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The Coffin Dancer

The Coffin Dancer

Titel: The Coffin Dancer Kostenlos Bücher Online Lesen
Autoren: Jeffery Deaver
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to! Because we nearly trapped him.” Her face had lit up. Some of the old Amelia was back.
    “Yes!” Rhyme said. “This morning, near Percey’s town house. When ESU moved in.”
    Sachs continued. “He ditched the van and hid out in her apartment until it was safe to move.”
    Rhyme said to Sellitto, “Get some people calling vets. For ten blocks around the town house. No, make it the whole Upper East Side. Call, Lon, call!”
    As the detective punched numbers into his phone, Sachs asked gravely, “You think she’s all right? The woman?”
    Rhyme answered from his heart though not with what he believed to be the truth. “We can hope, Sachs. We can hope.”

 . . . Chapter Fourteen
    Hour 7 of 45
    To Percey Clay the safe house didn’t appear particularly safe.
    It was a three-story brownstone structure like many others along this block near the Morgan Library.
    “This’s it,” an agent said to her and Brit Hale, nodding out the window of the van. They parked in the alley and she and Hale were hustled through a basement entrance. The steel door slammed shut. They found themselves staring at an affable man in his late thirties, lean and with thinning brown hair. He grinned.
    “Howdy,” he said, showing his NYPD identification and gold shield. “Roland Bell. From now on you meet anybody, even somebody charming as me, ask ’em for an ID and make sure it’s got an i-dentical picture on it.”
    Percey listened to his relentless drawl and asked, “Don’t tell me . . . you’re a Tarheel?”
    “That I am.” He laughed. “Lived in Hoggston—not a joke, no—until I escaped to Chapel Hill for four years. Understand you’re a Richmond gal.”
    “Was. Long time ago.”
    “And you, Mr. Hale?” Bell asked. “You flying the Stars and Bars too?”
    “Michigan,” Hale said, shaking the detective’s vigorous hand. “Via Ohio.”
    “Don’t you worry, I’ll forgive you for that little mistake of yours in the eighteen sixties.”
    “I myself would’ve surrendered,” Hale joked. “Nobody asked me.”
    “Hah. Now, I’m a Homicide detective but I keep drawing this witness protection detail ’cause I have this knack of keeping people alive. So my dear friend Lon Sellitto asked me to help him out. I’ll be baby-sitting y’all for a spell.”
    Percey asked, “How’s that other detective?”
    “Jerry? What I hear, he’s still in the operating room. No news yet.”
    His speech may have been slow but his eyes were very fast, scooting over their bodies. Looking for what? Percey wondered. To see if they were armed? Had microphones hidden on them? Then he’d scan the corridor. Then the windows.
    “Now,” Bell said, “I’m a nice fellow but I can be a bit muley when it comes to looking after who I’m s’posed to.” He gave Percey a faint smile. “You look a bit muley yourself but just remember that everything I tell you t’do’s for your own good. All right?All right. Hey, I think we’re going to get along just fine. Now lemme show you our grade-A accommodations.”
    As they walked upstairs he said, “Y’all’re probably dead to know how safe this place is . . . ”
    Hale asked uncertainly, “What was that again? ‘Dead to know’?”
    “Means, uhm, eager. I guess I talk a bit South still. Boys down in the Big Building—that’s headquarters—fool with me some. Leave messages saying they’ve collared themselves a redneck and want me to translate for ’em. Anyway, this place is good ’n’ safe. Our friends in Justice, oh, they know what they’re doing. Bigger’n it looks from the outside, right?”
    “Bigger than a cockpit, smaller than an open road,” Hale said.
    Bell chuckled. “Those front windows? Didn’t look too secure when you were driving up.”
    “That was one thing . . . ,” Percey began.
    “Well, here’s the front room. Take a peek.” He pushed open a door.
    There were no windows. Sheets of steel had been bolted over them. “Curtains’re on the other side,” Bell explained. “From the street it looks just like dark rooms. All the other windows’re bulletproof glass. But you stay away from ’em all the same. And keep the shades drawn. The fire escape and roof’re loaded with sensors and we’ve got tons of video cameras hidden around the place. Anybody comes near we check ’em clip and clean ’fore they get to the front door. It’d take a ghost with anorexia to get in here.” He walked down a wide corridor. “Follow me downthis dogtrot

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