The Empty Chair

people’re going to get hurt. They’ll be gunning for them both.”
    “Well, apparently they oughta be gunning for them,” Bell spat back. “And looks like they shoulda been from the git-go.”
    “I’ll find them for you. I’m close.” Rhyme nodded toward the evidence chart and map.
    “I gave you one chance and look what happened.”
    “I’ll find them and I’ll talk her into surrendering. I know I can. I’ll—”
    Suddenly Bell was jostled aside and a man rushed into the room. It was Mason Germain. “You fucking son of a bitch!” he cried and made right for Rhyme. Thom stepped in the way but the deputy flung aside the thin man. He rolled to the floor. Mason grabbed Rhyme by the shirt. “You fucking freak! You come down here and play your little—”
    “Mason!” Bell started forward but the deputy shoved him aside again.
    “—play your little games with the evidence—your little puzzles. And now a good man’s dead because of you!” Rhyme smelled the man’s potent aftershave as the deputy drew his fist back. The criminalist cringed and turned his face away.
    “I’m going to kill you. I’m going to—” But Mason’s voice was choked off as a huge arm wrapped around his chest and he was lifted clean off the floor.
    Ben Kerr carried the deputy away from Rhyme.
    “Kerr, goddamn it, let go of me!” Mason gasped. “You asshole! You’re under arrest!”
    “Calm yourself down, Deputy,” the big man said slowly.
    Mason was reaching for his pistol but with his other hand Ben clamped down hard on the man’s wrist. Ben looked at Bell, who waited a moment then nodded. Ben released the deputy, who stood back, fury in his eyes. He said to Bell, “I’m going out there and I’m finding that woman and I’m—”
    “You are not, Mason,” Bell said. “You want to keep working in this department you’ll do what I tell you. We’re going to handle it my way. You’re staying in the office here. You understand?”
    “Son of a bitch, Jim. She—”
    “Do you understand me?”
    “Yeah, I fucking understand you.” He stormed out of the lab.
    Bell asked Rhyme, “You all right?”
    Rhyme nodded.
    “And you?” He glanced at Thom.
    “I’m fine.” The aide adjusted Rhyme’s shirt. And despite the criminalist’s protest he took the blood pressure again. “The same. Too high but not critical.”
    The sheriff shook his head. “I’ve got to call Jesse’s parents. Lord, I don’t want to do that.” He walked to the window and stared outside. “First Ed, now Jesse. What a nightmare this whole thing’s been.”
    Rhyme said, “Please, Jim. Let me find them and give me a chance to talk to her. If you don’t, it’s going to escalate. You know that. We’ll end up with more people dead.”
    Bell sighed. Glanced at the map. “They’ve got a twenty-minute lead. You think you can find them?”
    “Yes,” Rhyme answered. “I can find them.”

    “That direction,” Sean O’Sarian said. “I’m positive.”
    Rich Culbeau was looking west, where the young man was pointing—toward where they’d heard the gunshot and the shouting fifteen minutes ago.
    Culbeau finished peeing against a pine tree and asked, “What’s over that way?”
    “Swamp, a few old houses,” said Harris Tomel, who had hunted probably every square foot of Paquenoke County. “Not much else. Saw a gray wolf there a month ago.” The wolves had supposedly been extinct but were making a comeback.
    “No fooling,” Culbeau said. He’d never seen one, always wanted to.
    “You shoot it?” O’Sarian asked.
    “You don’t shoot ’em,” Tomel said.
    Culbeau added, “They’re protected.”
    “So?”
    And Culbeau realized he didn’t have an answer for that.
    They waited a few minutes longer but there were no more gunshots, no more shouts. “May as well keep going,” Culbeau said, pointing toward where the shot had come from.
    “May as well,” said O’Sarian as he took a hit from a bottle of water.
    “Hot again today,” Tomel offered, looking at the low disk of radiant sun.
    “It’s hot every day,” Culbeau muttered. He picked up his gun and started along the path, his army of two trudging along behind him.

    Thunk.
    Mary Beth’s eyes shot open, pulling her from a deep, unwanted sleep.
    Thunk.
    “Hey, Mary Beth,” a man’s voice called cheerfully. Like an adult speaking to a child. In her grogginess she thought: It’s my father! What’s he doing back from the hospital? He’s in no shape to chop wood.