The Empty Chair

onion rings and we’d split the fries and the rings and sometimes we drew pictures on an empty plate with the squeeze bottle of ketchup.”
    His face was pale and drawn. There was so much sorrow in his eyes, Sachs thought. She fought down her own emotions. “What do you remember about that night?”
    “It was outside the house. In the driveway. They were in the car, Dad and Mom and my sister. They were going to dinner. And”—he swallowed—“what it was they were going to leave without me.”
    “They were?”
    He nodded. “I was late. I’d been in the woods in Blackwater Landing. And I’d kinda lost track of time. I ran, like, a half mile or something. But my father wouldn’t let me in. He must’ve been mad because I was late. I wanted to get in so bad. It was really cold. I remember I was shivering and they were shivering. I remember there was frost on the windows. But they wouldn’t let me in.”
    “Maybe your father didn’t see you. Because of the frost.”
    “No, he saw me. I was right beside his side of the car. I was banging on the window and he saw me but he didn’t open the door. He just kept frowning and shouting at me. And I kept thinking, He’s mad at me and I’m cold and I’m not going to get my chicken fingers and French fries. I’m not going to have dinner with my family.” Tears ran down his cheeks.
    Sachs wanted to put her arm around the boy’s shoulders but she remained where she was. “Go on.” Nodding toward the chair. “Talk to your father. What do you want to say to him?”
    He looked at her but she pointed toward the chair. Finally Garrett turned to it. “It’s so cold!” he said, gasping. “It’s cold and I want to get in the car. Why won’t he let me in the car?”
    “No, tell him. Imagine he’s there.”
    Sachs was thinking: This is the same way Rhyme urged her to imagine herself as the perp at crime scenes. It was utterly harrowing and she now felt the boy’s fear all too clearly. Still, she didn’t let up. “Tell him—tell your father. ”
    Garrett looked at the old chair uneasily. He leaned forward. “I . . .”
    Sachs whispered, “Go ahead, Garrett. It’s okay. I won’t let anything happen to you. Tell him.”
    “I just wanted to go to Bennigan’s with you!” he said, sobbing. “That’s all. Like, just to have dinner, all of us. I just wanted to go with you. Why wouldn’t you let me in the car? You saw me coming and you locked the door. I wasn’t that late!” Then Garrett grew angry. “You locked me out! You were mad at me and it wasn’t fair. What I did, being late . . . it wasn’t that bad. I must’ve done something else to make you mad. What? Why didn’t you want me to go with you? Tell me what I did.” His voice was choked. “Come back and tell me. Come back! I want to know! What did I do? Tell me, tell me, tell me!”
    Sobbing, he jumped up and kicked the empty chair hard. It sailed across the room and fell on its side. He grabbed the chair and, screaming in fury, smashed it into the floor of the trailer. Sachs pushed back, blinking in shock at the anger she’d unleashed. He slammed the chair down a dozen times until it was nothing but a shattered mass of wood and rattan. Finally Garrett collapsed on the floor, hugging himself. Sachs rose and put her arms around him as he sobbed and shook.
    After five minutes the crying ended. He stood up, wiped his face on his sleeve.
    “Garrett,” she began in a whisper.
    But he shook his head. “I’m going outside,” he said. Then rose and pushed out the door.
    She sat for a moment, wondering what to do. Sachs was utterly exhausted but she didn’t lie down on the mat he’d left for her and try to sleep. She shut the lantern off and pulled the cloth off the window then sat in the musty armchair. She leaned forward, smelling the pungent aroma of the citronella plant, and watched the hunched-over silhouette of the boy, sitting outside on an oak stump and gazing intently at the moving constellations of lightning bugs that filled the forest around him.

. . . chapter thirty-two
    Lincoln Rhyme muttered, “I don’t believe it.”
    He’d just spoken with a furious Lucy Kerr and had learned that Sachs had taken several shots at a deputy under the Hobeth Bridge.
    “I don’t believe it,” he repeated in a whisper to Thom.
    The aide was a master of dealing with broken bodies and spirits broken because of broken bodies. But this was a different matter, far worse, and the best he