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In a tiny splinter of a second: A flicker of movement disturbed the tree's sparse leaves, and the tall window in front of him exploded. Glass turned to a million crystals of blowing snow, fire blossomed in his chest.
Moreno found himself lying on the couch, which had been five feet behind him.
But...but what happened here? What is this? I'm fainting, I'm fainting.
I can't breathe.
He stared at the tree, now clearer, so much clearer, without the window glass filtering the view. The branches waved in the sweet wind off the water. Leaves swelling, receding. It was breathing for him. Because he couldn't, not with his chest on fire. Not with the pain.
Shouts, cries for help around him.
Blood, blood everywhere.
Sun setting, sky going darker and darker. But isn't it morning? Moreno had images of his wife, his teenage son and daughter. His thoughts dissolved until he was aware of only one thing: the tree.
Poison and strength, poison and strength.
The fire within him was easing, vanishing. Tearful relief.
Darkness becoming darker.
The poisonwood tree.
Poisonwood...
Poison...
MONDAY, MAY 15
II
THE QUEUE
CHAPTER 2
IS HE ON HIS WAY OR NOT?" Lincoln Rhyme asked, not trying to curb the irritation.
"Something at the hospital," came Thom's voice from the hallway or kitchen or wherever he was. "He'll be delayed. He'll call when he's free."
"'Something.' Well, that's specific. 'Something at the hospital.'"
"That's what he told me."
"He's a doctor. He should be precise. And he should be on time."
"He's a doctor," Thom replied, "which means he has emergencies to deal with."
"But he didn't say 'emergency.' He said, 'something.' The operation is scheduled for May twenty-six. I don't want it delayed. That's too far in the future anyway. I don't see why he couldn't do it sooner."
Rhyme motored his red Storm Arrow wheelchair to a computer monitor. He parked next to the rattan chair in which sat Amelia Sachs, in black jeans and sleeveless black shell. A gold pendant of one diamond and one pearl dangled from a thin chain around her neck. The day was early and spring sunlight fired through the east-facing windows, glancing alluringly off her red hair tied in a bun, tucked carefully up with pewter pins. Rhyme turned his attention back to the screen, scanning a crime scene report for a homicide he'd just helped the NYPD close.
"About done," she said.
They sat in the parlor of his town house on Central Park West in Manhattan. What presumably had once been a subdued, quiet chamber for visitors and suitors in Boss Tweed's day was now a functioning crime scene lab. It was filled with evidence examination gear and instrumentation, computers and wires, everywhere wires, which made the transit of Rhyme's wheelchair forever bumpy, a sensation that he experienced only from his shoulders up.
"The doctor's late," Rhyme muttered to Sachs. Unnecessarily since she'd been ten feet away from his exchange with Thom. But he was still irritated and felt better laying on a bit more censure. He carefully moved his right arm forward to the touchpad and scrolled through the last paragraphs of the report. "Good."
"I'll send it?"
