The Coffin Dancer

he was. The little . . . what was Dellray’s street word? Skel. Short for “skeleton.” Scrawny little loser. What a mutt.
    She reached under her mesh undershirt and scratched frantically. Her boobs, her back under the bra, her sides.
    Ooooo, feels good.
    Exhausted, sure, but could she sleep?
    The bed looked pretty damn nice.
    She pulled on her blouse again, buttoned it, and lay down on the comforter. Closed her eyes. Did she hear footsteps?
    One of the guards making coffee, she supposed.
    Sleep? Breathe deep . . .
    No sleep.
    Her eyes opened and she stared at the webby ceiling.
    The Coffin Dancer, she mused. How would he come at them? What would his weapon be?
    His deadliest weapon is deception . . .
    Glancing out a crack in the curtain, she saw the beautiful fish-gray dawn. A haze of mist bleached the color from the distant trees.
    Somewhere inside the compound she heard a thud. A footstep.
    Sachs swung her feet around to the floor and satup. May as well just give up and get some coffee. I’ll sleep tonight.
    She had a sudden urge to talk to Rhyme, to see if he’d found anything. She could hear him saying, “If I’d found something I would’ve called you, wouldn’t I? I said I’d check in.”
    No, she didn’t want to wake him, but she doubted he was asleep. She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and clicked it on before she remembered Marshal Franks’s warning to use only the secure line in the living room.
    As she was about to shut the phone off, it chirped loudly.
    She shivered—not at the jarring sound, but at the thought that the Dancer had somehow found her number and wanted to confirm she was in the compound. For an instant she wondered if somehow he’d slipped explosives into her phone too.
    Damnit, Rhyme, look how spooked I am!
    Don’t answer it, she told herself.
    But instinct told her to, and while criminalists may shun instinct, patrol cops, street cops, always listen to those inner voices. She pulled the antenna out of the phone.
    “’Lo?”
    “Thank God . . . ” The panicked tone of Lincoln Rhyme chilled her.
    “Hey, Rhyme. What’s—”
    “Listen very carefully. Are you alone?”
    “Yeah. What’s going on?”
    “Jodie’s the Dancer.”
    “What?”
    “Stephen Kall was the diversion. Jodie killed him. It was his body in the park we found. Where’s Percey?”
    “In her room. Up the hall. But how—”
    “No time. He’s going for the kill right now. If the marshals’re still alive, tell them to get into a defensive position in one of the rooms. If they’re dead, find Percey and Bell and get out. Dellray’s scrambled SWAT, but it’ll be twenty or thirty minutes before they’re there.”
    “But there’re eight guards. He can’t’ve taken them all out . . . ”
    “Sachs,” he said sternly, “remember who he is. Move! Call me when you’re safe.”
    Bell! she thought suddenly, recalling the detective’s still posture, his head slumped forward.
    She raced to her door, threw it open, drew her gun. The black living room and corridor gaped. Dark. Only faint dawn light filtering into the rooms. She listened. A shuffle. A clink of metal. But where were the sounds coming from?
    Sachs turned toward Bell’s room and trotted as quietly as she could.
    He got her just before she got to his room.
    As the figure stepped from the doorway she dropped into a crouch and swung the Glock toward him. He grunted and slapped the pistol from her hand. Without thinking, she shoved him forward, slamming his back into the wall.
    Groping for her switchblade.
    Roland Bell gasped, “Hold up there. Hey, now . . . ”
    Sachs let go of his shirt.
    “It’s you!”
    “You scared the everlivin’ you-know-what outta me. What’s—”
    “You’re all right!” she said.
    “Just dozed off for a minute. What’s going on?”
    “Jodie’s the Dancer. Rhyme just called.”
    “What? How?”
    “I don’t know.” She looked around, shivering in panic. “Where’re the guards?”
    The hall was empty.
    Then she recognized the smell she’d wondered about. It was blood! Like hot copper. And she knew then that all the guards were dead. Sachs went to retrieve her weapon, which was lying on the floor. She frowned, looking at the end of the grip. Where the clip should have been was an empty hole. She picked up the gun.
    “No!”
    “What?” Bell asked.
    “My clip. It’s gone.” She slapped her utility belt. The two clips in the keepers were gone too.
    Bell drew his