The Skin Collector(Lincoln Rhyme)

Chapter 46





Amelia Sachs was sitting at a coffee shop in Midtown, one of those traditional delis you see fewer and fewer of, dying off in favor of corporate franchises with faux foreign names. Here, stained menus, Mediterranean staff, unsteady chairs – and the best comfort food for miles around.

Fidgety. She dug a thumbnail into a finger, avoided blood. Bad habits. Unstoppable. Some things Sachs could control. Other things, not.

And stopping Pam’s sojourn with Seth?

Sachs had left two messages for the girl – her limit, she decided – but had called once more and on the third ring Pam had picked up. Sachs had asked how Seth was doing after the attack: ‘The doctors at the hospital said he’s okay. He wasn’t even admitted.’

Apparently he wasn’t as mad as earlier; at least they were talking.

‘And you?’

‘Fine.’

Quiet, once again.

Sachs had taken a figurative breath and asked if they could meet for coffee.

Pam had hesitated but then agreed, adding she had to be at work anyway. Suggesting this deli, which was across the street from the theater.

Sachs now toyed with her phone to keep from digging into flesh.

The Skin Collector …

What could she say to Pam to convince the girl not to quit school and go on the worldwide tour.

Well, wait. You can’t think of her that way. Girl. Of course not. She was nineteen. She’d lived through kidnapping and attempted murder. She’d defied militiamen. She had the right to make decisions and the right to make mistakes.

And, Sachs asked herself, was her decision a mistake at all?

Who was she to say?

Look at her own romantic history. High school for her was, as for everybody, a time of exploration and exhilarating fumbling and false starts. Then she had hit the professional world of fashion. A tall, gorgeous model, Sachs had had to take the repel-all-boarders approach. Which was a shame because some of the men she’d met on photo shoots and at ad agency planning sessions had probably been pretty nice. But they were lost among the vast number of players. Easier to say no to everyone, slip into her garage and tune engines or go to the race track and work on lap times with her Camaro SS.

After joining the NYPD, things hadn’t got much better. Tired of the relentless pressure to go out, the filthy jokes, the juvenile looks and attitudes offered up by fellow cops, she’d continued to be a recluse. Ah, that was the answer, the male officers understood, after she’d rejected their overtures. She was a dyke. Such a pretty one too. F*cking waste.

Then she’d met Nick. The first real love, true love, consuming love, complete love. Whatever tired adjective you wanted.

And, with Nick, it’d turned out to be betrayed love, too.

Not of the daily variety, no. But, to Sachs, perhaps worse. Nick had been a corrupt cop. And a corrupt cop who hurt people.

Meeting Lincoln Rhyme had saved her. Professionally and personally. Though that relationship was obviously alternative, as well.

No, Sachs’s history and experience hardly qualified her to preach to Pam. Yet, like driving slowly, or hesitating before kicking in a door during a dynamic entry, Sachs was unable to stop herself from giving her opinion.

If the girl … the young woman showed up at all.

Which finally she did, fifteen minutes late.

Sachs said nothing about the tardiness, just rose and gave her a hug. It wasn’t exactly rejected but Sachs could feel the stiffness rise to Pam’s shoulders. She noted too that the young woman wasn’t taking off her coat. She just tugged her stocking cap off and tossed her hair. The gloves too. But the message was: This’ll be short. Whatever your agenda.

And no smiles. Pam had a beautiful smile and Sachs loved it when the girl’s face curled into a spontaneous crescent. But not here, not today.

‘How’re the Olivettis?’

‘Good. Howard got the kids a new dog for Jackson to play with. Marjorie lost ten pounds.’

‘I know she was trying. Hard.’

‘Yeah.’ Pam scanned a menu. Sachs knew she wasn’t going to order anything. ‘Is Lon doing okay?’

‘Still critical. Unconscious.’

‘Man, that’s bad,’ Pam said. ‘I’ll call Rachel.’

‘She’d like that.’

The young woman looked up. ‘Look, Amelia. There’s something I want to say.’

Was this going to be good or bad?

‘I’m sorry what I said, about you and my mother. That wasn’t fair.’

