Page 76 of The Watchmaker's Hand

She looked at him.

“It’s a good plan. But, no. Not you.”

Her lips tightened.

“No chest X-ray, all right. Your call. But get some rest.”

“It’shim, Rhyme. The Watchmaker.”

“Tonight, you’re talking guard duty. Anybody could handle that. Spencer.”

And helping make his argument: her breathing stuttered andshe reluctantly took some more hits from the oxygen. He noted only now that it appeared to be a new tank. She hadn’t mentioned swapping the first one out for another.

“If we can’t find out where the next attack’s going to be, there’ll be a scene to search tomorrow. That’s where we’ll need you.”

Did she bristle at the hint? That he was a superior officer. If you took the relationship out of the equation, the marriage, that’s what he technically was, even if retired. He was a captain, she a mere gold shield.

The fraught moment might have become something harsher.

Except it did not; her eyes explained she knew he was right.

She didn’t move for a moment, then her shoulders sagged. “All right.”

And it seemed to Rhyme that relief washed over her. She dropped into a chair and placed a call to Lyle Spencer, telling him of her plan to hit several of the most likely target sites tomorrow and make sure guards were in place … and look for the Watch-maker himself, on the off chance that he was preparing one of the tower cranes for tomorrow’s attack.

After disconnecting, she nodded upstairs. “Early bedtime.”

He offered a half smile and was about to respond when there came the sound of the front door opening—the visitor would have the number pad code—and the brief rush of traffic before the door closed.

Ron Pulaski appeared in the arched doorway to the parlor.

Pale, eyes wide, he stopped and winced, then looked from one to the other.

“Ron, are you all right?” Sachs asked.

“There was an accident. Downtown. I hit somebody, another car.”

“But are youokay?”

“Just stunned. The other car, it caught fire, the driver—a kid,a student—he’s in the hospital. I went over there myself to see how he is. They couldn’t tell me. Or wouldn’t. Not family, you know.”

“Get to a doctor, Ron,” Sachs said.

“They checked me out at the scene, the EMTs. I’m good, just stiff.”

Rhyme said, “The word is Tarr doesn’t have any targets. It’s not that urgent, Ron. A day to rest won’t hurt.”

“Yeah,” he said, and his voice was bitter. “Looks like it’s going to be more than a day. They ran the standard post-accident blood panel. I tested positive for fentanyl.”

Rhyme and Sachs glanced each other’s way.

The criminalist asked, “Did you happen to—”

“Yeah, I sure did. Tried to save a banger in this crew we’d just taken down. Didn’t have gloves on.” He grimaced. “Stupid, with fent.”

Rhyme knew the dangers of the drug. Some first responders had passed out simply by touching an overdose victim. Several nearly died. Now the opioid antidote Narcan was carried by every responder—for themselves as well as for victims.

“I’m on administrative leave till the inquiry.”

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