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"Pam!"
But she wouldn't be stopped. She walked up to the mass of metal and dug around inside. She tugged hard and pulled out something, then returned to Sachs.
"Here, Amelia." It was the horn button emblem, with the Chevrolet logo.
Sachs felt the tears but continued to will them away. "Thanks, honey. Come on. Let's get the hell out of here."
They drove back to the Upper West Side and stopped for recuperative ice cream; Sachs had arranged for Pam to take the day off from school. She didn't want her to be around Stuart Everett, and the girl was only too happy to agree.
Sachs wondered if the teacher would take no for an answer. Thinking of the trashy flicks--a la Scream and Friday the 13th--that she and Pam sometimes watched late at night, fortified with Doritos and peanut butter, Sachs knew that old boyfriends, like horror movie killers, sometimes have a way of rising from the dead.
Love makes us weird. . . .
Pam finished her ice cream and patted her stomach. "I so needed that." Then she sighed. "How could I be so stupid?"
In the girl's ensuing laugh--eerily adult--Amelia Sachs heard what she believed was the final shovel of earth on the grave of the hockey-masked killer.
They left Baskin-Robbins and walked toward Rhyme's town house, several blocks away, planning a girls' night out, along with another friend of Sachs's, a policewoman she'd known for years. She asked the girl, "Movie or play?"
"Oh, a play . . . Amelia, when does an off-Broadway play become an off-off-Broadway play?"
"That's a good question. We'll Google it."
"And why do they call them Broadway plays when there aren't any theaters on Broadway?"
"Yeah. They should be 'near Broadway' plays. Or 'right around the corner from Broadway' plays."
The pair walked along the east-west side street, approaching Central Park West. Sachs was suddenly aware of a pedestrian nearby. Somebody was crossing the street behind them, moving in their general direction, as if following them.
She felt no alarm, putting the breeze of concern down to the paranoia from the 522 case.
Relax. The perp's dead and gone.
She didn't bother to look back.
But Pam did.
And screamed shrilly, "It's him, Amelia!"
"Who?"
"The guy who broke into your town house. That's him!"
Sachs spun around. The man in the blue plaid jacket and baseball cap. He moved toward them fast.
She slapped her hip, going for her gun.
Which wasn't there.
No, no, no . . .
Since Peter Gordon had fired the weapon, the Glock was now evidence--as was her knife--and both were at Crime Scene Unit in Queens. She hadn't had the chance to go downtown and do the paperwork for a replacement.
Sachs now froze, recognizing him. It was Calvin Geddes, an employee of Privacy Now. She couldn't make sense of this, and wondered if they'd been wrong. Were Geddes and 522 in on the murders together?
He was now just yards away. Sachs could do nothing but step between Geddes and Pam. She balled her fists up as the man stepped close and reached into his jacket.
Chapter Fifty-two
