The Cold Moon

Her heart pounding furiously, she struggled to look over her shoulder. She asked, "You don't see him? He's gotta be there."

"Zip."

He and another officer bent down, gripped her body armor and pulled her out of the Sheetrock. Crouching, she spun around.

The room was empty.

"How'd he get out?" the ESU officer muttered. "No doors or windows."

Sachs noticed something across the room. She gave a sour laugh. "He was never here at all. Not up here, not downstairs. He probably took off hours ago."

"But the lights. Somebodywas turning them on and off."

"Nope. Take a look." She pointed to a small beige box co

"What is it?"

"What else? It's a timer."

Chapter 41

Sachs finished searching the scene at the house in Brooklyn and sent what little evidence she could find to Rhyme's.

She stripped off her Tyvek outfit and pulled her jacket on, then hurried through the cutting chill to Sellitto's car. In the back sat Pam Willoughby, clutching her Harry Potter book and sipping hot chocolate, which the big detective had scrounged for her. He was still in the perp's safe house, finishing up the paperwork. Sachs climbed in, sat beside her. At Kathryn Dance's suggestion, they'd brought the girl here to examine the place and the Watchmaker's possessions in hopes that something might trigger a memory. But the man hadn't left much behind and in any event nothing Pammy saw gave her any more insights about him.

Smiling, Sachs looked the girl over, remembering that strange expression of hope when she'd seen her in the rental car at the first scene. The policewoman said, "I've thought about you a lot over the years."

"Me too," the girl said, looking down into her cup.

"Where did you go after New York?"

"We went back to Missouri and hid out in the woods. Mom left me with other people a lot. Mostly I just stayed by myself and read. I didn't get along very good with anybody. They were crappy to me. If you didn't think the way they did-which was pretty messed up-they totally dissed you.

"A lot of them were home-schooling people. But I really wanted to go to public school and I made a big deal out of it. Bud didn't want me to but Mom finally agreed. But she said if I told anybody about her, what she'd done, I'd go to jail too as an assistant…no, an accomplice. And men would do stuff to me there. You know what I'm talking about."

"Oh, honey." Sachs squeezed her hand. Amelia Sachs wanted children badly and knew that, one way or another, they were in her future. She was appalled that a mother had put her child through this.

"And sometimes, when it got real bad, I'd think about you and pretend you were my mother. I didn't know your name. Maybe I heard it back then but I couldn't remember. So I gave you another one: Artemis. From this book I read about mythology. She was the goddess of the hunt. Because you killed that mad dog-the one that was attacking me." She looked down. "It's a stupid name."

"No, no, it's a wonderful name. I love it… You recognized me in the alleyway Tuesday, didn't you? When you were in the car?"

"Yeah. I think you were meant to be there-to save me again. Don't you think things like that happen?"

No, Sachs didn't. But she said, "Life works in fu

A city car pulled up and a social worker Sachs knew climbed out and joined them.

"Whoa." The woman, a pretty African-American, rubbed her hands together in front of the heater vent. "It's not even winter yet officially. This isn't fair." She'd been making arrangements for the girl and she now explained, "We've found a couple real nice foster families. There's one in Riverdale I've known for years. You'll stay there for the next few days while we see if we can track down some of your relatives."

Pammy was frowning. "Can I get a new name?"

"A new-?"

"I don't want to be me anymore. And I don't want my mother to talk to me again. And I don't want any of those people she's with to find me."

Sachs preempted whatever the social worker was going to say. "We'll make sure nothing happens to you. That's a promise."

Pammy hugged her.

"So I can see you again?" Sachs asked.

Trying to contain her excitement at this, the girl said, "I guess. If you want."

"How 'bout shopping tomorrow?"

"Okay. Sure."

"Good. It's a date." Sachs had an idea. "Hey, you like dogs?"

"Yeah, some folks I stayed with in Missouri had one. I liked him better than the people."

She called Thom at Rhyme's town house. "Got a question."

"Go ahead."

"Any takers on Jackson yet?"

"Nope. He's still up for adoption."

"Take him off the market," Sachs said. She hung up and looked at Pam. "I've got an early Christmas present for you."

Sometimes even the best-designed watches simply don't work.

The devices really are quite fragile, when you think about it. Five hundred, a thousand minuscule moving parts, nearly microscopic screws and springs and jewels, all precisely assembled, dozens of separate movements working in unison… A hundred things can go wrong. Sometimes the watchmaker miscalculates, sometimes a tiny piece of metal is defective, sometimes the owner winds the mechanism too tight. Sometimes he drops it. Moisture gets under the crystal.

Then again the watch might work perfectly in one environment but not in another. Even the famed Rolex Oyster Perpetual, revolutionary for being the first luxury divers' watch, can't withstand unlimited pressure underwater.

Now, near Central Park, Charles Vespasian Hale sat in his own car, which he'd driven here from San Diego-no trail at all, if you pay cash for gas and avoid toll roads-and wondered what had gone wrong with his plan.

He supposed the answer was the police, specifically Lincoln Rhyme. Hale had done everything he could think of to anticipate his moves. But the former cop managed to end up just a bit ahead of him. Rhyme had done exactly what Hale had been worried about-he'd looked at a few gears and levers and extrapolated from them how Hale's entire timepiece had been constructed.

He'd have plenty of time to consider what went wrong and to try to avoid the same problems in the future. He'd be driving back to California, leaving immediately. He glanced at his face in the rearview mirror. He'd dyed his hair back to its natural color and the pale blue contact lenses were gone, but the collagen, which gave him the thick nose and puffy cheeks and double chin, hadn't bled from his skin yet. And it would takes months before he regained the forty pounds he'd lost for the job and became himself again. He felt pasty and sluggish after all this time in the city and needed to get back to his wilderness and mountains once again.

Yes, he'd failed. But, as he told Vincent Reynolds, that wasn't significant in the great scheme of things. He wasn't concerned about the arrest of Charlotte Allerton. They knew nothing of his real identity (they'd believed all along his real name was Duncan) and their initial contacts had been through extremely discreet individuals.

Moreover, there was actually a positive side to the failure here-Hale had learned something that had changed his life. He'd created the persona of the Watchmaker simply because the character seemed spooky and would snag the attention of a populace and police turned on by made-for-TV criminals.

But as he got into the role, Hale found to his surprise that this character was the embodiment of his true personality. Playing the part was like coming home. He had indeed grown fascinated with watches and clocks and time. (He'd also developed an abiding interest in the Delphic Mechanism; stealing it at some point in the future was a distinct possibility.)