Page 126 of The Midnight Lock (Lincoln Rhyme 14)

Joanna Whittaker joined Kemp on her belly.

Two officers approached and cuffed them both, rolling them over and muscling them into a sitting position.

Her face wasn’t scared, or angry, or frustrated. It was completely emotionless, though would occasionally reveal pain. Apparently Averell Whittaker had delivered quite the blow. Her cheek looked to be broken.

Martin Kemp was whimpering, leaving no doubt who wore the pants in this criminal household, Sachs reflected, even if the observation was a throwback, and possibly politically incorrect.

Kitt Whittaker had been drugged. Sachs helped him onto a couch, while other officers cleared the apartment. She and Rhyme were sure that Joanna and Kemp were the only perps involved in the scheme but protocol insisted that every inch of a crime scene be rendered safe. She got the word that it was clear, and she radioed for the medics.

Soon the EMTs were in the room. Sachs performed triage, andthey tended to Kitt first, determining that he did not have a life-threatening amount of opiates in his system. That would have come later, after they’d staged the scene where he killed his father and then himself.

The medicos then tended to Joanna and her fiancé—the shattered face and, in his case, hand.

“You all right?” Sachs asked Averell Whittaker, who looked at her absently and nodded. He turned his attention back to his son and asked a medical tech, “You’re sure my son’ll be all right?” He was shouting, an aftereffect of the bang part of the grenades.

“Yessir. They just gave him enough to sedate him. He’ll be fine.”

“Kitt,” Whittaker said and rested a hand on the young man’s arm. His son turned his way groggily and gave no reaction.

Kemp said, “Look, Officer, please …”

Joanna glanced at her sniveling fiancé. “You shut the hell up. If you say one word …”

So witness intimidation would be another charge. Though that was the least of the woman’s legal concerns.

A shadow in the doorway. And two other men entered the room, Lincoln Rhyme and Lyle Spencer.

Spencer saw the body of the woman personal protection guard. His face fell and he stepped to her, knelt down, taking her hand. He shook his head and stood. Spencer’s angry eyes turned toward Joanna. Maybe Alicia and Spencer had been friends, or more, in addition to colleagues. He balled up his fist and started toward the Whittaker niece, who cowered away.

Sachs intercepted him. And touched his arm. “No,” she said softly. “We’ll get it done the right way.”

He exhaled slowly and nodded.

Joanna cut an icy gaze toward Rhyme and then Sachs and asked, “How? How on earth?”

“Rhyme, I’ve got the results of that carpet sample in Kitt’s apartment. You’re going to want to see this.”

He and Spencer look Sachs’s way. She says, “Electrolytes: sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, bicarbonate, and phosphates, immunoglobulins, proteins, enzymes, mucins and nitrogenous products. It’s saliva.”

“Whose? Kitt’s?”

Mel Cooper is operating the fast DNA analyzer. He holds up a hand. They have a sample of Kitt’s DNA from his tooth- and hairbrushes, which she collected at his apartment.

“Come on, come on.” Rhyme is impatient, though Cooper cannot will the equipment to speed up.

Finally: “It’s his.”

Sachs says, “And one more thing. Blood. Very small trace in Kitt’s apartment. Near the doorway. The stain you spotted, Rhyme.”

Rhyme’s pulse increases; he feels it in his temple. They’re onto something here.

Another DNA test. The blood was Kitt’s as well.

Spencer says, “Not enough quantity to suggest a lethal wound. Even a twenty-two’ll leave more than that tiny stain.”

Rhyme thinks for a minute. “Run a sample through the HA.”

Mel Cooper turned on the hematology analyzer, a compact instrument the size of a bloated laptop. He runs the test and reads the results. “Mostly normal, but there’re some unusual substances present, things you don’t usually see in a normal blood analysis: creatine kinase, lactate dehydrogenase and myoglobin.”

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