The Empty Chair

by Jeffery Deaver

  Garrett and Sachs lay flat, hidden by broom grass.

  Moths fold their wings and drop to the ground....

  The cars sped past and skidded to a stop where Canal Road met Route 112. They parked perpendicular to the road, blocking both lanes, and the deputies got out, weapons ready.

  "Roadblock," she muttered. "Hell."

  "No, no, no," Garrett muttered, dumbfounded. "They were supposed to think we were going the other way-- east. They had to think that!"

  A passenger car passed them, slowing at the end of the road. Lucy flagged down the car and questioned the driver. Then they made him get out of the vehicle and open the trunk, which they searched carefully.

  Garrett huddled in the nest of grass. "How the fuck d'they figure out we were coming this way?" he whispered. "How?"

  Because they've got Lincoln Rhyme, Sachs answered silently.

  "They don't see anything yet, Lincoln," Jim Bell told him.

  "Amelia and Garrett aren't going to be walking down the middle of Canal Road," Rhyme said testily. "They'll be in the bushes. Keeping a low profile."

  "There's a roadblock set up and they're searching every car," Jim Bell said. "Even if they know the drivers."

  Rhyme looked again at the map on the wall. "There's no other way for them to go west from Tanner's Corner?"

  "From the lockup the only way through the marshes is Canal Road to Route 112." But Bell sounded doubtful. "I gotta say, though, this's a big risk, Lincoln--committing everybody to Blackwater Landing. If they really are headed east to the Outer Banks they're gonna get past us now and we'll never find them. This idea of yours, well, it's a little far-fetched."

  But Rhyme believed it was right. As he'd stared at the map twenty minutes before, tracing the route the boy had taken with Lydia--which led toward the Great Dismal Swamp and very little else--he had started wondering about Lydia's abduction. He had remembered what Sachs had told him when they were in the field pursuing Garrett this morning.

  Lucy says it doesn't make any sense for him to come this way.

  And that had made him ask a question that no one had yet answered satisfactorily. Why exactly did Garrett kidnap Lydia Johansson? To kill her as a substitute victim was Dr. Penny's answer. But, as it turned out, he hadn't killed her even though he'd had plenty of time to. Or raped her. Nor was there any other motive for abducting her. They were strangers, she'd never taunted him, he didn't seem to have an obsession with her, she wasn't a witness to Billy's murder. What could his point have been?

  Then he had recalled how Garrett had willingly told Lydia that Mary Beth was being held on the Outer Banks--and how she was happy, how she didn't need to be rescued. Why would he volunteer that information? And the evidence at the mill--the ocean sand, the map of the Outer Banks ... Lucy had found it easily, according to Sachs. Too easily. The scene, he had decided, had been staged, as forensic scientists call evidence planted to lead investigators off.

  Rhyme had shouted bitterly, "We've been set up!"

  "What do you mean, Lincoln?" Ben had asked.

  "He tricked us," the criminalist had said. A sixteen-year-old boy had fooled them all. From the beginning. Rhyme had explained that Garrett had intentionally kicked off one shoe at the scene when he kidnapped Lydia. He'd filled it with limestone dust, which would lead anyone with knowledge of the area--Davett, for instance--to think of the quarry, where he'd planted the other evidence, the scorched bag and corn--that in turn led to the mill.

  The searchers were supposed to find Lydia, along with the rest of the planted evidence--to convince them that Mary Beth was being held in a house on the Outer Banks.

  Which meant of course that she was being held in the opposite direction--west of Tanner's Corner.

  Garrett's plan was brilliant but he had made one mistake--assuming that it would take the search party several days to find Lydia (which is why he'd left all the food for her). By then he'd have been with Mary Beth in the real hiding place and the searchers would be combing the Outer Banks.

  And so Rhyme had asked Bell what was the best route west from Tanner's Corner. "Blackwater Landing," the sheriff had answered. "Route 112." And Rhyme had ordered Lucy and the other deputies there as fast as possible.

  There was a chance that Garrett and Sachs had been through the intersection already and were on their way west. But Rhyme had calculated distances and didn't think that on foot--and keeping under cover--they could have gotten that far in so little time.

