The Twelfth Card (Lincoln Rhyme 6)

She slipped into street talk. "Don't be talkin' like no homegirl, you sayin'?" A grim laugh. "I've worked on my Standard English ever since I was seven or eight." Her face grew sad. "The only good thing about my father--he always had me into books. He used to read to me some too."

"We can find him and--"

"No!" Geneva said in a harsh voice. "I don't want anything to do with him. Anyway, he's got his own kids now. He doesn't want anything to do with me."

"And nobody found out you were homeless?" Sachs asked.

"Why would they? I never applied for welfare or food stamps so no social workers came to see me. I never even signed up for free meals at school 'cause it'd blow my cover. I forged my parents' names on the school papers when I needed their signatures. And I have a voice-mail box at a service. That was Keesh again. She recorded the outgoing message, pretending to be my mother."

"And the school never suspected?"

"Sometimes they asked why I never had anybody at parent-teacher conferences, but nobody thought anything about it because I have straight A's. No welfare, good grades, no problems with the police . . . Nobody notices you if there's nothing wrong." She laughed. "You know the Ralph Ellison book, Invisible Man? No, not that science fiction movie. It's about being black in America, being invisible. Well, I'm the invisible girl."

It made sense now: the shabby clothes and cheap watch, not at all what jet-setting parents would buy for their girl. The public school, not a private one. Her friend, the homegirl Keesh--not the sort who'd be close to the daughter of a college professor.

Rhyme nodded. "We never saw you actually call your parents in England. But you did call the super yesterday, after what happened at the museum, right? Had him pretend to be your uncle?"

"He said he'd agree if I paid him extra, yeah. He wanted me to stay in his place--but that wouldn't be a good idea. You know what I'm saying? So I told him to use Two-B, with the Reynolds being away. I had him take their name off the mailbox."

"Never thought that man seemed much like kin," Bell said and Geneva responded with a scoffing laugh.

"When your parents never showed up, what were you going to say?"

"I didn't know." Her voice broke and for an instant she looked hopelessly young and lost. Then she recovered. "I've had to improvise the whole thing. When I went to get Charles's letters yesterday?" She glanced at Bell, who nodded. "I snuck out the back door and went down to the basement. That's where they were."

"You have any family here?" Sachs asked. "Other than your aunt?"

"I don't have no--" The flash of true horror in the girl's eyes was the first that Rhyme had seen. And its source was not a hired killer but the near slip into hated nonstandard grammar. She shook her head. "I don't have anybody."

"Why don't you go to Social Services?" Sellitto asked. "That's what they're there for."

Bell added, "You more'n anybody're entitled to it."

The girl frowned and her dark eyes turned darker. "I don't take anything for free." A shake of the head. "Besides, a social worker'd come to check things out and see my situation. I'd get sent down to my aunt's in 'Bama. She lives in a town outside of Selma, three hundred people in it. You know what kind of education I'd get there? Or, I stay here, and end up in foster in Brooklyn, living in one room with four gangbanger girls, boxes playing hip-hop and BET on, twenty-four hours a day, dragged to church . . . " She shivered and shook her head.

"That's why the job." Rhyme glanced at the uniform.

"That's why the job. Somebody hooked me up with this guy makes fake driver's licenses. According to it, I'm eighteen." A laugh. "I don't look it, I know. But I applied to a place where the manager's an old white guy. He didn't have a clue how old I was from looking at me. Been at the same place ever since. Never missed a single shift. Until today." A sigh. "My boss'll find out. He'll have to fire me. Shit. And I just lost my other job last week."

"You had two jobs?"

The girl nodded. "Scrubbing graffiti. There's all this renovation going on in Harlem. You see it everywhere now. Some big insurance or real estate companies fix up old buildings and rent 'em for a lot of money. The crews hired some kids to clean the walls. It was great money. But I got fired."

"Because you were underage?" Sachs asked.

"No, because I saw these workers, three big white guys who worked for some real estate company. They were hassling this old couple who'd lived in the building forever. I told 'em to stop or I'd call the police . . . . " She shrugged. "They fired me. I did call the police but they weren't interested . . . . So much for doing good deeds."

"And that's why you didn't want that Mrs. Barton, the counselor, to help," Bell said.

"She finds out I'm homeless, and, bang, my ass's in foster." She shuddered. "I was so close! I could've done it. A year and a half and I'd be gone. I'd be in Harvard or Vassar. Then that guy shows up at the museum yesterday and ruins everything!"

Geneva rose and walked to the chart that had the details about Charles Singleton on it. She gazed at it. "That's why I was writing about him. I had to find out he was innocent. I wanted him to be nice and be a good husband and father. The letters were so wonderful. He could write so pretty, all his words. Even his handwriting was beautiful." She added breathlessly, "And he was a hero in the Civil War and taught children and saved the orphans from the draft rioters. Suddenly I had a relative who was good, after all. Who was smart, who knew famous people. I wanted him to be somebody I could admire, not like my father or mother."

Luis Martinez stuck his head in the doorway. "He checks out. Right name and address, no priors, no warrants." He'd run the name of the phony uncle. Rhyme and Bell weren't trusting anybody at this point.

"You must be lonely," Sachs said.

A pause. "My daddy took me to church some, 'fore he ran off. I remember this gospel song. It used to be our favorite. It's called 'Ain't Got Time to Die.' That's what my life's like. I ain't got time to be lonely."