“The deaths,” Rhyme said evenly, “your wife and children. It was an accident. A terrible accident, horrible. But it didn’t happen on purpose. It was a mistake. I’m so sorry for you and for them.”
In a sing-songy voice, Stanton chided, “Remember what you wrote?… in the preface of your textbook?” He recited perfectly, “ ‘The criminalist knows that for every action there’s a consequence. The presence of a perpetrator alters every crime scene, however subtly. It is because of this that we can identify and locate criminals and achieve justice.’ ” Stanton grabbed Rhyme’s hair and tugged his head forward. They were inches apart. Rhyme could smell the madman’s breath, see the lenses of sweat on the gray skin. “Well, I’m the consequence of your actions.”
“What’ll you accomplish? You kill me and I’m no worse off than I would’ve been.”
“Oh, but I’m not going to kill you. Not yet.”
Stanton released Rhyme’s hair, backed away.
“You want to know what I’m going to do?” he whispered. “I’m going to kill your doctor, Berger. But not the way he’s used to killing. Oh, no sleeping pills for him, no booze. We’ll see how he likes death the old-fashioned way. Then your friend Sellitto. And Officer Sachs? Her too. She was lucky once. But I’ll get her the next time. Another burial for her. And Thom too of course. He’ll die right here in front of you. Work him down to the bone… Nice and slow.” Stanton’s breathing was fast. “Maybe we’ll take care of him today. When’s he due back?”
“I made the mistakes. It’s my-” Rhyme suddenly coughed deeply. He cleared his throat, caught his breath. “It’s my fault. Do whatever you want with me.”
“No, it’s all of you. It’s -”
“Please. You can’t -” Rhyme began to cough again. It turned into a violent racking. He managed to control it.
Stanton glanced at him.
“You can’t hurt them. I’ll do whatever-” Rhyme’s voice seized. His head flew back, his eyes bulged.
And Lincoln Rhyme’s breath stopped completely. His head thrashed, his shoulders shivered violently. The tendons in his neck tightened like steel cords.
“Rhyme!” Stanton cried.
Sputtering, saliva shooting from his lips, Rhyme trembled once, twice, an earthquake seemed to ripple through his entire limp body. His head fell back, blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
“No!” Stanton shouted. Slamming his hands into Rhyme’s chest. “You can’t die!”
The doctor lifted Rhyme’s lids, revealing only whites.
Stanton tore open Thom’s medicine box and prepared a blood-pressure hypodermic, injected the drug. He yanked the pillow off the bed and pulled Rhyme flat. He tilted back Rhyme’s lolling head, wiped the lips and placed his mouth on Rhyme’s, breathing hard into the unresponsive lungs.
“No!” Stanton raged. “I won’t let you die! You can’t!”
No response.
Again. He checked the unmoving eyes.
“Come on! Come on!”
Another breath. Pounding on the still chest.
Then he backed up, frozen with panic and shock, staring, staring, watching the man die in front of him.
Finally he bent forward and one last time exhaled deeply into Rhyme’s mouth.
And it was when Stanton turned his head and lowered his ear to listen for the faint sound of breath, any faint exhalation, that Rhyme’s head shot forward like a striking snake. He closed his teeth on Stanton’s neck, tearing through the carotid artery and gripping a portion of the man’s own spine.
Down to…
Stanton screamed and scrabbled backwards, sliding Rhyme off the bed on top of him. Together they fell in a pile on the floor. The hot coppery blood gushed and gushed, filling Rhyme’s mouth.
…the bone.
His lungs, his killer lungs, had already gone for a minute without air but he refused to loosen his grip now to gasp for breath, ignoring the searing pain from inside his cheek where he’d bit into the tender skin, bloodying it to give credence to his sham attack of dysreflexia. He growled in rage – seeing Amelia Sachs buried in dirt, seeing the steam spew over T.J. Colfax’s body – and he shook his head, feeling the snap of bone and cartilage.
Pummeling Rhyme’s chest, Stanton screamed again, kicking to get away from the monster that had socketed itself to him.
But Rhyme’s grip was unbreakable. It was as if the spirits of all the dead muscles throughout his body had risen into his jaw.
Stanton clawed his way to the bedside table and managed to grab his knife. He jabbed it into Rhyme. Once, twice. But the only places he could reach were the criminalist’s legs and arms. It’s pain that incapacitates and pain was one thing to which Lincoln Rhyme was immune.
The vise of his jaws closed harder and Stanton’s scream was cut off as his windpipe went. He plunged the knife deep into Rhyme’s arm. It stopped when it hit bone. He started to draw it out to strike again but the madman’s body froze then spasmed violently once, then again, and suddenly went completely limp.
Stanton collapsed to the floor, pulling Rhyme after him. The criminalist’s head slammed onto the oak with a loud crack. Yet Rhyme wouldn’t let go. He held tight and continued to crush the man’s neck, shaking, tearing the flesh like a hungry lion crazed by blood and by the immeasurable satisfaction of a lust fulfilled.
V . WHEN YOU MOVE THEY CAN’T GETHCHA
“A physician’s duty is not just to extend life,
it is to end suffering.”
– DR. JACK KEVORKIAN
THIRTY-SEVEN
Monday, 7:15 p.m., to Monday, 10:00 p.m.
IT WAS NEARLY SUNSET when Amelia Sachs walked through his doorway.
She was no longer in sweats. Or uniform. She wore jeans and a forest-green blouse. Her beautiful face sported several scratches Rhyme didn’t recognize, though given the events of the past three days he guessed the wounds weren’t self-inflicted.
“Yuck,” she said, walking around the portion of the floor where Stanton and Polling had died. It had been mopped with bleach – with the perp body-bagged, forensics became moot – but the pink island of stain was huge.
Rhyme watched Sachs pause and nod a cold greeting to Dr. William Berger, who stood by the falcon window with his infamous briefcase at his side.
“So you got him, did you?” she asked, nodding at the bloodstain.
“Yeah,” Rhyme said. “He’s got.”
“All by yourself?”
“It was hardly a fair fight,” he offered. “I forced myself to hold back.”
Outside, the liquid, ruddy light of the low sun ignited treetops and the marching line of elegant buildings along Fifth Avenue across the park.
Sachs glanced at Berger, who said, “Lincoln and I were just having a little talk.”
“Were you?”
There was a long pause.
“Amelia,” he began. “I’m going to go through with it. I’ve decided.”
“I see.” Her gorgeous lips, marred by the black lines of tiny stitches, tightened slightly. It was her only visible reaction. “You know, I hate it when you use my first name. I goddamn hate it.”
How could he explain to her that she was largely the reason he was going ahead with his death? Waking that morning, with her beside him, he realized with a piquant sorrow that she would soon climb from the bed and dress and walk out the door – to her own life, to a normal life. Why, they were as doomed as lovers could be – if he dared even to think of them as lovers. It was only a matter of time until she met another Nick and fell in love. The 823 case was over, and without that binding them together, their lives would have to drift apart. Inevitable.