  Lucy now called in from the roadblock. Thom put the call on the speakerphone. The policewoman, undoubtedly still suspicious and wondering whose side Rhyme was really on, said skeptically, "I don't see any sign of them here and we've checked every car that's come by. Are you sure about this?"

  "Yes," he announced. "I'm sure."

  And whatever she chose to think of this arrogant response she said nothing other than "Let's hope you're right. There's a chance for some real sorrow here." She hung up.

  A moment later Bell's phone rang. He listened. Looked up at Rhyme. "Three more deputies just got to Canal Road, about a mile south of 112. They're going to do a sweep north on foot toward Lucy and the others and pin Garrett and Sachs in." He listened into the phone for a moment longer. Glanced at Rhyme, then away, and continued into the phone: "Yeah, she's armed ... And, yeah, I hear tell she's a good shot."

  Sachs and Garrett crouched in the bushes, watching the passenger cars waiting to get through the roadblock.

  Then, behind them, another sound that even without a moth's sensitive hearing Sachs could detect: sirens. They saw a second set of flashing lights--coming from the other--the southern--end of Canal Road. Another squad car parked and three more deputies got out, also armed with shotguns. They started slowly through the bushes, moving toward Garrett and Sachs. In ten minutes they'd walk right through the nest of sedge where the fugitives were hiding.

  Garrett looked at her expectantly.

  "What?" she asked.

  He glanced at her gun.

  "Aren't you going to use that?"

  She stared at him in shock. "No. Of course not."

  Garrett nodded toward the roadblock. "They will."

  "Nobody's going to be doing any shooting!" she whispered fiercely, horrified that he'd even consider it. She looked behind her into the woods. It was marshy and impossible to get through without being seen or heard. Ahead of them was the chain-link fence surrounding Davett Industries. Through the mesh she saw the cars in the parking lot.

  Amelia Sachs had worked street crimes for a year. That experience, combined with what she knew about cars, meant that she could break into and hot-wire a vehicle in under thirty seconds.

  But even if she boosted wheels how could they get out of the factory grounds? There was a delivery and shipping entrance to the factory but it too opened onto Canal Road. They'd still have to drive past the roadblock. Could they steal a four-by-four or pickup and make it through the fence where nobody could see them then drive off the road to Route 112? There were steep hills and sharp drop-offs into marshes everywhere around Blackwater Landing; could they escape without rolling a truck and killing themselves?

  The deputies on foot were now only two hundred feet away.

  Whatever they were going to do, now was the time. Sachs decided they had no choice. "Come on, Garrett. We've got to get over the fence."

  Crouching, they moved forward toward the parking lot.

  "Are you thinking of a car?" he said, noticing where they were headed.

  Sachs glanced back. The deputies were a hundred yards away.

  Garrett continued, "I don't like cars. They scare me." But she wasn't paying attention. She kept hearing his earlier words, circulating through her thoughts. Moths fold their wings and drop to the ground.

  "Where are they now?" Rhyme demanded. "The deputies making the sweep?"

  Bell relayed the question into his phone, listened then touched a spot on the map about halfway up square G-10. "They're close to here. That's the entrance to Davet
t's company. Eighty, a hundred yards, moving north."

  "Can Amelia and Garrett get around the factory to the east?"

  "Naw, Davett's property's all fenced. Beyond that it's serious swamp. If they went west they'd have to swim the canal and they probably couldn't climb the banks. Anyway there's no cover there. Lucy and Trey'd spot 'em for sure."

  Waiting was so hard. Rhyme knew that Sachs would scratch and pick at her flesh in an attempt to relieve the anxiety that was a dark corollary to her drive and talent. Destructive habits, yes, but how he envied her them. Before the accident Rhyme himself would bleed off tension by pacing and walking. Now he had nothing to do but stare at the map and obsess about how much at risk she was.

  A secretary stuck her head in the door.

  "Sheriff Bell, state police on line two."

  Jim Bell stepped into the office across the hall and took the call. He spoke for a few minutes then trotted back into the lab. He said excitedly, "We've got 'em! They pinpointed her cell phone signal. She's on the move, going west on Route 112. They got past the roadblock."

  Rhyme asked, "How?"

