The Twelfth Card (Lincoln Rhyme 6)

"Can't, sir. But you need anything else, just gimme a call."

How about a babysitter?

Rhyme didn't believe in fate but, if he had, he would have noted a deft jab here: he'd taken on the case to avoid the test at the hospital and now was being paid back for the deception by suffering through an immensely awkward half hour or so in the company of two high school girls. Young people were not his forte.

"So long, Captain." Robinson walked out the door.

He muttered, "Yeah."

Thom returned a few minutes later with a tray. He poured a cup of coffee for Lakeesha and handed Geneva a mug, which, Rhyme smelled, contained hot chocolate.

"I took a guess you'd like something anyway," the aide said. "You don't want it, you can leave it."

"No, that's fine. Thanks." Geneva stared at the hot surface. Took a sip, another, lowered the cup and gazed at the floor. Took several more sips.

"You're all right?" Rhyme asked.

Geneva nodded.

"I am too," Lakeesha said.

"He attacked both of you?" Rhyme asked.

"Naw, not me." Lakeesha looked him over. "You like that actor broke his neck?" She slurped her coffee, added more sugar. Slurped again.

"That's right."

"An' you can't move nothin'?"

"Not much."

"Damn."

"Keesh," Geneva whispered. "Chill, girl."

"Just, you know, damn."

Silence again. Only eight minutes had passed since they'd arrived. It seemed like hours. What should he do? Have Thom run out and buy a board game?

There were, of course, questions that had to be asked. But Rhyme was reluctant to do so himself. Interviewing and interrogation were skills he didn't possess. When he was on the force he'd questioned suspects maybe a dozen times, and had never had one of those oh-Jesus moments when the grillee broke down and confessed. Sachs, on the other hand, was a natural at the art. She warned rookies that you could blow an entire case with a single wrong word. She called it "contaminating the mind," the counterpart to Rhyme's number-one sin: contaminating a crime scene.

Lakeesha asked, "How you move round in that chair?"

"Shhh," Geneva warned.

"I only askin'."

"Well, don't."

"Ain't no harm in asking nothin'."

Lakeesha had lost her skittishness completely now. Rhyme decided she was actually pretty savvy. She acts uneasy at first, making it seem like she's naive, vulnerable, that you have the advantage, but all the while she's sizing things up. Once she's got a handle on the situation, she knows whether or not to trot out the bluster.

In fact, Rhyme was thankful for something to make conversation about. He explained about the ECU, the environmental control unit, how the touch pad under his left ring finger could direct the movement and speed of the wheelchair.

"One finger?" Keesha glanced at one of her orange nails. "That all you can move?"