who destroyed hundreds of my treasures, the woman who would take everything away from me, deprive me of all my future transactions, expose my Closet to the world. I have no time for fun with her. No time for recorded screams. She has to die. Now.
    I hate her I hate her I hate her I hate her I hate her I hate her I hate her I hate her I hate her . . .
    No one is going to take anything away from me, never again.
    Aim and squeeze.
    •   •   •
    Amelia Sachs stumbled backward as the gun in front of her fired.
    Then another shot. Two more.
    As she fell to the floor, she covered her head with her arms, numb at first, then aware of growing pain.
    I’m dying . . . I’m dying . . .
    Only . . . only the only painful sensation was in her arthritic knees, where she’d landed hard on the floor, not from where the bullets must have struck her. Her hand rose to her face, her neck. No wound, no blood. He couldn’t have missed her from this range.
    But he had.
    Then he was running forward toward her. Her eyes cold, her muscles tense as iron, Sachs gasped and gripped the crowbar.
    But he continued past her, not even glancing her way.
    What was this? Sachs slowly rose, wincing. Without the backlight of glare from the open closet door she saw the silhouette become distinct. It wasn’t Gordon at all but a detective she knew from the nearby 20th Precinct—John Harvison. The detective held his Glock steady as he moved cautiously to the body of the man he’d just shot to death.
    Peter Gordon, Sachs now understood, had been moving up silently behind her and been about to shoot her in the back. From where he’d been stalking her, he hadn’t seen Harvison, low in the closet doorway.
    “Amelia, you all right?” the detective called.
    “Yeah. Fine.”
    “Other shooters?”
    “Don’t think so.”
    Sachs rose and joined the detective. All the rounds from his gun had apparently hit their target; one of them had struck Gordon’s forehead directly. The resulting wound was massive. Blood and brain matter flecked Prescott’s American Family painting above the desk.
    Harvison was an intense man in his forties who’d been decorated several times for courage under fire and collaring major drug dealers. He was pure professional now and paid no attention to the bizarre setting as he secured the scene. He lifted the Glock out of Gordon’s bloody hand and locked it open, slipping the gun and clip into his pocket. He moved the Taser safely aside too, though it was unlikely there’d be any miraculous resurrections.
    “John,” Sachs whispered, staring at the killer’s ruined body. “How? How on earth did you find me?”
    “Got an any-available squawk about an assault in progress at this address. I was a block away on a drug thing so I headed over.” He glanced at her. “It was that guy you work with who called it in.”
    “Who?”
    “Rhyme. Lincoln Rhyme.”
    “Oh.” The answer didn’t surprise her, though it left more questions than it settled.
    They heard a faint gasp. They turned. The sound had come from Jorgensen. Sachs bent down. “Get an ambulance here. He’s still alive.” She put pressure on the bullet wound.
    Harvison pulled out his radio and called for medics.
    A moment later two other officers, from Emergency Service, burst through the doorway, guns drawn.
    Sachs instructed, “The main perp’s down. Probably no others. But clear the place just to make sure.”
    “Sure, Detective.”
    One ESU cop joined Harvison and they started through the packed corridors. The other paused and said to Sachs, “This is a goddamn spook house. You ever see anything like this, Detective?”
    Sachs wasn’t in the mood for banter. “Find me some bandages or towels. Hell, with everything he’s got here, I’ll bet there’s a half dozen first aid kits. I