ommand, call Sachs.”

But the phone went to voice mail.

“Damnit, where is she? Find her… Pulaski?” Rhyme wheeled his chair around to face the young man, who was on the phone. “What’s the story with Carpenter?”

He held up a hand. Then hung up. “I finally got his assistant. Carpenter left work early, had some errands. He should be home by now.”

“I want somebody over there. Now.”

Mel Cooper tried paging Sachs and, when there was no response, said, “Nothing.” He made a few other calls and reported, “Nope. No luck.”

“Did Five Twenty-Two get her service dropped, like the electricity?”

“No, they say the accounts’re active. It’s just that the devices are disabled—broken or the batteries removed.”

“What? Are they sure?” The dread within him began to expand.

The doorbell rang and Thom went to answer it.

Lon Sellitto, his shirt half untucked and face sweaty, strode into the room. “They can’t do anything about the suspension. It’s automatic. Even if I take another test they have to keep it active until IA investigates. Fucking computers. I had somebody call PublicSure. They’re quote ‘looking into it,’ which you know what that means.” He glanced at Pulaski. “What happened with your wife?”

“Still in detention.”

“Jesus.”

“And it gets worse.” Rhyme told Sellitto about Brockton, Whitcomb and Glenn and the Compliance Division of Homeland Security.

“Shit. Never heard of it.”

“And they want us to hold off on the investigation, at least as far as SSD’s involved. But we’ve got another problem. Amelia’s missing.”

“What?” Sellitto barked.

“Looks that way. I don’t know where she was going after she went to her town house. She never called… Oh, Christ, the power was out, the phones were off. Check voice mail. Maybe she called.”

Cooper dialed the number. And they learned that Sachs had called. But she’d said only that she was following up on a lead and said nothing more. She asked that Rhyme call her and she’d explain.

Rhyme jammed his eyes closed in frustration.

A lead…

To where? One of their suspects. He gazed at the chart.!!!Andrew Sterling, President, Chief Executive Officer

Alibi—on Long Island, verified. Confirmed by son

Sean Cassel, Director of Sales and Marketing

No alibi

Wayne Gillespie, Director of Technical Operations

No alibi

Samuel Brockton, Director, Compliance Department

Alibi—hotel records confirm presence in Washington

Peter Arlonzo-Kemper, Director of Human Resources

Alibi—with wife, verified by her (biased?)

Steven Shraeder, Technical Service and Support Manager, day shift

Alibi—in office, according to time sheets

Faruk Mameda, Technical Service and Support Manager, night shift

No alibi

Alibi for groundskeeper’s killing (in office, according to time sheets)

Client of SSD (?)

Robert Carpenter (?)

UNSUB recruited by Andrew Sterling (?)

Runnerboy?

Did the lead involve one of them?

“Lon, go check out Carpenter.”

“What, like, ‘Hi, I used to be a cop but will you let me question you ’cause I’m such a nice person even though you don’t have to’?”

“Yeah, Lon, just like that.”

Sellitto turned to Cooper. “Mel, gimme your shield.”

“My shield?” the tech asked nervously.

“I won’t get it scratched,” the big man muttered.

“I’m more worried about getting me suspended.”

“Welcome to the fucking club.” Sellitto took the badge and got Carpenter’s address from Pulaski. “I’ll let you know what happens.”

“Lon, be careful. Five Twenty-Two’s feeling cornered. He’s going to hit back hard. And remember he’s—”

“The son of a bitch who knows everything.” Sellitto stalked out of the lab.

Rhyme noticed Pulaski staring at the charts. “Detective?”

“What?”

“There’s something else I’m thinking of.” He tapped the whiteboard containing the suspects’ names. “Andrew Sterling’s alibi. Well, when he was on Long Island he told me his son was hiking in Westchester. He’d called Andy from out of town, and we could see the time in his phone records. That checked out.”

“So?”

“Well, I remembered Sterling said his son took the train to Westchester. But when I talked to Andy, he said he drove up there.” Pulaski cocked his head. “And there’s something else, sir. The day the groundskeeper was killed, I checked the time sheets. I saw Andy’s name. He left right after Miguel Abrera, the janitor. I mean, seconds afterwards. I didn’t think about it because Andy wasn’t a suspect.”

“But the son doesn’t have any access to innerCircle,” Cooper said, nodding at the suspect chart.

“Not according to what his father said. But…” Pulaski shook his head. “See, Andrew Sterling’s been so helpful, we took whatever he told us at face value. He said that nobody but those people on the suspect list have access. But we don’t know that independently. We never verified who could or couldn’t log into innerCircle.”

Cooper offered, “Maybe Andy went through his dad’s PDA or computer to get a passcode.”

“You’re on a roll, Pulaski. Okay, Mel, you’re top dog now. Get a tactical team over to Andy Sterling’s house.”

Even the best predictive analysis, powered by brilliant artificial brains like Xpectation, can’t get it right all the time.

Who in a million years would have guessed that Amelia 7303, sitting stunned and handcuffed twenty feet away, would have come right to my door?

Some luck, I must say. I was just about to head off to get Thom’s vivisection under way when I noticed her through the window. My life seems to work that way, good fortune a trade-off for the edginess.

I consider the situation calmly. Okay, her colleagues at the police department don’t suspect me; she only came here to show me the composite picture I found in her pocket, along with a list of six other people. Two at the top are crossed off. I’m unlucky number three. Someone will surely ask about her; when they do I’ll say, yes, she came here to show me the composite and then left. And that’ll be it.

I’ve dismantled her electronics and am placing them in appropriate boxes. I’d considered using her phone to record the final, thrashing moments of Thom Reston. It has a nice symmetry, an elegance. But, of course, she’ll have to vanish completely. She’ll go to sleep in my basement, next to Caroline 8630 and Fiona 4892.

Disappear completely.

Not as tidy as it could be—police do love to have the body—but it’s good news for me.

I’ll get to take a proper trophy this time. No mere fingernails from my Amelia 7303…