The Burning Wire

be riskier for him, as a C4, than for her. He was prone to blood pressure, respiratory and infection complications. The question was balance. Was the surgery worth it? He’d nearly undergone an operation a few years ago but a case had derailed the procedure. He’d postponed any medical treatment of that sort indefinitely.
    But now? He considered: Was his life the way he wished it to be? Of course not. But he was content. He loved Sachs, and she him. He lived for his job. He wasn’t eager to throw all that away chasing an unrealistic dream.
    Normally buttoned tight about his personal feelings, he nonetheless told Susan Stringer this, and she understood.
    Then he surprised himself further by adding something he hadn’t told many people at all. “I feel that I’m mostly my mind. That’s where I live. And I sometimes think that’s one of the reasons I’m the criminalist that I am. No distractions. My power comes from my disability. If I were to change, if I were to become, quote, normal, would that affect me as a forensic scientist? I don’t know. But I don’t want to take that chance.”
    Susan was considering this. “It’s an interesting thought. But I wonder if that’s a crutch, an excuse not to take the risk.”
    Rhyme appreciated that. He liked blunt talk. He nodded at his chair. “A crutch is a step up in my case.”
    She laughed.
    “Thanks for your thoughts,” he added, because he felt he ought to, and she fixed him with another of those knowing looks. The expression was less irritating now, though it remained disconcerting.
    She backed away in the chair and said, “Mission accomplished.”
    His brow furrowed.
    Susan said, “I found you two fibers you might not otherwise have.” She smiled. “Wish it were more.” Eyes back on Rhyme. “But sometimes it’s the little things that make all the difference. Now, I should go.”
    Sachs thanked her and Thom saw her out.
    After she’d left, Rhyme said, “This was a setup, right?”
    Sachs replied, “It was sort of a setup, Rhyme. We needed to interview her anyway. When I called about arranging it, we got to talking. When she heard I worked with you she wanted to make her sales pitch. I told her I’d get her in to see the chairman.”
    Rhyme gave a brief smile.
    Then it faded as Sachs crouched and said in a voice that Mel Cooper couldn’t hear, “I don’t want you any different than you are, Rhyme. But I want to make sure you’re healthy. For me, that’s all I care about. Whatever you choose is fine.”
    For a moment Rhyme recalled the title of the pamphlet left by Dr. Kopeski, with Die with Dignity.
    Choices .
    She leaned forward and kissed him. He felt her hand touching the side of his head with a bit more palm than made sense for a gesture of affection.
    “I have a temperature?” he asked, smiling at catching her.
    She laughed. “We all have temperatures, Rhyme. Whether you have a fever or not, I can’t tell.” She kissed him again. “Now get some sleep. Mel and I’ll keep going here for a while. I’ll be up to bed soon.” She returned to the evidence she’d found.
    Rhyme hesitated but then decided that he was tired, too tired to be much help at the moment. He wheeled toward the elevator, where Thom joined him and they began their journey upward in the tiny car. Sweat continued to dot his forehead and it seemed to him that his cheeks were flushed. These were symptoms of dysreflexia. But he didn’t have a headache and he didn’t feel the onset of the sensation that preceded an attack. Thom got him ready for bed and handled the evening detail. The blood pressure cuff and thermometer were handy. “Little high,” he said of the former. As to the latter, Rhyme didn’t, in fact, have a fever.
    Thom executed a smooth transfer to get him into bed, and Rhyme heard in his memory Sachs’s comment from a few minutes earlier.
    We all have temperatures, Rhyme .
    He couldn’t help reflecting that clinically this was true. We all did. Even the dead.

Chapter 54
    HE AWOKE FAST , from a dream.
    He tried to recall it. He couldn’t remember enough to know whether it had been bad or simplyodd. It was certainly intense, though. The likelihood, however, was that it was bad, since he was sweating furiously, as if he were walking through the turbine room at Algonquin Consolidated.
    The time was just before midnight, the faint light of the clock/alarm reported. He’d been asleep for a short time and he was groggy; it took a moment to orient