Page 52 of The Midnight Lock (Lincoln Rhyme 14)

Pulaski added the discoveries to the board, which Rhyme now studied.

—Blue Victoria’s Secret panties and knife—Zwilling J.A. Henckels brand—were stolen.

—Daily Heraldnewspaper, page 3 of the February 17th edition, same as at A. Talese scene. Message, the same: “Reckoning—the Locksmith,” in victim’s lipstick.

—Brick dust.

—Blood, DNA match with that found in the Talese intrusion.

—Limestone.

—Sandstone.

—Asphalt particles.

—Motor oil.

—Sesame seeds.

—Oxygen bleach.

“Secondary scenes?” Rhyme asked.

Sachs and Cooper examined next the evidence collected from the Bechtel Building.

—Size 11 shoe print in pattern the same as at A. Talese’s.

—Sandstone.

—Limestone.

—Motor oil.

—Detergent.

—Microscopic particles of brass.

—Crushed common fly.

Sachs said, “Nothing at all at the entrance—the service door, the floor leading to the stairwell, the stairwell itself. And the exit?” Shescoffed. “It was a back window he broke. He jumped into the alleyway and turned on a hose. Flooded the whole area.”

Water destroys trace as efficiently as fire.

Rhyme sighed. “What does all this tell us? That he walks around the streets of New York.”

He was angry. His wife and his friends were risking their jobs to bring him evidence, and the evidence was not paying off.

“We need more.”

“Have a thought,” Sachs said. “I had the impression somebody was watching me.”

She explained about a gray Cadillac whose driver seemed a little more than casually interested in her and the scene.

“Can’t say for sure—the car may have been a coincidence. But I’m going with the assumption he never left. He wanted to know who was investigating him, and how.”

“Bechtel Building,” Rhyme said.

Sachs nodded. “We know he used it as a vantage point before. Maybe he used it again, to keep an eye on the investigation. It’d be perfect. The windows’re smeared—you can see out, but looking inside, it’s just blackness. I’m going back. Who knows? Could be, this time he got careless.”

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