Guilty Minds Read Online Free PDF

to accomplish in twenty-seven hours?”
    “I guess we’ll find out.” I stood up. “Now I’d better get to it.”
    —
    The white marble corridors downstairs were mostly empty now. The floors gleamed. My footsteps echoed distantly. I found the bank of gray metal lockers, located mine, and opened it.
    And stared at the empty compartment.
    Nothing was there. My laptop, my iPhone: gone.
    I double-checked the number on the key. It matched the number on the locker. I had the right locker, and my belongings had vanished.
    At the end of the rows of lockers was a cloakroom where you could check your coat or umbrella or whatever else you couldn’t stuff into a locker. The attendant on duty was a matronly black woman with largesleepy eyes behind elaborate eyeglass frames that swooped down from the temple to the earpiece. Her black hair glistened with pomade. She spoke in a gruff, gravelly contralto.
    “Honey, you know what kind of rush we get before court starts? I got a line halfway out to the street. Even if I could see the lockers from here, which I can’t, I sure don’t have time to look. I’m sorry, dear. I wish I could help you.”
    “You keep the spare keys here, right? I’m sure people lose locker keys all the time.”
    She blinked a few times, looking like she was on the verge of drifting off to sleep. “Less than you might think. I’m sorry, I don’t understand. You’re telling me you think someone took stuff out of your locker, right? So why’re you needing a spare key?”
    I tried not to show my impatience. “Maybe someone took one of your spares and opened my locker. Would you mind checking to see if one’s missing?”
    She shrugged and reached down to get something from under the counter. Then, key in hand, she unlocked a gray steel box mounted to the wall. I saw the row of green plastic key fobs, and even though I was too far away to read the numbers, I didn’t have to. There was no gap in the row of keys. None was missing.
    She turned back, shook her head. “Nope.”
    “The policeman who brought me over here,” I began.
    “What policeman would that be, sir?”
    “He met me when I came in, an hour or so ago, and brought me over here. Big tall blond guy, brush cut? Did you see him come back here at any point?”
    She shook her head slowly with an exaggerated swing from side to side. “Doesn’t sound familiar. One of our Supreme Court police?”
    I thought for a moment, remembering his uniform. “He was Washington Metro Police.”
    “I doubt that. We have our own Supreme Court police. You see the tan patch on his left shoulder?”
    He had no tan patch on his shoulder. “Thanks,” I said, spun around, and began striding down the hall.

8
    W hether he was a real cop or not, the guy with the blond brush cut who’d so politely guided me to my locker—even providing the quarter—was obviously the one who’d emptied it. He’d picked out my locker in advance, which meant he had a copy of the key. He didn’t need to take one of the spares. He’d just waited for me to leave and then removed my laptop and iPhone. Had I been on alert, and had I known what to look for, I’d have noticed that he was wearing the uniform of a DC city cop. It had been a simple if brazen move, and the only reason it worked was that I hadn’t been operating with my usual wariness.
    The question was, who was he and how did he know I’d be here?
    This I couldn’t yet figure out.
    I stopped mid-stride. I had a strong feeling that I was being watched. That the guy was somewhere nearby, within eyesight.
    It was more than a feeling, of course. It was the result of “situational awareness,” which is the military’s fancy term for knowing what’s going on around you. In combat, your life can depend on whether you notice anomalies: the scuff of a boot, the glint of a weapon. I sensed a stillness at my eleven o’clock and turned. There, at the head of the staircase atthe other end of the great hall, was a familiar blond