"You sure?"
"I'm sure."
Sachs set the letter aside for Eddie Deng to translate when the young cop arrived later in the day.
"Want to get back to the evidence?" Sachs asked. Nodding toward the whiteboards. There was much preparatory work that needed to be done for the Ghost's trial.
But Rhyme said, "No, I want to play a game."
"Game?"
"Yeah."
"Sure," she said coyly. "I'm in the mood to win."
"You wish," he chided.
"What game?" she asked.
"Wei-chi. The board's over there. And those bags of stones."
She found the game and set it up on the table near where Rhyme was parked. She glanced at his eyes, which were examining the grid of the board, and said, "I think I'm being hustled, Rhyme. You've played this before."
"Sonny and I played a few games," he said casually.
"How few?"
"Three is all. I'm hardly an expert, Sachs."
"How'd you do?"
The criminalist said defensively, "It takes a while to get the feel for a game."
"You lost," she sai
d. "All of them."
"But the last one was close."
She looked over the board. "What'll we play for?"
With a cryptic smile Rhyme replied, "We'll think of something." Then he explained the rules and she leaned forward, raptly taking in his words. Finally he said, "That's it . . . .Now, you've never played so you get an advantage. You can make the first move."
"No," Sachs answered. "No advantages. We'll flip a coin."
"It's customary," Rhyme assured her. "No advantage," Sachs repeated. Then dug a quarter out of her pocket. "Call it," she said.
And tossed the coin into the air.
Acknowledgments
My thanks to Kim Arthur and the folks at Invacare and to Cheryl Lehman for their extremely helpful insights on care of and equipment available for spinal cord injury patients. And, as always, to Madelyn.
"Deaver is the master of ticking-bomb suspense."
--People
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