The Empty Chair

coming this way. I was wrong.” She hesitated for another long moment thenadded, “Jim made a good choice—bringing you down from New York for this. I wasn’t real crazy about it at first but I won’t argue with results.”
    Amelia frowned. “Bringing us down? What do you mean?”
    “To help out.”
    “Jim didn’t do that.”
    “What?” Lucy asked.
    “No, no, we were over at the medical center in Avery. Lincoln’s having some surgery. Jim heard we were going to be here so he came by this morning to ask if we’d look at some evidence.”
    A long pause. Then Lucy gave a laugh as the relief flooded through her. “I thought he’d scrounged up county money to fly y’all down here after the kidnapping yesterday.”
    Amelia shook her head. “The surgery’s not till day after tomorrow. We had some free time. That’s all.”
    “That boy—Jim. He never said a word about it. He can be the quiet one sometimes.”
    “You were worried he didn’t think you could handle the case?”
    “I guess that’s exactly what I thought.”
    “Jim’s cousin works with us in New York. He told Jim we were coming down for a couple of weeks.”
    “Wait, you mean Roland?” Lucy asked. “Sure, I know him. Knew his wife too, before she passed. His boys’re dears.”
    “Had them over for a barbecue not long ago,” Amelia said.
    Lucy laughed again. “I guess I was being paranoid here. . . . So, you were over at Avery? The medical center?”
    “That’s right.”
    “That’s where Lydia Johansson works. You know, she’s a nurse there.”
    “I didn’t.”
    A dozen memories flickered through Lucy Kerr’s mind. Some she was warmly touched by, some she wanted to avoid like the swarm of wasps she’d nearly stirred up in Garrett’s trap. She didn’t know whether she wanted to tell any of this to Amelia Sachs or not. What she settled for was: “That’s why I’m pretty eager to save her. I had some medical problems a few years ago and Lydia was one of my nurses. She’s a good person. The best.”
    “We’ll save her,” Amelia said, and she said it with a tone that Lucy sometimes—not often, but sometimes—heard in her own voice. A tone that didn’t leave any doubt.
    They walked more slowly now. The trap had spooked them all. And the heat was truly excruciating.
    Lucy asked Amelia, “That surgery your friend’s going to have? It’s for his . . . situation?”
    “Yep.”
    “What’s that look?” Lucy asked, noticing a darkness cross the woman’s face.
    “It probably won’t do anything.”
    “Then why’s he doing it?”
    Amelia explained, “There’s a chance it might help. Small chance. It’s experimental. Nobody with the kind of injury he has—as serious as that—has ever improved.”
    “And you don’t want him to go through with it?”
    “I don’t, no.”
    “Why not?”
    Amelia hesitated. “Because it could kill him. Or make him even worse.”
    “You talked to him about it?”
    “Yes.”
    “But it didn’t do any good,” Lucy said.
    “Not a bit.”
    Lucy nodded. “I figured he’s a man who’s a bit muley.”
    Amelia said, “That’s putting it mildly.”
    A crash sounded near them, in the brush, and by thetime Lucy’s hand found her pistol Amelia had drawn a careful bead on a wild turkey’s chest. The four members of the search party smiled but the amusement lasted for only a moment, replaced by edginess as adrenaline eased through their hearts.
    Guns replaced in holsters, eyes scanning the path, they continued forward, conversation on hold for the time being.

    There were several categories people fell into when it came to Rhyme’s injury.
    Some took the joking, in-your-face approach. Crip humor, no prisoners taken.
    Some, like Henry Davett, ignored his condition completely.
    Most did what Ben was doing—tried to pretend that Rhyme didn’t exist and prayed that they could escape at the earliest possible moment.
    It was this response that Rhyme hated the most—it was one of the most blatant reminders of how different he was. But he had no time to dwell on his surrogate assistant’s attitude. Garrett was leading Lydia deeper and deeper into the wilderness. And Mary Beth McConnell might be close to dying from suffocation or dehydration or a wound.
    Jim Bell walked into the room. “Maybe there’s some good news from the hospital. Ed Schaeffer said something to one of the nurses. Went unconscious again right after but I’m taking it as a good sign.”
    “What’d he