The Cold Moon

and wasn’t taking antidepressants. Creeley’s finances were solid. There’d been no recent changes to his will or insurance policy. His partner, Jordan Kessler, was on a business trip to a client’s office in Pennsylvania. But he and Sachs had spoken briefly and he confirmed that while Creeley had seemed depressed lately he hadn’t, Kessler believed, ever mentioned suicide.
    Sachs was permanently assigned to Lincoln Rhyme for crime scene work but she wanted to do more than forensics exclusively. She’d been lobbying Major Cases for the chance to be lead detective on a homicide or terrorist investigation. Somebody in the Big Building had decided that Creeley’s death warranted more looking into and gave her the case. Aside from the general consensus that Creeley wasn’t suicidal, though, Sachs at first could find no evidence of foul play. But then she made a discovery. The medical examiner reported that at the time of his death Creeley had a broken thumb; his entire right hand was in a cast.
    Which simply wouldn’t’ve let him tie the knot in his hangman’s noose or secure the rope to the balcony railing.
    Sachs knew because she’d tried a dozen times. Impossible without using the thumb. Maybe he’d tied it before the biking accident, a week prior to his death, but it just didn’t seem likely that you’d tie a noose and keep it handy, waiting for a future date to kill yourself.
    She decided to declare the death suspicious and opened a homicide file.
    But it was shaping up to be a tough case. The rule in homicides is either they’re solved in the first twenty-four hours or it takes months to close them. What little evidence existed (the liquor bottle he’d been drinking from before he died, the note and the rope) had yielded nothing. There were no witnesses. The NYPD report was a mere half-page long. The detective who’d run the case had spent hardly any time on it, typical for suicides, and he provided Sachs with no other information.
    The trail to any suspects had pretty much dried up in the city, where Creeley had worked and where the family spent most of their time; all that remained in Manhattan was to interview the dead man’s partner, Kessler, in more depth. Now, she was searching one of the few remaining sources for leads: the Creeleys’ suburban home, at which the family spent very little time.
    But she was finding nothing. Sachs now sat back, staring at a recent picture of Creeley shaking the hand of someone who appeared to be a businessman. They were on the tarmac of an airport, in front of some company’s private jet. Oil rigs and pipelines loomed in the background. He was smiling. He didn’t look depressed—but who does in snapshots?
    It was then that another crunch sounded, very close, outside the window behind her. Then one more, even closer.
    That’s no squirrel.
    Out came the Glock, one shiny 9-millimeter round in the chamber and thirteen underneath it. Sachs made her way quietly out the front door and circled around to the side of the house, pistol in both hands, but close to her side ( never in front of you when rounding a corner, where it can be knocked aside; the movies always get it wrong). A fast look. The side of the house was clear. Then she moved toward the back, placing her black boots carefully on the walkway, which was thick with ice.
    A pause, listening.
    Yes, definitely footsteps. The person was moving hesitantly, maybe toward the back door.
    A pause. A step. Another pause.
    Ready, Sachs told herself.
    She eased closer to the back corner of the house.
    Which is when her foot slid off a patch of ice. She gave a faint, involuntary gasp. Hardly audible, she thought.
    But it was loud enough for the trespasser.
    She heard the pounding of feet fleeing through the backyard, crunching through the snow.
    Damn . . .
    In a crouch—in case it was a feint to draw her to target—she looked around the corner and lifted the Glock fast. She saw a lanky man in jeans and a thick jacket sprinting away through the snow.
    Hell . . . Just hate it when they run. Sachs had been dealt a tall body and bum joints—arthritis—and the combination made running pure misery.
    “I’m a police officer. Stop!” She started sprinting after him.
    Sachs was on her own for the pursuit. She’d never told Westchester County Police that she was here. Any assistance would have to come through a 911 call and she didn’t have time for that.
    “I’m not going to tell you again. Stop!”
    No