The Kill Room

edge—her lifestyle of speed and danger, his physical condition. Possibly, probably , this element of risk made life together more intense, their connection closer. And she accepted this most of the time. But now, with him away and her searching a particularly difficult scene involving a perp all too aware of her, she couldn’t help but think that they were always just a gunshot or heartbeat away from being alone forever.
    Forget this, Sachs thought harshly. Possibly said it aloud. She didn’t know. Get to work.
    She found, though, that her empathy wasn’t kicking in, not on this scene. As she moved through the rooms, she felt blocked. Maybe like a writer or artist who couldn’t quite channel a muse. The ideas wouldn’t come. For one thing, she didn’t know who the hell the killer was. The latest information was confusing. The man who’d done this wasn’t the sniper, but, most likely, another of Metzger’s specialists. Yet who?
    The other reason she wasn’t connecting was that she didn’t understand the unsub’s motive. If he wanted to eliminate witnesses and hamper the investigation, then why the horrific torture, the precise knife cuts? The slashes where he flayed off skin, leisurely, it seemed? Sachs found herself distracted as she stared at the strips of flesh on the floor below the chair where Lydia was tied. The blood.
    What did he want?
    Maybe if Rhyme had been speaking into her ear, working the scene with her via radio or video, it might be different, insights might leap out.
    But he wasn’t, and the killer’s psyche eluded her.
    The search itself didn’t take long. Whatever his motive, Lydia Foster’s killer had been careful—wearing rubber gloves. She could tell this from the wrinkles in some of the blood smears, where he’d touched her body while slicing her skin. He’d been careful to avoid stepping in the blood and so there were no obvious shoe prints, and an electrostatic wand sweep of the non-carpeted floor revealed no latents. She collected trace, a few receipts and Post-it notes, stuffed into the pockets of jeans hung on the bathroom door. But this was all the documentary evidence Sachs could track down. She processed the body, noting again the appalling wounds, small but precise, as the unsub had flayed the skin from the woman’s fingers. The single, fatal stab wound through the chest. There seemed to be bruises around the site of the incision, as if he had firmly palpated her flesh to find an entrance to her heart free of bones.
    Why was that?
    Sachs then radioed down to her colleagues to let them know they could come upstairs for the videos and stills.
    At the door she paused, glancing back for one last look at Lydia Foster’s body.
    I’m sorry, Lydia. I didn’t think!
    I should have considered that he’d tap the landlines near Java Hut. I should have thought there might be two perps.
    Sachs had another thought too: She regretted being too late to get the information that the woman would have provided. The details the interpreter had known and the records she had were clearly crucial. Otherwise, why interrogate her?
    And she apologized to Lydia Foster a second time, for having this selfish thought.
    Outside, she stripped off the overalls and deposited them in a burn bag; they were streaked with Lydia’s blood. She used cleanser on her hands. Checked her Glock. Scanned the area for any threats. All she saw were a hundred black windows, dim cul-de-sacs, paused cars. Each a perfect vantage point for the unsub to be standing to target her.
    Sachs was about to hook her phone holster into place too but she paused. Thinking: I really want to talk to Rhyme.
    She hit speed dial on her most recent prepaid mobile; it was his number. But the call went right to voice mail. Sachs thought about leaving a message but hung up. She found she wasn’t sure what she wanted to say.
    Maybe just that she missed him.

CHAPTER 43
    L INCOLN RHYME BLINKED. His eyes stung like hell and in his mouth were conflicting tastes, the sweetness of oil and the sourness of chemicals.
    He’d just come back to consciousness and was, to his surprise, not coughing as much as he thought he ought to be. An oxygen mask was over his mouth and nose and he was breathing deeply. His throat hurt, though, and he guessed he had been coughing plenty earlier, when he’d been dead to the world.
    He looked around, noting that he was in the back of an ambulance, excessively hot, parked on the spit of land where the attack had