The linen napkin in Arthur Vance’s fingers did not fall, but the muscle beneath his left cheekbone gave a single, violent, microscopic twitch:
TICK.
“Where is Daniel…?” Arthur whispered.
The velvet cello was gone.
The word was paper-thin. It was the dry, whistling rasp of an ancient water pump sucking air in an empty cistern:
“Where is Patricia?”
“Daniel Whitaker is in federal transit irons in Omaha, Arthur,” I answered softly.
My voice had no microphone.
Yet it filled that twenty-foot concrete vault with forty decibels of pure, unyielding, polar diamond:
“Patricia Whitaker has been remanded to solitary confinement.”
“Dr. Harrison’s chemical synthesis records have been seized by the CID.”
“The sufentanil patch has been logged into the criminal docket.”
“And I came to Washington to return Daniel’s tea canister.”
CHAPTER 5: THE AUDIT ON THE BLACK GRANITE
I walked down the twenty-foot center aisle of the West Conference Room.
