Page 111 of The Midnight Lock (Lincoln Rhyme 14)

It was odd to hear the voice of a man so big, so imposing, crack.

“Sometimes it’s tough,” Rhyme said softly. “I can’t say I never think about it anymore. But I always end up with: What the hell—why not enjoy a meal or conversation with Amelia for a little longer? Why not bicker with Thom for a little longer? Why not watch the peregrines and their nestlings on the ledge outside my window a little longer? Why not put some despicable perps in prison? Life’s all about odds, and as long as the needle’s past the fifty percent mark, being here is better than not.”

The big man nodded, retrieved his glass then held it up like a toast.

Rhyme had no idea if his words, every one of them as true as the periodic table of the elements, registered. But he could do nothing more, or less, than tell Lyle Spencer what had saved him—and what continued to do so.

Spencer had a brief coughing fit. He rose and walked to a table near the sterile portion of the room where he’d left his water bottle. He drank from it, as he absently looked over the evidence chart.

“Rhyme,” came Sachs’s voice from the sterile part of the parlor. It might have been his imagination, but it seemed that there was an urgency to it. “I’ve got the results of that carpet sample in Kitt’s apartment. You’re going to want to see this.”

58

Ido love my workshop.

Yes, there are echoes of the imprisonment in the Consequences Room, but most of the time the anger is more than compensated for by all of my friends here: the 142 locks, the keys, my tools, my devices, my machinery.

It’s especially nice when I’m engaged in a project, as now. I’m making pin tumbler keys that will open a knob lock and deadbolt.

Working with a sharp file and steel brush.

Pin tumbler keys are the most common of them all, those little triangular pieces of metal that jangle from all our keychains, the ones virtually no different from those that opened the lock created by Linus Yale and son.

I have a blank in my vise and I’m bitting by hand with a file, leaving tiny brass shavings on the workbench.

I’m engaged in the art of duplicating a key when you don’t have the original … or the all-powerful code. Every key has a code that will allow it to open the lock that has the corresponding one. Thereare two layers of coding. The blind code is gibberish, KX401, for instance. You can announce that code to the world but no one can cut a key from it. The blind code has to be translated, via esoteric charts or software, into the bitting code, like 22345, which together with depth and spacing numbers allows you to cut the appropriate key, even if you’ve never seen the original.

But there’s another way to copy a key, and that’s what I’m doing now. You can work from a photograph and if you’ve had experience, of course, like me, it’s possible to create a working duplicate. (A big scandal recently: On TV, an election official unwisely displayed the key to his county’s voting machines, to assure voters of the security of the devices. Within hours lockpickers re-created the key—not to alter any votes, but to simply fulfill what God put them on this earth to do: open what was closed.)

I compare my work every ten or twenty seconds with the photos I took of the keys in the ignition at the Sandleman blaze. It takes some time but finally, I know that these are perfect duplications.

Good.

It’s a very special door they will be opening tonight.

I have a little time so I decide to do some content moderating. I’m not in the mood for a beheading, but it’s always fun to check in on politics. I wonder what kind of crazy post Verum put up lately. I find it amusing in the extreme that I stand accused of being part of that secret cabal known as the Hidden.

Joanna Whittaker walked into her uncle’s apartment, whose view she had always admired.

New York City at your feet.

She smiled to Alicia Roberts, the security guard. “Where’s Averell?”

“In his office.”

“Alone?”

“Yes, making some calls.”

“I won’t bother him just yet.”

Joanna walked to the couch and sat in the embracing, luxurious leather. She wore a sober suit of black wool, an Alexander McQueen. She happened to glance at a picture of herself and her father, Lawrence, on the wall nearby. Together they were holding up a copy of theHerald, open to a page on which was a story she’d written exposing a philandering politician. She was smiling and pointing at her byline. In her younger days—which were, of course, not so long ago—she was quite the terror as an investigative reporter. Those were the days when her father was an equal partner in the company and you found more women in the halls of Whittaker Media.

She smiled at the memory of the assignment. Leveling her eyes at the squirmy politician, she’d asked, “You’re not answering my question, Senator. Did you tell your wife you were going to the Adirondacks with her attorney’s daughter?”

“It was nothing.”

“That’s not responsive. My question was: Did your wife know you were going to the Adirondacks with her attorney’s daughter?”

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