The Kill Room

of her mother to leave the profession and join the NYPD, following in her father’s footsteps.
    What you believed, what you knew, how you made choices, when you stood your ground…those were the qualities that defined you as a cop. Not what you looked like.
    Of course, Lincoln Rhyme was severely disabled. Who in his condition wouldn’t want to be better, to grasp with both hands, to walk? But she sometimes wondered if he was undergoing the risky surgery not for himself but for her. This was a topic that had rarely come up and when it did, their words glanced off the subject like bullets on flat rock. But the understood meaning was clear: What the hell are you hanging around with a crip for, Sachs? You can do better than me.
    For one thing, “doing better” suggested she was in the market for Mr. Perfect, which was simply not the case and never had been. She’d been in only one other serious relationship—with another cop—and it had ended disastrously (though Nick was finally out of prison). She’d dated some, usually to fill time, until she realized that the boredom of being with someone is exponentially worse than the boredom of solitude.
    She was content with her independence and, if Rhyme weren’t in the picture, she’d be comfortable on her own—forever, if no one else came along.
    Do what you want, she thought. Have the surgery or not. But do it for yourself. Whatever the decision, I’ll be there.
    She watched him for a few moments more, a faint smile on her face. Then the smile faded and she walked to the parlor to meet the Overseer and deliver the news.
    Saint Moreno might not be so saintly…

CHAPTER 21
    A S SACHS JOTTED ON THE WHITEBOARDS the information she’d learned on the drive with Tash Farada, Nance Laurel turned her chair toward the detective.
    She’d been digesting what Sachs had told her. “An escort?” the prosecutor asked. “You’re sure?”
    “No. It’s a possibility, though. I’ve called Lon. He’s got some of Myers’s portables canvassing to see if they can find her.”
    “A call girl.” Laurel sounded perplexed.
    Sachs would have thought she’d be more dismayed. Learning that a hooker had accompanied your married victim around New York wasn’t going to win the jury’s sympathy.
    She was even more surprised when the ADA said offhandedly, “Well, men stray. It can be finessed.”
    Maybe by “finesse” she meant she’d try for a largely male jury, who would presumably be less critical of Moreno’s infidelity.
    If you’re asking if I pick cases I think I can win, Detective Sachs, then the answer’s yes…
    Sachs continued, “In any case, it’s good for us: They might not have spent the entire time in bed. Maybe he took her to meet a friend, maybe she saw somebody from NIOS tailing them. And if she is a pro we’ll have leverage to get her to talk. She won’t want her life looked into too closely.” She added, “And it might be that she’s not an escort but is involved in something else, maybe something criminal.”
    “Because of the money.” Laurel nodded at the whiteboard.
    “Exactly. I was thinking possibly a terrorist connection.”
    “Moreno wasn’t a terrorist. We’ve established that.”
    Sachs thought, You’ve established that. The facts haven’t. “But still…” She nodded at the board too. “Never coming back to the U.S., the bank transfers, vanishing into thin air…A reference to ‘blowing up’ something in Mexico City.”
    “It could mean a lot of things. Construction work, demolition, for one of his Local Empowerment Movement companies, for instance.” Still, the implications of the discoveries seemed to bother her. “Did the driver notice any surveillance?”
    Sachs explained what Farada had said about Moreno’s looking around, uneasy.
    Laurel asked, “Does he know if Moreno saw anything specific?”
    “No.”
    Nance Laurel scooted her chair forward and stared at the evidence board, her pose oddly parallel to Rhyme’s when he parked his Storm Arrow in front of the charts.
    “And nothing about Moreno’s charitable work, anything that cast him in a favorable light?”
    “The driver said he was a gentleman. And he tipped well.”
    This didn’t seem to be exactly what Laurel was looking for. “I see.” She glanced at her watch. The time was getting close to 11 p.m. She frowned as if she expected the time to be hours earlier. For a moment Sachs actually believed that the woman was considering camping out for the night.