Page 39 of The Midnight Lock (Lincoln Rhyme 14)

Fifteen seconds …

Push, push … But gently. Don’t anger those pins that have yet to be tricked up into their tunnels. You can’t bully them. They have to be seduced.

Click, click …

Then the wrench swivels, and the one-inch-throw deadbolt leaves the strike panel.

I’ve done it!

The SecurPoint is a disgrace to its name.

In twenty seconds, no less.

I stand, shoot graphite on the hinges. Then I’m closing the door with outer-space silence.

Carrie is not an alarm kind of girl, so there is no need to flood the house with RF waves, or to spend the first five seconds of the Visit cutting wires.

A few steps inside. I listen.

I hear the hum of the refrigerator. The bubbling from the aquarium.

It’s dark but not black. One thing I’ve learned is that unless you mount thick shades on all the windows, New York—Manhattan particularly—is filled with illumination. Light from a million sources bleeds inside through dozens of tiny fissures. This is true every minute of every day.

When my eyes acclimate I walk, cautiously, farther into the apartment itself.

I’m moving through a long hallway. I pass a door, closed presently. It leads to a small bedroom. Beside the door sit a half-dozen children’s toys, among them an eerie-faced doll, a woodenlocomotive, a puzzle, also wood, in which play involves rearranging letters to spell words.

I continue past the bedroom down the corridor. The kitchen is to the left, living room to the right. Comfortable couches and chairs, fake leather. A pommeled coffee table, covered with magazines and makeup and socks and more toys. The aquarium is impressive. I know nothing about fish but the colors are quite appealing.

In the back is the larger bedroom.

I take my brass knife from my pocket and open it, giving the faintest of clicks (I have graphited it too). Gripping the handle hard, the blade side up.

If I had been heard and was about to be attacked, now is the moment when it would happen.

I step inside.

But here she dozes. Pretty Carrie Noelle. She’s sprawled on the bed in a tangle of purple floral sheets and a bedspread that seems too thick for the temperature in the apartment, which is not that cool. But this is what she’s chosen for swaddling. People wage a war against insomnia and will use whatever weapon or tactic gives them advantage.

I fold the knife and replace it in my pocket.

Then look over Carrie once more.

Most women I’ve observed in the Visits sleep on their sides, a pillow or bunch of blankets between their legs. This is not a sexual thing, I’m convinced. Also, no one wears pajamas, much less nightgowns, unless it’s a sexy garment and there’s a man on the sinister side of the bed (as happened once—a surprise discovery that resulted in my fast retreat). No, the de rigueur outfit for bed among the female persuasion is sweatpants or boxer shorts and a T-shirt. And you’d be surprised at how many single women, of all ages, are accompanied to slumber with a stuffed animal or two.

I return to the living room. I look at her bookshelf. Carrie enjoys murder mysteries and bios and cookbooks, and—as in every apartment I’ve visited—she has a thousand-dollar collection of self-help and exercise books. Most, hardly cracked.

In the kitchen I find a bottle of red wine, an Australian shiraz. It’s a good one—and it features a screw top. (Those from Down Under, I recall from the formal and fancy meals of my childhood, my father lecturing, are not afraid to sell fine wines in easy-to-open bottles. And why should they be? It only makes sense.)

I dig for a crystal glass and fill it halfway. I sip. It’s quite decent. Then I correct myself. It’s quitegood. “Decent” does not mean quality. It means only the opposite of indecent—that is, not obscene. Anyone who practices the science of locksmithing knows that precision is everything. A thousandth of a thousandth of a millimeter of error in the bitting of a key will render it useless—except for steadying a wobbly table leg.

I walk to the front bedroom, quietly open the door. I look in and see all the children’s toys. And the crib in the corner.

Children can make the Visits problematic. Waking up at all hours and screaming for attention.

I’ll get back to this room but for the moment I return to the bathroom outside Carrie’s bedroom.

There’s a lipstick on the counter that describes itself as Passion Rouge. I’ll use this to sign my calling card, the page from theDaily Herald.

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