Sachs in fact hadn’t taken the comment particularly hard. It was clearly one of those weaponized sentences that get flung out to hurt, to end conversations.

She held up a hand. ‘No, that’s okay. You were mad.’

The woman’s nod told Sachs that, yes, she’d been mad. And her eyes revealed that she still was, despite the apology.

Around them couples and families, parents with children of all ages, bundled in winter sweaters and flannel, sat over coffee and cocoa and soup and grilled cheese sandwiches and chatted or laughed and whispered. It all seemed so normal. And so very far away from the drama of the table she and Pam sat at.

‘But I have to tell you, Amelia. Nothing’s changed. We’re leaving in a month.’

‘A month?’

‘The semester.’ Pam wasn’t going to be drawn into a debate beyond that. ‘Amelia. Please. This is good, what we’re doing. I’m happy.’

‘And I want to make sure you stay that way.’

‘Well, we’re doing it. We’re leaving. India first, we’ve decided.’

Sachs didn’t even know if Pam had a passport. ‘Look.’ She lifted her hands. The gesture smelled of desperation and she lowered them. ‘Are you sure you want to … disrupt your life like that? I really don’t think you should.’

‘You can’t tell me what to do.’

‘I’m not telling you what to do. But I can give advice to somebody I love.’

‘And I can reject it.’ A cool sigh. ‘I think it’s better if we don’t talk for a while. This is all … I’m upset. And it’s pretty clear that I’m pissing you off totally.’

‘No. Not at all.’ She started to reach for the girl’s hand but Pam had anticipated her and withdrew it. ‘I’m worried about you.’

‘You don’t need to be.’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Because to you I’m a child.’

Well, if you’re f*cking acting like one.

But Sachs held back for a moment. Then thought: Knuckle time.

‘You had a very hard time growing up. You’re … vulnerable. I don’t know how else to put it.’

‘Oh, that again. Naive?. A fool.’

‘Of course not. But it was a hard time.’

After they’d escaped from New York following the terrorist plot Pam’s mother had orchestrated, the two of them had gone underground in a small community of militiamen and ‘their women’ in Larchwood, Missouri, northwest of St Louis. The girl’s life had been hell – indoctrination into white supremacist politics and bare-butt whippings in public for being disrespectful. While militia homeschooled boys learned farming, real estate and construction, Pammy, as a girl, could look forward to mastering only cooking and sewing and homeschooling.

She’d spent her formative years there, miserable but also resolute in defying the ultra-right, fundamentalist militia community. At middle school age she’d sneak out of the enclave to buy ‘demonic’ Harry Potter books and Lord of the Rings and the New York Times. And she wouldn’t put up with what many of the other girls were expected to. (When one of the lay ministers tried to touch her chest to see if ‘yer heart’s beatin’ for Jesus’, Pam delivered a silent ‘hands off’ in the form of a deep slash to his forearm with a box cutter, which she still often carried.)


‘I told you, that’s in the past. It’s over. It doesn’t matter.’

‘It does matter, Pam. Those were very hard years for you. They affected you – in ways you don’t even know. It’ll take time to work through all that. And you need to tell Seth everything about your time underground.’

‘No, I don’t. I don’t need to do anything.’

Sachs said evenly, ‘I think you’re jumping at the first chance for a normal relationship that’s come along. And you’re hungry for that. I understand.’

‘You understand. That sounds condescending. And you make me sound desperate. I told you, I’m not getting married. I’m not having his baby. I want to travel with a guy I love. What’s the big f*cking deal?’

This was going so wrong. How did I lose control? This was the same conversation they’d had the other day. Except that the tone was darker.

Pam pulled her hat back on. Started to rise.

‘Please. Just wait a minute.’ Sachs’s mind was racing. ‘Let me say one more thing. Please.’

Impatient, Pam dropped back into her seat. A waitress came by. She waved the woman away.

Sachs said, ‘Could we—?’

But she never got to finish her plea to the teenager, for just then her phone hummed. It was a text from Mel Cooper. He was asking her to get to Rhyme’s town house as soon as she could.

Actually, she noted, the message wasn’t a request at all.

It never really is when the word ‘emergency’ figures in the header.