Twisted

quiet, you know. Just no fun. But she’s into all kinds of things now. Camping and hiking, rafting, all that out-of-doors stuff.”
    “Really?” Dalton asked. “I never pictured her going in for that kind of thing.”
    Carly looked off for a moment. “Remember those business trips you’d take when I was a kid? You’d go to Hong Kong or Japan?”
    “Setting up our overseas offices, sure.”
    “I wanted all of us to go. You, Mom and me . . .” She played with her coffee cup. “But she was always like, ‘Oh, there’s too much to do at home.’ Or, ‘Oh, we’ll get sick if we drink the water,’ or whatever. We never did take a family vacation. Not a real one.”
    “I always wanted that too.” Dalton shook his head sadly. “And I’d get mad when she didn’t want to come along and bring you. But she’s your mother; it’s her job to look out for you. All she wanted was for you to be safe.” He smiled. “I remember once when I was in Tokyo and calling home. And—”
    His words were interrupted when Rhyme’s phone rang. He spoke into the microphone on his chair, “Command, answer phone.”
    “Detective Rhyme?” the voice clattered through the speaker.
    The rank was out of date—a “Ret.” belonged with it—but he said, “Go ahead.”
    “This’s Trooper Bronson, New York State Police.”
    “Go ahead.”
    “We had an emergency vehicle locator request regarding a burgundy Malibu and understand you’re involved in the case.”
    “That’s right.”
    “We’ve found the vehicle, sir.”
    Rhyme heard Carly gasp. Dalton stepped beside the girl and put his arm around her shoulder. What would they hear? That Sue Thompson was dead?
    “Go ahead.”
    “The car’s moving west, looks like it’s headed for the George Washington Bridge.”
    “Occupants?”
    “Two. Man and a woman. Can’t tell anything more.”
    “Thank God. She’s alive.” Dalton sighed.
    Heading toward Jersey, Rhyme reflected. The flats were among the most popular places for dumping bodies in the metro area.
    “Registered to a Richard Musgrave, Queens. No warrants.”
    Rhyme glanced at Carly, who shook her head, meaning she had no clue who he was.
    Sachs leaned forward toward the speaker and identified herself. “Are you near the car?”
    “About two hundred feet behind.”
    “You in a marked vehicle?”
    “That’s right.”
    “How far from the bridge?”
    “A mile or two east.”
    Rhyme glanced at Sachs. “You want to join the party? You can stay right on their tail in the Camaro.”
    “You bet.” She ran for the door.
    “Sachs,” Rhyme called.
    She glanced back.
    “You have chains on your Chevy?”
    Sachs laughed. “Chains on a muscle car, Rhyme? No.”
    “Well, try not to skid into the Hudson, okay? It’s probably pretty cold.”
    “I’ll do my best.”

    True, a rear-wheel-drive sports car, with more than four hundred eager horses under the hood, was not the best vehicle to drive on snow. But Amelia Sachs had spent much of her youth skidding cars on hot asphalt in illegal races around Brooklyn (and sometimes just because, why not, it’s always a blast to do one-eighties); this little bit of snow meant nothing to her.
    She now slipped her Camaro SS onto the expressway and pushed the accelerator down. The wheels spun for only five seconds before they gripped and sped her up to eighty.
    “I’m on the bridge, Rhyme,” she called into her headset. “Where are they?”
    “About a mile west. Are you—”
    The car started to swerve. “Hold on, Rhyme, I’m going sideways.”
    She brought the skid under control. “A VW doing fifty in the fast lane. Man, doesn’t that just frost you?”
    In another mile she’d caught up to the trooper, keeping back, just out of sight of the Malibu. Shelooked past him and saw the car ease into the right lane and signal for an exit.
    “Rhyme, can you get me a patch through to the trooper?” she asked.
    “Hold on . . .” A long pause. Rhyme’s frustrated voice. “I can never figure out—” He was cut off and she heard two clicks. Then the trooper said, “Detective Sachs?”
    “I’m here. Go ahead.”
    “Is that you behind me, in that fine red set of wheels?”
    “Yep.”
    “How do you want to handle this?”
    “Who’s driving? The man or the woman?”
    “The man.”
    She thought for a moment. “Make it seem like a routine traffic stop. Taillight him or something. After he’s on the shoulder I’ll get in front and sandwich him in. You take the