  "Looks like they snuck into Davett's parking lot and stole a truck or four-by-four then drove off the road for a while and got back on the highway. Man, that took some serious driving."

  That's my Amelia, Rhyme thought. That woman can drive up walls...

  Bell continued, "She's going to ditch the car and get another one."

  "How do you know?"

  "She's on the phone with a car rental company in Hobeth Falls. Lucy and the others're after her, silent pursuit. We're talking to Davett's people to see who's missing a vehicle from the lot. But we don't need a description if she just stays on the line a little longer. Another few minutes and the tech people'll have the exact location."

  Lincoln Rhyme stared at the map--though it was by now imprinted on his mind. After a moment he sighed then muttered, "Good luck."

  But whether that wish was directed toward predator or toward prey, he couldn't have said.

  ... chapter twenty-six

  Lucy Kerr nudged the Crown Victoria up to eighty.

  You drive fast, Amelia?

  Well, so do I.

  They were speeding along Route 112, the gumball machine on top of the car spinning madly with its red, white and blue lights. The siren was off. Jesse Corn was beside her, on the phone with Pete Gregg in the Elizabeth City state police office. In the squad car directly behind them were Trey Williams and Ned Spoto. Mason Germain and Frank Sturgis--a quiet man and a recent grandfather--were in the third car.

  "Where are they now?" Lucy asked.

  Jesse asked the state police this question and nodded as he received an answer. He said, "Only five miles away. They turned off the highway, heading south."

  Please, Lucy offered yet another prayer, please, stay on the phone just a minute more.

  She nudged the accelerator closer to the floor.

  You drive fast, Amelia. I drive fast.

  You're a good shot.

  But I'm a good shot too. I don't make a show of it like you do, what with all that fancy quick-draw crap, but I've lived with guns all my life.

  Recalling that when Buddy left her she took every round of live ammo in the house and pitched them into the murky waters of Blackwater Canal. Worrying that she might wake up one night, glance at his empty side of the bed and then wrap her lips around the oily barrel of her service revolver and send herself to the place where her husband, and nature, seemed to want her to be.

  Lucy had gone around for three and a half months with an unloaded service pistol, collaring 'shiners and militiamen and big, snotty teens huffed to oblivion on butane. And she'd handled them all on bluff alone.

  Then she woke up one morning and, as if a fever had passed, had gone to Shakey's Hardware on Maple Street and bought a box of Winchester .357 shells. ("Jeez, Lucy, the county's in worser shape than I thought, making you buy your own ammo.") She'd gone home and loaded her weapon and kept it that way ever since.

  It was a significant event for her. The reloaded gun was an emblem of survival.

  Amelia, I shared my darkest moments with you. I told you about the surgery--which is the black hole of my life. I told you about my shyness with men. About my love for children. I backed you up when Sean O'Sarian got your gun. I apologized when you were right and I was wrong.

  I trusted you. I--

  A hand touched her shoulder. She glanced at Jesse Corn. He was giving her one of his gentle smiles. "The highway curves up ahead," he said. "I'd just as soon we made that curve too."

  Lucy exhaled slowly and sat back in the seat, let her shoulders slump. She eased off on the speed.

  Still, when they made the curve Jesse'd mentioned, which was posted forty, she was doing sixty-five.

  "A hundred feet up the road," Jesse Corn whispered.

  They were out of their cars, the deputies, and were clustered around Mason Germain and Lucy Kerr.

  The state police had finally lost the signal from Amelia's cell phone but only after it'd been stationary for about five minutes at the location they were now looking at: a barn fifty feet from a house in the woods--a mile off Route 112. It was, Lucy noted, west of Tanner's Corner. Just as Lincoln Rhyme had predicted.

  "You don't think Mary Beth's in there, do you?" asked Frank Sturgis, brushing at his yellow-stained moustache. "I mean, it's all of seven miles from downtown. I'd feel pretty foolish, he's been keeping the girl that close to town."

  "Naw, they're just waiting for us to go past," Mason said. "Then they're gonna go on to Hobeth Falls and pick up the rental car."

  "Anyway," Jesse said, "somebody lives here." He'd called in the address of the house. "Pete Hallburton. Anybody know him?"

