The Vanished Man

didn’t even have a sense of the chronology of the killer’s visit.
    Memory, as Kara had said, is only an illusion.
    A moment later the young woman appeared. “Are you all right, Lincoln?”
    “Fine,” he muttered.
    Sachs was explaining that she wanted Kara to listen; she might recognize something the killer had said that could be helpful to them. The policewoman sat down again and pulled her chair close. “Let’s go back there, Rhyme. Tell us what happened. Just in general terms.”
    He hesitated, glanced at the tape recorder. Then he began to recount the events as he remembered them. The Conjurer appearing, admitting he’d stolen the uniform then killed the officer, telling Rhyme about the officer’s body.
    The weather’s warm . . .
    He then said, “It was like he was pretending he was performing a show and I was a fellow performer.”Hearing the man’s odd rambling in his mind, Rhyme said, “I do remember one thing. He’s got asthma. Or at least he sounded winded. He was gasping for breath a lot, whispering.”
    “Good,” Sachs said. “I’d forgotten he sounded that way at the pond after the Marston assault. What else did he say?”
    Rhyme looked at the dark ceiling of the small guest room. Shaking his head. “That’s about it. He was either burning me or threatening to slice me up. . . . Oh, did you find any razor blades when you searched the room?”
    “No.”
    “Well, there. This’s what I’m talking about—evidence. I know he threw a blade in my sweatpants. The doctors didn’t find it. It must’ve fallen out. See, that’s the sort of thing you should be looking for.”
    “It was probably never in your pants,” Kara said. “I know the illusion. He palmed the blade.”
    “Well, my point is that you don’t tend to listen to people real close when they’re torturing you.”
    “Come on, Rhyme, go on back there. It’s earlier this evening. Kara and I’re getting dinner. You’ve been looking over evidence. Thom’s brought you upstairs. You were tired, right?”
    “No,” the criminalist said, “I wasn’t tired. But he brought me up there anyway.”
    “Imagine you weren’t too happy about that.”
    “No, I wasn’t.”
    “So you’re up in the room.”
    Picturing the lights, the silhouette of the birds. Thom, closing the door.
    “It’s quiet—” Sachs began.
    “No, it’s not quiet at all. There’s that goddamn circus across the street. Anyway, I set the alarm—”
    “For what time?”
    “I don’t know. An hour. What difference does it make?”
    “One detail can give birth to two others.”
    A scowl. “Where’d that come from, a fortune cookie?”
    She smiled. “Made it up. But it sounds good, don’t you think? Use it in the new edition of your book.”
    “I don’t write books about witnesses,” Rhyme said. “I write them about evidence.” Feeling victorious again with this comeback.
    “Now, how do you tell he’s here at first? Did you hear anything?”
    “No, I felt a draft. I thought it was the air-conditioning at first. But it was him. He was blowing on my neck and cheek.”
    “Just to—Why?”
    “To scare me, I guess. It worked, by the way.” Rhyme closed his eyes. Then he nodded as a few memories came back. “I tried to call Lon on the phone. But he”—a glance at Kara. “He caught my move. He threatened to kill me—no, he threatened to blind me—if I tried to call for help. I thought he was going to. But—it was odd—he seemed impressed. He complimented me on my misdirection. . . .” His voice faded as his memory trailed off into dimness.
    “How did he get in?”
    “He walked in with the officer who brought the evidence from the Grady hit.”
    “Shit,” Sellitto said. “From now on we check IDs—everybodywho walks through the friggin’ door. I mean everybody. ”
    “He’s talking about misdirection,” Sachs continued. “He’s complimented you. What else is he saying?”
    “I don’t know,” Rhyme muttered. “Nothing.”
    “Nothing at all?” she asked, her voice a whisper.
    “I. Don’t. Know.” Lincoln Rhyme was furious. At Sachs because she was pushing him. Because she wouldn’t let him have a drink to numb the terror.
    Furious mostly at himself for disappointing her.
    But she had to understand how hard it was for him to go back there—to the flames, to the smoke that slipped into his nose and threatened his precious lungs—
    Wait. Smoke . . .
    Lincoln Rhyme said, “Fire.”
    “Fire?”
    “I