The girl, fat but very pretty, nodded.

“Can I ask you some questions?”

“Yes, pleece. I want you get him.”

Sellitto arrived and ambled up to them. He smiled down at the girl, who gazed at him blankly. He proffered a badge she had no interest in and identified himself.

“You all right, miss?”

The girl shrugged.

Sweating fiercely in the muggy heat, Sellitto nodded Sachs aside. “Polling been here?”

“Haven’t seen him. Maybe he’s at Lincoln’s.”

“No, I just called there. He’s gotta get to City Hall pronto.”

“What’s the problem?”

Sellitto lowered his voice, his doughy face twisted up. “A fuckup – our transmissions’re supposed to be secure. But those fucking reporters, somebody’s got an unscrambler or something. They heard we didn’t go in right away to get her.” He nodded toward the girl.

“Well, we didn’t,” Sachs said harshly. “Rhyme told ESU to wait until I got here.”

The detective winced. “Man, I hope they don’t have that on tape. We need Polling for damage control.” He nodded to the girl. “Interviewed her yet?”

“No. Just about to.” With some regret Sachs clicked on the radio and heard Rhyme’s urgent voice.

“… you there? This goddamn thing doesn’t -”

“I’m here,” Sachs said coolly.

“What happened?”

“Interference, I guess. I’m with the vic.”

The girl blinked at the exchange and Sachs smiled. “I’m not talking to myself.” Gestured toward the mike. “Police headquarters. What’s your name?”

“Monelle. Monelle Gerger.” She looked at her bitten arm, pulled up a dressing and examined a wound.

“Interview her fast,” Rhyme instructed, “then work the scene.”

Hand covering the microphone stalk, Sachs whispered fiercely to Sellitto, “This man is a pain in the ass to work for. Sir.”

“Humor him, officer.”

“Amelia!” Rhyme barked. “Answer me!”

“We’re interviewing her, all right?” she snapped.

Sellitto asked, “Can you tell us what happened?”

Monelle began to talk, a disjointed story about being in the laundry room of a residence hall in the East Village. He’d been hiding, waiting for her.

“What residence hall?” Sellitto asked.

“The Deutsche Haus. It’s, you know, mostly German expatriates and students.”

“What happened then?” Sellitto continued. Sachs noted that although the big detective appeared gruffer, more ornery than Rhyme, he was really the more compassionate of the two.

“He threwed me in the trunk of car and drove here.”

“Did you get a look at him?”

The woman closed her eyes. Sachs repeated the question and Monelle said she hadn’t; he was, as Rhyme had guessed, wearing a navy-blue ski mask.

“Und gloves.”

“Describe them.”

They were dark. She didn’t remember what color.

“Any unusual characteristics? The kidnapper?”

“No. He was white. I could tell that.”

“Did you see the license plate of the taxi?” Sellitto asked.

“Was?” the girl asked, drifting into her native tongue.

“Did you see -”

Sachs jumped as Rhyme interrupted: “Das Nummernschild.”

Thinking: How the hell does he know all this? She repeated the word and the girl shook her head no then squinted. “What you mean, taxi?”

“Wasn’t he driving a Yellow Cab?”

“Taxicab? Nein. No. It was regular car.”

“Hear that, Lincoln?”

“Yup. Our boy’s got another set of wheels. And he put her in the trunk so it’s not a station wagon or hatchback.”

Sachs repeated this. The girl nodded. “Like a sedan.”

“Any idea of the make or color?” Sellitto continued.

Monelle answered, “Light, I think. Maybe silver or gray. Or that, you know, what is it? Light brown.”

“Beige?”

She nodded.

“Maybe beige,” Sachs added for Rhyme’s benefit.

Sellitto asked, “Was there anything in the trunk? Anything at all? Tools, clothes, suitcases?”

Monelle said there wasn’t. It was empty.

Rhyme had a question. “What did it smell like? The trunk.”

Sachs relayed the query.

“I don’t know.”

“Oil and grease?”

“No. It smelled… clean.”

“So maybe a new car,” Rhyme reflected.

Monelle dissolved into tears for a moment: Then shook her head. Sachs took her hand and, finally, she continued. “We drove for long time. Seemed like long time.”

“You’re doing fine, honey,” Sachs said.

Rhyme’s voice interrupted. “Tell her to strip.”

“What?”

“Take her clothes off.”

“I will not.”

“Have the medics give her a robe. We need her clothes, Amelia.”

“But,” Sachs whispered, “she’s crying.”

“Please,” Rhyme said urgently. “It’s important.”

Sellitto nodded and Sachs, tight-lipped, explained to the girl about the clothes and was surprised when Monelle nodded. She was, it turned out, eager to get out of the bloody garments anyway. Giving her privacy, Sellitto walked away, to confer with Bo Haumann. Monelle put on a gown the medic offered her and one of the plain-clothes detectives covered her with his sportscoat. Sachs bagged the jeans and T-shirts.

“Got them,” Sachs said into the radio.

“Now she’s got to walk the scene with you,” Rhyme said.

“What?”

“But make sure she’s behind you. So she doesn’t contaminate any PE.”

Sachs looked at the young woman, huddling on a gurney beside the two EMS buses.

“She’s in no shape to do that. He cut her. All the way to the bone. So she’d bleed and the rats’d get her.”

“Is she mobile?”

“Probably. But you know what she’s just been through?”

“She can give you the route they walked. She can tell you where he stood.”

“She’s going to the ER. She lost a lot of blood.”

A hesitation. He said pleasantly, “Just ask her.”

But his joviality was fake and Sachs heard just impatience. She could tell that Rhyme was a man who wasn’t used to coddling people, who didn’t have to. He was someone used to having his own way.

He persisted, “Just once around the grid.”

You can go fuck yourself, Lincoln Rhyme.

“It’s -”

“Important. I know.”

Nothing from the other end of the line.

She was looking at Monelle. Then she heard a voice, no, her voice say to the girl, “I’m going down there to look for evidence. Will you come with me?”

The girl’s eyes nailed Sachs deep in her heart. Tears burst. “No, no, no. I am not doing that. Bitte nicht, oh, bitte nicht…”

Sachs nodded, squeezed the woman’s arm. She began to speak into the mike, steeling herself for his reaction, but Rhyme surprised her by saying, “All right, Amelia. Let it go. Just ask her what happened when they arrived.”

The girl explained how she’d kicked him and escaped into an adjoining tunnel.

“I kick him again,” she said with some satisfaction. “Knock off his glove. Then he get all pissed and strangle me. He -”

“Without the glove on?” Rhyme blurted.

Sachs repeated the question and Monelle said, “Yes.”

“Prints, excellent!” Rhyme shouted, his voice distorting in the mike. “When did it happen? How long ago?”

Monelle guessed about an hour and a half.

“Hell,” Rhyme muttered. “Prints on skin last an hour, ninety minutes, tops. Can you print skin, Amelia?”

“I never have before.”

“Well, you’re about to. But fast. In the CS suitcase there’ll be a packet labeled Kromekote. Pull out a card.”

She found a stack of glossy five-by-seven cards, similar to photographic paper.

“Got it. Do I dust her neck?”

“No. Press the card, glossy side down, against her skin where she thinks he touched her. Press for about three seconds.”

Sachs did this, as Monelle stoically gazed at the sky. Then, as Rhyme instructed, she dusted the card with metallic powder, using a puffy Magna-Brush.

“Well?” Rhyme asked eagerly.

“It’s no good. A shape of a finger. But no visible ridges. Should I pitch it?”