AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"It's a--"
Rhyme interrupted. "Noose."
"Yep."
"Made out of?"
"Not sure. Girl said he set it on the spot where he got the vic. She picked it up but the responding set it back in the same place he'd left it, more or less."
"Great. I've never worked a scene contaminated by a nine-year-old."
"Relax, Linc. All she did was pick it up. And the responding wore gloves. Scene's secure, waiting for somebody to run it. Somebody, as in Amelia."
The noose was made out of dark material, which was stiff, since segments were not flush with the pavement, as would be the case with more limp fibers. From the size of the poured-concrete sidewalk panel, the noose was about twelve to fourteen inches long in total, the neck hoop about a third of that.
"The wit's still on scene. With Mommy. Who isn't very happy."
Neither was Rhyme. All they had to go on was a nine-year-old schoolgirl with the observational skills and perception of a...well, nine-year-old schoolgirl.
"The vic? Rich, politically active, connected with OC, record?"
Sellitto said, "No ID yet. Nobody reported missing. A few minutes after the snatch somebody saw a phone fly outta a car--dark sedan, nothing more. Third Avenue. Dellray's boys're running it. We find out who, we find out why. Business deal gone bad, vic has information somebody wants, or the old standby. For-profit ransom."
"Or it's a psycho. There was the noose, after all."
"Yeah," Sellitto said, "and the vic just happened to be WTWP."
"What?"
"Wrong time, wrong place."
Rhyme scowled once more. "Lon?"
"It's going around the department."
"Flu viruses--not viri, by the way--go around the department. Idiotic expressions do not. Or should not, at least."
Sellitto used the cane to rise to his feet and aimed his bulky form toward the tray of cookies that Thom was setting down, like a Realtor seducing prospective buyers at a condominium open house. The detective ate one, then two, then another, nodded approval. He poured himself a cup of coffee from a silver pitcher and spilled in artificial sweetener, his concession to the battle against calories being to sacrifice refined sugar for pastry.
"Good," he announced through a mouthful of cookie. "You want one? Some coffee?"
The criminalist's eyes swiveled instinctively toward the Glenmorangie, sitting golden and alluring on the high shelf.
But Lincoln Rhyme decided: No. He wanted his faculties about him. He had a feeling that the girl's observations were all too accurate, that the kidnapping had occurred just as she had described it and that the macabre calling card was a taunting message of a death soon to be.
And perhaps more after that.
He texted Amelia Sachs once again.
Chapter 3
A plop, as water fell from ceiling to floor.
Ten feet.
Every four seconds.
Plop, plop, plop.
