The Twelfth Card

at the ground. Oh, man, this would be hard to live with . . .
    “You don’t have to worry.”
    “Worry?”
    “She’ll be okay.”
    Sachs frowned. “You said you had bad news.”
    “Well, like, getting shot’s pretty bad news.”
    “Christ, I knew she was shot. I was there when it happened.”
    “Oh.”
    “I thought you meant she died.”
    “Naw. Was a bleeder but we got it in time. She’ll be all right. She’s at St. Luke’s ER. Stable condition.”
    “Okay, thanks.”
    I’ve got bad news . . . .
    Sachs wandered off, limping, and found Sellitto and Haumann in front of the safe house.
    “You collared him with an empty weapon?” Haumann asked, incredulous.
    “Actually I collared him with a rock.”
    The head of ESU nodded, lifting an eyebrow—his sweetest praise.
    “Boyd saying anything?” she asked.
    “Understood his rights. Then clammed up.”
    She and Sellitto swapped weapons. He reloaded. She checked her Glock and reholstered it.
    Sachs asked, “What’s the story on the premises?”
    Haumann ran a hand over his bristly crew cut and said, “Looks like the bungalow he was living in was rented in his girlfriend’s name, Jeanne Starke. They’re her kids, two daughters. Not Boyd’s. We’ve got Child Welfare involved. That place”—he nodded toward the apartment—“was a safe house. Full of tools of the trade, you know.”
    Sachs said, “I better run the scene.”
    “We kept it secure,” Haumann said. “Well, he did.” A nod toward Sellitto. The ESU head said, “I gotta debrief the brass. You’ll be around after the scene? They’ll want a statement.”
    Sachs nodded. And together she and the heavy detective walked toward the safe house. A silence thick as sand rested between them. Finally Sellitto glanced at her leg and said, “Limp’s back.”
    “Back?”
    “Yeah, when you were clearing the houses, acrossthe street, I looked out the window. Seemed like you were walking fine.”
    “Sometimes it just fixes itself.”
    Sellitto shrugged. “Funny how stuff like that happens.”
    “Funny.”
    He knew what she’d done for him. He was telling her so. Then he added: “Okay, we got the shooter. But that’s only half the job. We need the prick that hired him and his partner—who we gotta assume just took over Boyd’s assignment. Get on the grid, Detective.” Sellitto said this in a voice as gruff as any that Rhyme could muster.
    This was the best thanks he could’ve given her: just knowing that he was back.
    *   *   *
    Often the most important piece of evidence is the last one you find.
    Any good CS searcher’ll assess the scene and immediately target the fragile items that are subject to evaporation, contamination by rain, dissipation by wind, and so on, leaving the obvious—like the literal smoking gun—to be collected later.
    If the scene’s secure, Lincoln Rhyme often said, the good stuff ain’t going anywhere.
    In both Boyd’s residence and the safe house across the street, Sachs had collected latent prints, rolled up the trace, collected fluid samples from the toilet for DNA analysis, scraped floor and furniture surfaces, cut portions of the carpet for fiber samples and photographed and videoed the entire sites. Only then did she turn her attention to the larger and more obvious things. She arranged to have the acid and cyanide transported to the department’s hazardousevidenceholding center in the Bronx, and processed the improvised explosive device contained in the transistor radio.
    She examined and logged in weapons and ammunition, the cash, coils of rope, tools. Dozens of other items that might prove helpful.
    Finally Sachs picked up a small, white envelope that was sitting on a shelf near the front door of the safe house.
    Inside was a single sheet of paper.
    She read it. Then she gave a fast laugh. She read the letter again. And called Rhyme, thinking to herself: Brother, were we wrong.
    *   *   *
    “So,” Rhyme said to Cooper as both men stared at the computer screen. “I’m betting a hundred bucks you’re going to find more pure carbon, just like what was on the map hidden under his pillow on Elizabeth Street. You want to put some money on it? Any takers?”
    “Too late,” said the tech, as the analyzer beeped and the trace-elements analysis from the paper popped up in front of them. “Not that I would’ve bet anyway.” He shoved his glasses higher on his nose and said, “And, yep, carbon. One hundred percent.”
    Carbon.