The Cold Moon by Jeffery Deaver Read Free Book Online Page B

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    She grabbed her walkie-talkie and pressed TRANSMIT . “Detective Five Eight Eight Five,” she gasped. “In foot pursuit of a suspect in that homicide near Cedar Street. Suspect is heading west on Cedar, wait, now south on Broadway. Need backup.”
    “Roger, Five Eight Eight Five. Directing units to your location.”
    Several other RMPs—radio mobile patrols, squad cars—responded that they were nearby and en route to cut off the suspect’s escape.
    As Sachs and Pulaski approached Battery Park, the man suddenly stopped, nearly stumbling. He glanced to his right—at the subway.
    No, not the train, she thought. Too many bystanders in close proximity.
    Don’t do it. . . .
    Another glance over his shoulder and he plunged down the stairs.
    She stopped, calling to Pulaski, “Go after him.” A deep breath. “If he shoots, check your backdrop real carefully. Let him go rather than fire if there’s any doubt at all.”
    His face uneasy, the rookie nodded. Sachs knew he’d never been in a firefight. He called, “Where’re you—”
    “Just go!” she shouted.
    The rookie took a breath and started sprinting again. Sachs ran to the subway entrance and watched Pulaski descend three steps at a time. Then she crossed the street and trotted a half block south. She drew her gun and stepped behind a newsstand.
    Counting down . . . four . . . three . . . two . . .
    One.
    She stepped out, turning to the subway exit, just as the suspect sprinted up the stairs. She trained the gun on him. “Don’t move.”
    Passersby were screaming and dropping to the ground. The suspect’s reaction, though, was simply disgust, presumably that his trick hadn’tworked. Sachs had thought he might be coming this way. The surprise in his eyes when he saw the subway could’ve been phony, she’d decided. It told her that maybe he’d been making for the station all along—as a possible feint. He raised his hands lethargically.
    “On the ground, face down.”
    “Come on. I—”
    “Now!” she snapped.
    He glanced at her gun and then complied. Winded from the run, her joints in pain, she dropped a knee into the middle of his back to cuff him. He winced. Sachs didn’t care. She was just in one of those moods.

    “They got a suspect. At the scene.”
    Lincoln Rhyme and the man who delivered this interesting news were sitting in his lab. Dennis Baker, fortyish, compact and handsome, was a supervisory lieutenant in Major Cases—Sellitto’s division—and had been ordered by City Hall to make sure the Watchmaker was stopped as fast as possible. He’d been one of those who’d “insisted” that Sellitto get Rhyme and Sachs on the case.
    Rhyme lifted an eyebrow. Suspect? Criminals often did return to the scene of the crime, for various reasons, and Rhyme wondered if Sachs had actually collared the killer.
    Baker turned back to his cell phone, listening and nodding. The lieutenant—who bore an uncanny resemblance to the actor George Clooney—had that focused, humorless quality that makes for an excellent police administrator but a tedious drinking buddy.
    “He’s a good guy to have on your side,” Sellitto had said of Baker just before the man arrived from One Police Plaza.
    “Fine, but is he going to meddle?” Rhyme had asked the rumpled detective.
    “Not so’s you’d notice.”
    “Meaning?”
    “He wants a big win under his belt and he thinks you can deliver it. He’ll give you all the slack—and support—you need.”
    Which was good, because they were down some manpower. There was another NYPD detective who often worked with them, Roland Bell, a transplant from the South. The detective had an easy-going manner, very different from Rhyme’s, though an equally methodical nature. Bell was onvacation with his two sons down in North Carolina, visiting his girlfriend, a local sheriff in the Tarheel State.
    They also often worked with an FBI agent, renowned for his antiterrorism and undercover work, Fred Dellray.