The Cutting Edge (Lincoln Rhyme #14)(10)

Amelia Sachs believed she had found a pretty likely answer to Question Number One.





Chapter 5



To confirm that the pricey diamonds were indeed what had been stolen, Amelia Sachs returned to the safe and looked at every one of the hundreds of small folded squares.

No envelopes were marked with the letters GC or the company name. A call to Grace-Cabot would confirm that Patel had been in possession of the stones but it was a reasonable assumption that these were what the unsub had taken.

Had he known the gems were here? Or had he simply picked Patel’s operation at random and demanded to know where the most valuable stones were?

Only speculation at this point.

Sachs photographed the Grace-Cabot box and receipt, then bagged them.

Now, Question Two: the torture.

Sachs disagreed with Sellitto that Patel had been tortured to give up the combination of the safe or tell where valuable diamonds, like the Grace-Cabot stones, were. In the end, the diamonds were just a commodity. Faced with death, or even the threat of torture, Patel would have given up any or all of his wares. Everything would be insured. No bit of jewelry was worth your life or one second of pain.

No, the unsub was after something else. What?

To find an answer Amelia Sachs did what she often was forced to do at scenes, as harrowing as the process might be: She mentally, emotionally, became the perp. In an instant she was no longer a cop, no longer a woman. She was the man who had created this carnage.

And asking herself—himself: Why do I need to hurt him?

Need is the word. I’m feeling an urgency. A desperation.

Why do I have to hurt him and make him talk?

A prickly sensation around her face again, around the base of her neck, above her spine. This wasn’t the heat from the stifling air, which she’d felt earlier. And it wasn’t the horror she was feeling at the Method Acting role she was playing. No, the symptoms were from the edginess coursing through his body.

Something’s not right. I need to fix it. What, what, what?

Go back in time, think, imagine, picture…

Just after noon, I’m entering the shop. Yes, entering the office behind the couple, William and Anna. These lovers are my entrée through security and they’re going to die because they’ve seen my face. I feel relief at this thought: their death. It’s comforting. No loose ends.

When they push through the door, I move in behind them.

I can’t control both of them with the knife. No, I’ll have that firearm out. But I’m reluctant to use it because of the noise.

Still, I will if I have to, and they know it.

William and Anna and Patel don’t move.

They settle.

I settle.

I’m in control.

Good, I’m feeling good now.

I hit Patel—with the weapon, probably. Incapacitate him. The couple gets tied up. They’re crying, both of them. Moving close to each other, to feel the other’s presence. Because they know what’s coming.

I’m not moved by this, not at all.

This thought took her back to herself and her breath grew fast, her teeth ground together, her gut tightened. She dug one gloved index fingernail against a gloved thumb. Felt the pain. Ignored it.

Back. Get back inside him.

And she did.

Now I’m crouching, grabbing the hair of the man and slicing his neck.

Then the woman’s.

I hear Patel’s cries. But I pay them no mind as I watch the couple thrash and bleed to death. One task done. That’s what I think. A task. Done. Good. Tick one thing off the list. That’s all the deaths are. A checkmark.

I turn to Patel. He’s down, he’s no threat. And he’s terrified. I ask him for the most valuable stones he’s got.

He tells me. He gives the combination to the safe and I get the Grace-Cabot diamonds. But—here’s the key. Important. Vital. I want something else, something he’s not giving up.

What?

Now, bending down, I’m cutting differently, cutting to hurt, cutting to let information spill from him, along with the blood. It’s satisfying. Again. Another cut. Face and ear and finger.

Then, finally, he tells me.

I relax. The knife finds his throat. Three fast slices.

It’s over.

What has Patel told me?

What has he given me?

What am I so desperate to find? What do I so need to find?

I have my treasures, five million worth of stones. Why not just leave?

Then she understood.

The one thing I need is to protect myself. I’m obsessed with my own preservation. That’s what I could torture someone for. To learn the identity of somebody who’s a threat to me. I spray-paint one security camera, I steal the hard drive of the camera I can’t paint, I kill two innocent witnesses solely because they’ve seen my face…

I need to make sure no other witnesses will say anything to the police.

There was the man who walked into the robbery, the man I shot, and who called 911 to report the attack. Would I torture Patel to get his name? He didn’t see much. Just me in a ski mask, he’d reported. And he probably walked in after Patel was dead. Not much of a threat there. No, more likely I’d have tortured the diamond cutter to find the name of somebody else who might have seen my actual face.

Yes, that could be reason enough to torture.