The Cold Moon

response.
    They raced in tandem through the large yard then into the woods behind the house. Breathing hard, a pain below her ribs joining the agony in her knees, she moved as fast as she could but he was pulling ahead of her.
    Shit, I’m gonna lose him.
    But nature intervened. A branch protruding from the snow caught his shoe and he went down hard, with a huge grunt that Sachs heard from forty feet away. She ran up and, gasping for breath, rested the side of the Glock against his neck. He stopped squirming.
    “Don’t hurt me! Please!”
    “Shhhh.”
    Out came the cuffs.
    “Hands behind your back.”
    He squinted. “I didn’t do anything!”
    “Hands.”
    He did as he was told but in an awkward way that told her he’d probably never been collared. He was younger than she’d thought—a teenager, his face dotted with acne.
    “Don’t hurt me, please!”
    Sachs caught her breath and searched him. No ID, no weapons, no drugs. Money and a set of keys. “What’s your name?”
    “Greg.”
    “Last name?”
    A hesitation. “Witherspoon.”
    “You live around here?”
    He sucked in air, nodding to his right. “The house there, next door to the Creeleys’.”
    “How old are you?”
    “Sixteen.”
    “Why’d you run?”
    “I don’t know. I was scared.”
    “Didn’t you hear me say I was police?”
    “Yeah, but you don’t look like a cop . . . a policewoman. You really are one?”
    She showed him her ID. “What were you doing at the house?”
    “I live next door.”
    “You said that. What were you doing ?” She pulled him up into a sitting position. He looked terrified.
    “I saw somebody inside. I thought it was Mrs. Creeley or maybe somebody in the family or something. I just wanted to tell her something. Then I looked inside and saw you had a gun. I got scared. I thought you were with them.”
    “Who’s them?”
    “Those guys who broke in. That’s what I was going to tell Mrs. Creeley about.”
    “Broke in?”
    “I saw a couple of guys break into their house. A few weeks ago. It was around Thanksgiving.”
    “Did you call the police?”
    “No. I guess I should have. But I didn’t want to get involved. They looked, like, tough.”
    “Tell me what happened.”
    “I was outside, in our backyard, and I saw ’em go to the back door, look around and then kind of, you know, break the lock and go inside.”
    “White, black?”
    “White, I think. I wasn’t that close. I couldn’t see their faces. They were just, you know, guys. Jeans and jackets. One was bigger than the other.”
    “Color of their hair?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “How long were they inside?”
    “An hour, I guess.”
    “You see their car?”
    “No.”
    “Did they take anything?”
    “Yeah. A stereo, CDs, a TV. Some games, I think. Can I stand up?”
    Sachs pulled him to his feet and marched him to the house. She noted that the back door had been jimmied. Pretty slick job too.
    She looked around. A big-screen TV was still in the living room. There was lots of nice china in the cabinet. The silver was there too. And it was sterling. The theft wasn’t making sense. Had they stolen a few things as cover for something else?
    She examined the ground floor. The house was immaculate—except for the fireplace. It was a gas model, she noted, but inside there was a lot of ash. With gas logs, there was no need for paper or kindling. Had the burglars set a fire?
    Without touching anything inside, she shone her flashlight over the contents.
    “Did you notice if those men had a fire going when they were here?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe.”
    There were also streaks of mud in front of the fireplace. She had basic crime scene equipment in the trunk of her car. She’d dust for prints around the fireplace and desk and collect the ash and mud and any other physical evidence that might be helpful.
    It was then that her cell phone vibrated. She glanced at the screen. An urgent text message from Lincoln Rhyme. She was needed back in the city ASAP. She sent an acknowledging message.
    What had been burned? she wondered, staring at the fireplace.
    “So,” Greg said. “Like, can I go now?”
    Sachs looked him over. “I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but after any death the police conduct a complete inventory of everything in the house the day the owner dies.”
    “Yeah?” He looked down.
    “In an hour I’m calling Westchester County Police and having them check the list against what’s here now. If anything’s