Then the numbness left, snap, in a flash. And for the first time she realized what had nearly happened. She dropped the oxygen mask, backed away in panic, tears streaming, her panicky keening growing louder and louder. "No, no, no . . ."
Slapping her arms and thighs, frantic, trying to shake off the horror clinging to her like a teeming swarm of bees.
"Oh God oh God . . . No . . ."
"Sachs?" Banks asked, alarmed. "Hey, Sachs?"
The older detective waved his partner away. "It's okay." He kept his arm around her shoulders as she dropped to all fours and vomited violently, sobbing, sobbing, gripping the dirt desperately between her fingers as if she wanted to strangle it.
Finally Sachs calmed and sat back on her naked haunches. She began laughing, softly at first then louder and louder, hysterical, astonished to find that the skies had opened and it had been raining--huge hot summer drops--and she hadn't even realized it.
Arm around his shoulders. Face pressed against his. They stayed that way for a long moment.
"Sachs . . . Oh, Sachs."
She stepped away from the Clinitron and scooted an old armchair from the corner of the room. Sachs--wearing navy sweatpants and a Hunter College T-shirt--flopped down into the chair and dangled her exquisite legs over the arm like a schoolgirl.
"Why us, Rhyme? Why'd he come after us?" Her voice was a raspy whisper from the dirt she'd swallowed.
"Because the people he kidnapped aren't the real victims. We are."
"Who's we?" she asked.
"I'm not sure. Society maybe. Or the city. Or the UN. Cops. I went back and reread his bible--the chapter on James Schneider. Remember Terry's theory about why the unsub'd been leaving the clues?"
Sellitto said, "Sort of making us accessories. To share the guilt. Make it easier for him to kill."
Rhyme nodded but said, "I don't think that's the reason though. I think the clues were a way to attack us. Every dead vic was a loss for us."
In her old clothes, hair pulled back in a ponytail, Sachs looked more beautiful than any time in the past two days. But her eyes were tin. She'd be reliving every shovelful of dirt, he supposed, and Rhyme found the thought of her living burial so disturbing he had to look away.
"What's he got against us?" she asked.
"I don't know. Schneider's father was arrested by mistake and died in prison. Our unsub? Who knows why? I only care about evidence--"
"--not motives." Amelia Sachs finished the sentence.
"Why'd he start going after us directly?" Banks asked, nodding at Sachs.
"We found his hidey-hole and saved the little girl. I don't think he expected us so soon. Maybe he just got pissed. Lon, we need twenty-four-hour babysitters for all of us. He could've just taken off after we saved the kid but he stuck around to do some damage. You and Jerry, me, Cooper, Haumann, Polling, we're all on his list, betcha. Meanwhile, get Peretti's boys over to Sachs's. I'm sure he kept it clean but there might be something there. He left a lot faster than he'd planned to."
"I better get over there," Sachs said.
"No," Rhyme said.
"I have to work the scene."
"You have to get some rest," he ordered. "That's what you have to do, Sachs. You don't mind my saying, you look lousy."
"Yeah, officer," Sellitto said. " 'S'an order. I told you to stand down for the rest of the day. We've got two hundred searchers looking for him. And Fred Dellray's got another hundred and twenty feebies."
"I got a crime scene in my own backyard and you're not gonna let me walk the grid?"
"That's it," Rhyme said, "in a nutshell."
Sellitto walked to the doorway. "Any problems with that, officer?"
"Nosir."