  "Think so," said Trey Williams. "Married. No connection to Garrett that I know of."

  "They have kids?"

  Trey shrugged. "Think they might. Seem to recall a soccer game last year..."

  "It's summer. The youngsters might be home," Frank muttered. "Garrett might've taken 'em hostage inside."

  "Maybe," Lucy said. "But the triangulation on Amelia's phone signal placed them in the barn, not the house. They could've gone inside but I don't know ... I can't see 'em takin' hostages. Mason's right, I think: They're just hiding out here until they think it's safe to get up to Hobeth for that rental car."

  "Whatta we do?" Frank asked. "Block the drive with our cars?"

  "We pull up, do that, they'll hear us," Jesse said.

  Lucy nodded. "I think we should just hit the barn on foot--fast--from two directions."

  "I've got CS gas," Mason said. CS-38--a powerful military tear gas kept under lock and key in the Sheriff's Department. Bell hadn't distributed any and Lucy wondered how Mason had gotten his hands on some.

  "No, no," Jesse protested. "Might make 'em panic."

  Lucy believed that wasn't his concern at all. She bet he didn't want to expose his new girlfriend to the vicious gas. Still, she agreed, feeling that, since the deputies didn't have masks, gas might work against them. "No gas," she said. "I'll go in the front. Trey, you take the--"

  "No," Mason said evenly. "I go in the front."

  Lucy hesitated then said, "Okay. I'll go in the side door. Trey and Frank, you're on the back and far side." She looked at Jesse. "I want you and Ned to keep an eye on the front and back doors of the house. There."

  "Got it," Jesse said.

  "And the windows," Mason said sternly to Ned. "I don't want anybody sighting down on our backs from inside."

  Lucy said, "If they come out driving, just take out the tires or if you've got a Magnum like Frank there aim for the engine block. Don't shoot Garrett or Amelia unless you have to. You all know the rules of engagement." She was looking at Mason when she said this, thinking of his sniper attack at the mill. But the deputy seemed not to hear her. She called in on her Handi-talkie and told Jim Bell they were about to storm the barn.

  "I've got the ambulance standing by," he said.

&nbs
p; "This isn't a SWAT operation," Jesse said, overhearing the transmission. "We've gotta be damn careful about any shooting."

  Lucy clicked off the radio. She nodded toward the building. "Let's move out."

  They ran, crouching, using the oaks and pine for cover. Her eyes were fastened on the dark windows of the barn. Twice she was sure she saw movement inside. It might have been the reflection of trees and clouds as she ran but she couldn't be sure. As they approached she paused and switched her gun to her left hand, wiped her palm. Took the weapon once more in her shooting hand.

  The deputies clustered at the windowless back of the barn. Lucy was thinking that she'd never done anything like this.

  This isn't a SWAT operation....

  But you're wrong, Jesse--that's exactly what it is.

  Dear Lord, give me one clear shot at my Judas.

  A fat dragonfly strafed her. She brushed it away with her left hand. It returned and hovered nearby ominously, as if Garrett had sent the creature out to distract her.

  Stupid thought, she told herself. Then swatted furiously at the bug again.

  The Insect Boy ...

  You're going down, Lucy thought--the message meant for both fugitives.

  I'm not going to say anything," Mason said. "I'm just going in. When you hear me kick in the door, Lucy, you go through the side."

  She nodded. And as concerned as she was about Mason being too eager, as desirous as she was to get Amelia Sachs, she was still happy to share some of the burden of this hard job.

  "Let me make sure the side door's open," she whispered.

  They dispersed, jogging into position. Lucy ducked under one of the windows and hurried to the side door. It wasn't locked and was open a crack. She nodded to Mason, who stood at the corner, watching her. He nodded back and held up ten fingers, meaning, she assumed, to count the seconds down until he went through the door, and then disappeared.

  Ten, nine, eight...

  She turned to the door, smelling the musty wood scent laced with the sweet aroma of gasoline and oil that flowed from inside the barn. She listened carefully. She heard a tapping--the noise of the engine of the car or truck Amelia had stolen.

  Five, four, three...

  She took a deep breath to calm herself. Another.

  Ready, she told herself.