“Doesn’t seem to be. It’s too far away and there’s no trail to her body.”

“Does it lead anywhere?”

“Looks like it. To a brick in the wall. It’s loose. No prints on it. I’m going to move it aside. I – oh, Jesus!” Sachs gasped and stumbled back a foot or two, nearly fell.

“What?” Rhyme asked.

She eased forward, staring in disbelief.

“Amelia. Talk to me.”

“It’s a bone. A bloody bone.”

“Human?”

“I don’t know,” she answered. “How would I…? I don’t know.”

“Recent kill?”

“Looks like it. About two inches long and two in diameter. There’s blood and flesh on it. It’s been sawn off. Jesus. Who the fuck’d do something -”

“Don’t get rattled.”

“What if he got it from another victim?”

“Then we better find ’im pretty damn soon, Amelia. Bag it. Plastic for the bone.”

As she did this, he asked, “Any other staged clues?” He sounded concerned.

“No.”

“That’s all? Hairs, a bone and a splinter of wood. He’s not making it very easy, is he?”

“Should I bring it back to your… office?”

Rhyme was laughing. “He’d like us to call it quits. But no. We’re not through yet. Let’s find out a little more about Unsub 823.”

“But there’s nothing here.”

“Oh, yes there is, Amelia. There’s his address and his phone number and his description and his hopes and aspirations. They’re all around you.”

She was furious at his professor’s tone and remained silent.

“You have the flashlight?”

“I’ve got my issue halogen -”

“No,” he grumbled. “Issue lights are too narrow. You need the twelve-volt broad beam.”

“Well, I didn’t bring it,” she snapped. “Should I go back and get it?”

“No time. Check out the pipes.”

She searched for ten minutes, climbing up to the ceiling, and with the powerful light she illuminated spots that perhaps hadn’t been lit in fifty years. “No, I don’t see a thing.”

“Go back to the door. Hurry.”

She hesitated and returned.

“Okay, I’m here.”

“Now. Close your eyes. What do you smell?”

“Smell? Did you say smell?” Was he crazy?

“Always smell the air at a crime scene. It can tell you a hundred things.”

She kept her eyes wide and breathed in. She said, “Well, I don’t know what I smell.”

“That’s not an acceptable answer.”

She exhaled in exasperation and hoped the hiss was coming through his telephone loud and clear. She jammed her lids closed, inhaled, fought the nausea again. “Mold, mustiness. The smell of hot water from the steam.”

“You don’t know where it’s from. Just describe it.”

“Hot water. The woman’s perfume.”

“Are you sure it’s hers?”

“Well, no.”

“Are you wearing any?”

“No.”

“How ’bout aftershave? The medic? The ESU officer?”

“I don’t think so. No.”

“Describe it.”

“Dry. Like gin.”

“Take a guess, man’s aftershave or woman’s perfume.”

What had Nick worn? Arrid Extra Dry.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Man’s.”

“Walk to the body.”

She glanced once at the pipe then down to the floor.

“I -”

“Do it,” Lincoln Rhyme said.

She did. The peeling skin was like black-and-red birch.

“Smell her neck.”

“It’s all… I mean, there isn’t much skin left.”

“I’m sorry, Amelia, but you have to do it. We have to see if it’s her perfume.”

She did, inhaled. Gagged, nearly vomited.

I’m going to puke, she thought. Just like Nick and me that night at Pancho’s, done in by those damn frozen daiquiris. Two hard-ass cops, swigging down sissy drinks with blue plastic swordfish swimming in them.

“Do you smell the perfume?”

Here it comes… Gagging again.

No. No! She closed her eyes, concentrated on her aching joints. The most painful one – her knee. And, miraculously, the wave of nausea passed. “It’s not her perfume.”

“Good. So maybe our boy’s vain enough to wear a lot of aftershave. That could be a social-class indicator. Or maybe he wants to cover up some other smell he might’ve left. Garlic, cigars, fish, Whisky. We’ll have to see. Now, Amelia, listen carefully.”

“What?”

“I want you to be him.”

Oh. Psychoshit. Just what I need.

“I really don’t think we have time for this.”

“There’s never enough time in crime scene work,” Rhyme continued soothingly. “But that doesn’t stop us. Just get into his head. You’ve been thinking the way we think. I want you to think the way he does.”

“Well, how do I do that?”

“Use your imagination. That’s why God gave us one. Now, you’re him. You’ve got her cuffed and gagged. You take her into the room there. You cuff her to the pipe. You scare her. You’re enjoying this.”

“How do you know he’s enjoying it?”

“You’re enjoying it. Not him. How do I know? Because nobody goes to this much trouble to do something they don’t enjoy. Now, you know your way around. You’ve been here before.”

“Why d’you think that?”

“You had to check it out earlier – to find a deserted place with a feeder pipe from the steam system. And to get the clues he left by the train tracks.”

Sachs was mesmerized by his fluid, low voice. She forgot completely that his body was destroyed. “Oh. Right.”

“You take the steam-pipe cover off. What are you thinking?”

“I don’t know. That I want to get it over with. Get out.”

But the words were hardly out of her mouth before she thought: Wrong. And she wasn’t surprised when she heard Rhyme’s tongue click in her headset. “Do you really?” he asked.

“No. I want to make it last.”

“Yes! I think that’s exactly what you want. You’re thinking about what the steam will do to her. What else do you feel?”

“I…”

A thought formed in her mind, vague. She saw the woman struggling to free herself. Saw something else… some one else. Him, she thought. Unsub 823. But what about him? She was close to understanding. What… what? But suddenly the thought vanished. Gone.

“I don’t know,” she whispered.

“Do you feel any urgency? Or are you pretty cool about what you’re doing?”

“I’m in a hurry. I have to leave. The cops could be here at any minute. But I still…”

“What?”

“Shhhh,” she ordered, and scanned the room again, looking for whatever had put the seed of the vanished thought in her mind.

The room was swimming, a black, starry night. Swirls of darkness and distant, jaundiced lights. Lord, don’t let me faint!

Maybe he -

There! That’s it. Sachs’s eyes were following the steam pipe. She was looking at another access plate in a shadowy alcove of the room. It would have been a better hiding place for the girl – you couldn’t see it from the doorway if you were walking past – and the second plate had only four bolts on it, not eight, like the one he chose.

Why not that pipe?

Then she understood.

“He doesn’t want… I don’t want to leave just yet because I want to keep an eye on her.”

“Why do you think that?” he inquired, echoing her own words just moments before.

“There’s another pipe I could’ve chained her to but I picked the one that was in the open.”

“So you could see her?”

“I think so.”

“Why?”

“Maybe to make sure she can’t get away. Maybe to make sure the gag’s tight… I don’t know.”

“Good, Amelia. But what does it mean? How can we use that fact?”

Sachs looked around the room for the place where he’d have the best view of the girl without being seen. It turned out to be a shadowy spot between two large heating-oil tanks.

“Yes!” she said excitedly, looking at the floor. “He was here.” Forgetting the role-playing. “He swept up.”

She scanned the area with the bile glow of the PoliLight wand.

“No footprints,” she said, disappointed. But as she lifted the light to shut it off, a smudge glowed on one of the tanks.

“I’ve got a print!” she announced.

“A print?”