The Twelfth Card (Lincoln Rhyme 6)

"I don't know. Some shit. Thanks. I don't know."

"She believed you?"

"She look like she ain't know who I be at first, then she was cool, yeah. When I mention my sister."

He gave the kid some bills.

"Phat . . . Yo, you got anything else fo' me to do, I'm down, man. I--"

"Get outa here."

The kid shrugged and started away.

Jax said, "Wait."

The loping boy stopped. He turned back.

"What was she like?"

"The bitch? What she look like?"

No, that wasn't what he was curious about. But Jax didn't quite know how to phrase the question. And then he decided he didn't want to ask it. He shook his head. "Go on 'bout your business."

"Later, man."

The kid strolled off.

Part of Jax's mind told him to stay here, where he was. But that'd be stupid. Better to put some distance between himself and the place. He'd find out soon enough, one way or the other, what happened when the girl looked through the bag.

*

Geneva sat on her bed, lay back, closed her eyes, wondering what she felt so good about.

Well, they'd caught the killer. But that couldn't be all of the feeling, of course, since the man who'd hired him was still out there somewhere. And then there was also the man with the gun, the one at the school yard, the man in the army jacket.

She should be terrified, depressed.

But she wasn't. She felt free, elated.

Why?

And then she understood: It was because she'd told her secret. Unburdened her heart about living alone, about her parents. And nobody'd been horrified and shocked and hated her because of the lie. Mr. Rhyme and Amelia had even backed her up, Detective Bell too. They hadn't freaked, and dimed her out to the counselor.

Damn, it felt fine. How hard it'd been, carrying around this secret--just like Charles had carted his with him (whatever it was). If the former slave had told somebody, would he have avoided all the heartache that followed? According to his letter, he seemed to think so.

Geneva glanced at the shopping bag of books the girls at Langston Hughes had gotten for her. Curiosity got the better of her and she decided to look through them. She lifted the bag onto the bed. As Ronelle's brother had said, it weighed a ton.

She reached inside and lifted out the Laura Ingalls Wilder book. Then the next one: Geneva laughed out loud. This was even stranger: It was a Nancy Drew mystery. Was this wack, or what? She looked at a few of the other titles, books by Judy Blume, Dr. Seuss, Pat McDonald. Children's and young adult books. Wonderful authors, she knew them all. But she'd read their stories years ago. What was up with this? Didn't Ronelle and the kids know her? The most recent books she'd read for pleasure had been novels for adults: The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro and The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles. The last time she'd read Green Eggs and Ham had been ten years ago.

Maybe there was something better in the bottom. She started to reach into it.

A knock on the door startled her.

"Come in."

Thom entered, carrying a tray with a Pepsi and some snacks on it.

"Hi there," he said.