Read A Textbook Case for Free Online

gasoline was overwhelming—and the risk of fire imminent. She had to move fast.
    Into the laundry room quickly, swinging her weapon back and forth. In the back, ducttaped to a water pipe, was a woman in her thirties, wearing sweats, the shoulders of which were covered with blood, from some wound to her head. Strands of her dark blond hair were clotted crimson. Her face was red from crying and her eyes wide with terror.
    Unsub 26 had planned another prolonged killing. In this case, terror first and then pain… of dying from being burned to death.
    On a high shelf against the wall, over her, was a plastic pail. A hole had been cut in the side and gasoline trickled out, running down the wall and pooling on the floor. The puddle was making its way to the door. And was just about to reach the hot water heater. Sachs noted it was a gas model, which meant that it had a pilot light. Any minute the gas would flow beneath it and the fumes would ignite. The resulting fireball would ignite everything and melt the plastic pail; the five or so gallons of inflamed gasoline would flow throughout the room.
    She eased forward slowly. Shuffle or not? Would that create a static spark? She couldn’t worry about it. She hurried to the water heater. Surveying the system, she reached up carefully and slowly. The taped woman shook her head and gave an unearthly scream. But Sachs ignored her and pulled the gas cutoff lever down.
    There was a hiss and a quiet plop.
    The pilot was out.
    Sachs thought about removing the bucket of gas, but it was big and heavy. Moving it would surely spill some of the liquid, which might slosh onto a part of the water heater that was hot enough to ignite it.
    The immediate threat was gone.
    Still, though, the victim’s head was shaking madly. Her eyes were wide and from her throat came high-pitched sounds, half screams, half words.
    With her switchblade Sachs carefully cut the tape binding the woman to the pipe. She turned her around to look at the nasty wound on her head, looking around for something to stop the bleeding.
    Another keening sound of desperation from the victim’s throat. Her head waved more frantically yet.
    Ah, maybe she was suffocating.
    Sachs carefully eased the duct tape off her mouth and set it aside to be collected later for evidence. The victim sucked in air desperately, starting off a jag of coughing. Finally she managed, “We have to leave! Fire!”
    “It’s okay, the pilot light—”
    “Not that. There!” she pointed.
    The pendulum of Sachs’s gaze swung to the left.
    What was that?
    A flicker of unsteady shadow.
    She dropped to her knees. Behind the washing machine was a Starbucks Frappuccino bottle with a rag stuffed in the neck. It, too, was filled with gasoline and the improvised wick was burning. The gasoline flowing down the wall was just starting to pool around it.
    A Molotov cocktail.
    Oh, hell, the pilot light wasn’t the igniter. This bottle was.
    Sachs grabbed the woman by the shoulders. They rushed the door.
    And then, the explosion.

5
    “Sachs!” Lincoln Rhyme was calling into his headset microphone. He was in his parlor lab, surrounded by the thousands of evidence containers. He hadn’t moved much; it was difficult to maneuver.
    He glanced at Thom, who was also on the phone, trying to reach someone at the command post for an update. Neither Sellitto nor Detective Ron Simpson was answering.
    The report from the scene was that there’d been a huge explosion in the basement of the townhouse that Sachs had been searching. The tenants and their pets had been saved—as had the bulk of the building; the fire was mostly out. But Sachs and the intended victim, both of whom were in the laundry room, where the device was set, were unaccounted for.
    Rhyme was furious with her for not waiting for the Bomb Squad.
    “It’s their fucking job,” he muttered, drawing a quizzical glance from his aide, who would, of course, have no idea whom he was fighting with.
    He made a mobile