Odd, she thought. On the screen was the window that read, "Date and Time Properties."

This was the utility in the Windows XP operating system that you used to set the date and time and time zone of your computer. It showed a calendar with the day's date indicated and, to the right, both an analog clock with sweep hands and below it a digital clock, both ticking off the seconds.

The screen hadn't been there before she'd made the run to Starbucks.

Had it popped up by itself? she wondered. Why? Maybe somebody'd used her computer while she was away, though she had no idea who it might be or why.

No matter. She closed the window on the screen and scooted forward.

She glanced down. What was that?

Sarah saw a fire extinguisher under her desk. It hadn't been there earlier either. The company was always doing weird things like this. Putting in new lighting, coming up with evacuation plans, rearranging furniture, for no apparent reason.

Now, fire extinguishers.

Probably something else we have the terrorists to thank for.

Taking a fast look at her son's picture, feeling comfort in seeing his smile, she set her purse under her desk and unwrapped her cookie.

Lieutenant Dennis Baker walked slowly down the deserted street. He was south of Hell's Kitchen in a largely industrial area on the west side.

As he'd suggested, the officers had divided up the clues found at the church in their hunt for the Watchmaker. He'd told Sachs and Haumann that he'd remembered a warehouse that was being painted with that same shade of sickly green paint found on the shoes in the Watchmaker's room. While the rest of the team were tracking down other leads, he'd come here.

The massive building stretched along the street, dark, abandoned, bleak even in the sharp sunlight. The lower six or seven feet of the grimy brick walls were covered with graffiti and half the windows were broken-some even shot out, it seemed. On the roof was a faded sign, Preston Moving and Storage, in an old-style typeface.

The front doors, painted that green color, were locked and chained shut but Baker found a side entrance, half hidden behind a Dumpster. It was open. He looked up and down the street then pulled the door open and stepped inside. Baker started through the dim place, lit only by slanting shafts of light. The smell was of rotting cardboard and mildew and heating oil. He drew his pistol. It felt awkward in his hand. He'd never fired a single shot in the line of duty.

Walking silently along the corridor, Baker approached the facility's main storage area, a massive open space whose floor was dotted with pools of greasy standing water and trash. Plenty of condoms too, he noticed in disgust. This was probably the least romantic site for a liaison you could imagine.

A flash of light from the offices lining the wall caught his attention. His eyes were growing accustomed to the dimness and as he walked closer he noticed a burning desk lamp inside a small room. There was one other thing he could see, as well.

One of the black, moon-faced clocks-the Watchmaker's calling cards.

Baker started forward.

Which is when he stepped on a large patch of grease he hadn't been able to see in the darkness and went down hard on his side, gasping. He dropped his pistol, which slid away across the filthy concrete floor. He winced in pain.

It was at this moment that a man jogged up fast behind him from one of the side corridors.

Baker glanced up into the eyes of Gerald Duncan, the Watchmaker.

The killer bent down.

And he offered his hand, helping Baker up. "You all right?"

"Just got the wind knocked out of me. Careless. Thanks, Gerry."

Duncan stepped away, retrieved Baker's pistol and handed it to him. "You didn't really need that." He laughed.

Baker put the gun back in his holster. "Wasn't sure who else I might run into, other than you. Spooky place."

The Watchmaker gestured toward the office. "Come on inside. I'll tell you exactly what's going to happen to her."

What was going to happen meant how the men were going to commit murder.

And the "her" he was referring to was an NYPD detective named Amelia Sachs.

Sitting on one of the chairs in the warehouse office,

Dennis Baker brushed at his slacks, now stained from the fall.

Italian, expensive. Shit.

He said to Duncan, "We've got Vincent Reynolds in custody and we took the church."

Duncan would know this, of course, since he himself had made the call alerting the police that the Watchmaker's partner was wheeling a grocery cart around the West Village (Baker had been surprised, and impressed, that Kathryn Dance had tipped to Vincent even before Duncan dimed out his supposed partner).

And Duncan had known too that the rapist would give up the church under pressure.

"Took a little longer than I thought," said Baker, "but he caved."

"Of course he did," Duncan said. "He's a worm."

Duncan had planned the sick fuck's capture all long; it was necessary to feed the cops the information to make them believe that the Watchmaker was a vengeful psychopath, not the hired murderer he actually was. And Vincent was key to pointing the police in the right direction for the completion of Duncan's plan.

And that plan was as elaborate and elegant as the finest timepiece. Its purpose was to halt Amelia Sachs's investigation threatening to unearth an extortion ring that Baker had been running from the 118th Precinct.

Dennis Baker came from a family of law enforcers. His father had been a transit cop, who retired early after he took a spill down a subway station stairwell. An older brother worked for the Department of Corrections and Baker's uncle was a cop in a small town in Suffolk County, where the family was from. Initially he'd had no interest in the profession-the handsome, well-built young man wanted big bucks. But after losing every penny in a failed recycling business, Baker decided to join up. He moved from Long Island to New York City and tried to reinvent himself as a policeman.

But coming to the job later in life-and the cocky, TV-cop style he adopted-worked against him, alienating brass and fellow officers. Even his family history in law enforcement didn't help (his relatives fell low in the blue hierarchy). Baker could make a living as a cop but he wasn't destined for a corner office in the Big Building.

So he decided to go for the bucks after all. But not via business. He'd use his badge.

When he first started shaking down businessmen he wondered if he'd feel guilty about it.

Uh-uh. Not a bit.

The only problem was that to support his lifestyle-which included a taste for wine, food and beautiful women-he needed more than just a thousand or so a week from Korean wholesalers and fat men who owned pizza parlors in Queens. So Baker, a former partner and some cops from the 118th came up with a plan for a lucrative extortion ring. Baker's cohorts would steal a small amount of drugs from the evidence lockers or would score some coke or smack on the street. They'd target the children of rich businessmen in Manhattan clubs and plant the drugs on them. Baker would talk to the parents, who'd be told that for a six-figure payment, the arrest reports would disappear. If they didn't pay, the kids'd go to jail. He'd also occasionally plant drugs on businessmen themselves.

Rather than just taking the money, though, they'd arrange for the victims to lose it in sham business deals, like with Frank Sarkowski, or in fake poker games in Vegas or Atlantic City-the approach they took with Ben Creeley. This would provide the marks with a reasonable explanation as to why they were suddenly two or three hundred thousand dollars poorer.