Lahori was an appallingly bad actor.
A young man appeared in the open, arched doorway to the living room. She thought at first he was Vimal but then noted he was younger by a few years, a teenager.
Sachs was about to play the obstruction of justice card with the father; instead she smiled at the teenager and asked, “You’re Vimal’s brother?”
“I am, yes.” Looking down, looking up, looking sideways.
“I’m Detective Sachs.”
“I’m Sunny.”
“Go to your room,” Lahori snapped. “This doesn’t involve you.”
But Sunny asked, “Have you found that man yet? The one who shot at Vimal?”
Lahori closed his eyes and grimaced. Busted by his own child.
“We’re working on that now.”
His father snapped, “Your room.”
The boy hesitated and then turned and left. Sunny would be a backup—if the father didn’t start cooperating soon. She sensed the wife would not directly cross her husband, though Sachs knew that she had information about her son.
The grinding, from downstairs, ceased. Sachs was grateful. The sound had been piercing.
“I need to know where he is. I need to know now.”
“He was so upset about what happened that he went away,” Lahori said. “With some friends. Maybe skiing. The cold weather lately. The resorts are still open. Have you heard?”
His wife stared at him—with the look of someone whose family had never even seen a ski resort.
“This is serious, Mr. Lahori. You’ve followed the news, the man they’re calling the Promisor? Well, that’s who’s looking for your son.”
“He wouldn’t be interested in my boy. He didn’t see anything!”
“He’s already killed another witness.”
“But Vimal couldn’t have seen him. There was a mask. I heard there was a mask. On the news. So he’d have no reason—”
“Enough!” This, from Divya Lahori.
“No,” Lahori growled.
“Yes, Deepro. This has gone on too long,” the wife said calmly. Then looked imploringly at Sachs. “You have to protect him.”
“We will. That’s why I’m here.”
So, wrong about Divya. She could stand up to her husband.
There was nothing to be gained by a cold glare at Lahori. But Amelia Sachs glared anyway. Then she asked, “Where is he?”
“He’s downstairs. In the basement. His sculpting studio is there,” the boys’ mother said.
She remembered that they believed the boy was a sculptor. The grinding sound would be Vimal working on a piece. She should have picked that up.
No matter. She’d soon have him in protective custody. She’d arranged for a safe house, and she would put a detail here too, to keep the family safe.
“So you lied to me.”
The father said defiantly, “I’m only trying to protect him.”
There was more to this than the father wanting to protect his son, though, Sachs assessed. Most parents would get the police on board as fast as possible.
But she said only, “Please, go get him now.”
His wife held out her hand, palm up. Lahori’s face tightened. He was fuming. He dug into his pocket and angrily handed over a set of keys with a trembling hand.
His father had locked him in the basement?
Divya Lahori was paying for her defiance with an icy gaze from her husband. She looked at his face once, then glanced away and walked toward the back of the house.
Chapter 34
With a gloved hand, Vladimir Rostov tested the front door of the Lahori residence.
Ah, ah, the helpful kur had left it unlocked.
This saved him from a dramatic—and potentially risky—entrance by kicking in a window. Subduing those inside would probably have required the use of his extremely loud pistol.
Stifling a cough—very bad time for a spell of hacking—he looked through the lace curtain in the door. His form would be visible if anyone looked but not obviously so. The overcast was thick and there was little backlight to cast a shadow in the entryway.
The kuritsa cop and the husband were in the living room, to the left. It seemed that the wife had gone to get Vimal, who was somewhere else in the house. The other boy—probably the brother—was not to be seen. It would be logical for the cop to bring Vimal into the living room too. She’d want to question them all.
All my little kur in a single henhouse.
Rostov could just see the redhead’s back from the doorway. She was five strides away. Rostov had an idea. He looked around and lifted a large brick from the garden. He returned to the door and peered in again. Yes, yes, this would work. Rostov would step inside fast, bring the brick down on her head and keep the father at bay with the gun. He’d get the cop’s gun and cuff her hands. Then take care of Vimal and the rest of the family.
And her? The cop? Rostov caught one more glimpse of the blue diamond on her pale finger. So alluring.
Gone to the stone…
Rostov pulled the ski mask down, took the gun in his left hand and slipped the brick under his arm. He gripped the doorknob.
Here we go, little kur. Here we go.
Then there came a cry from the back of the house. “No!” A woman’s voice. Vimal’s mother. She burst from a door in the back, in the kitchen. The door that Rostov had seen a few moments ago, the one that seemed to lead down to the basement. She paused in the hallway. Still on the front porch, Rostov crouched. But he didn’t need to see the drama. He could hear clearly enough.
“He’s gone! Vimal is gone!”
“How could he be gone?” Lahori raged, as if it were her fault.
“The saw? The one he uses for his sculpture? He used it to cut through the bars on the window.”
So the father had locked his own son in a cell in the basement.
Now the fucking kuritsa had escaped?
Rostov risked a look to see if they were coming out the front door. But, no, all three adults hurried to the back of the house and down the stairway to the cellar.
He backed away from the front door and down the steps. He walked into the neighbor’s property and jogged to the backyard.
Hiding behind a hedge, he peered into the Lahoris’ yard. No sign of the boy. But he did see thick metal bars lying on the grass in front of a low window.
He sighed and turned, striding quickly to the sidewalk. He got into his car. For ten minutes he cruised up and down the streets of the placid neighborhood, with no success. He searched for only a brief time, though, assuming that the redheaded kuritsa would call other officers to scour the neighborhood too.
Glancing to the seat beside him, he noticed some cold Roll N Roaster fries. He shoved them in his mouth, chewing absently and swallowing fast. He lit a cigarette and enjoyed the inhale. A setback, yes. But Vladimir Rostov wasn’t as upset as he might be.
The Promisor is savvy, the Promisor is devious.
And, even though he’s completely gone to the stone, he always has a backup plan.
Chapter 35
Three p.m.
This was the time Lincoln Rhyme and the man he’d texted yesterday, after meeting with Edward Ackroyd, had agreed on for a phone call.
And it was with, no less, a spy.
Lincoln Rhyme had a relationship with the American espionage community. It was ambivalent and infrequent but undeniable.
The reason he’d been unable to participate in the El Halcón case—the Mexican drug lord who was on federal trial for murder and assault—was due to a meeting in Washington, DC, to assist a new U.S. security agency.