The Twelfth Card (Lincoln Rhyme 6)

Dellray barked, "Then who hired ya for the job?"

"I don't know what you're asking. 'Bout a job. I swear I don't." He seemed genuinely confused. "And all this other stuff, gas or whatever you're saying. I--"

"You were lookin' for Geneva Settle. You bought a gun and you showed up at her school yesterday," Sellitto pointed out.

"Yeah, that's right." He looked mystified at the level of their information.

"An' you showed up here," Dellray continued. "That's the job we're waggin' our tongues about."

"There's no job. I don't know what you mean. Honest."

"What's the story with the books?" Sellitto asked.

"Those're just books my daughter read when she was little. They were for her."

The agent muttered, "Wonnerful. But 'xplain to us why you paid somebody to deliver 'em to . . . " He hesitated and frowned. For once words seemed to fail Fred Dellray.

Rhyme asked, "You're saying--?"

"That's right." Jax sighed. "Gen

eva. She's my little girl."

Chapter Thirty-Five

"From the beginning," Rhyme said.

"Okay. What it is--I got busted six years ago. Went six to nine at Wende."

The DOC's maximum security prison in Buffalo.

"For what?" Dellray snapped. "The AR and murder we heard about?"

"One count armed robbery. One count firearm. One count assault."

"The twenty-five, twenty-five? The murder?"

He said firmly, "That was not a righteous count. Got knocked down to assault. And I didn't do it in the first place."

"Never heard that before," Dellray muttered.

"But you did the robbery?" Sellitto asked.

A grimace. "Yeah."

"Keep going."

"Last year I got upped to Alden, minimum security. Work-release. I was working and going to school there. Got paroled seven weeks ago."

"Tell me about the AR."

"Okay. Few years back, I was a painter, working in Harlem."

"Graffiti?" Rhyme asked, nodding at the picture of the subway car.

Laughing, Jax said, "House painting. You don't make money at graffiti, 'less you were Keith Haring and his crowd. And they were just claimers. Anyway I was getting killed by the debt. See, Venus--Geneva's mother--had righteous problems. First it was blow, then smack then cookies--you know, crack. And we needed money for bail and lawyers too."

The sorrow in his face seemed real. "There were signs she was a troubled soul when we hooked up. But, you know, nothing like love to make you a blind fool. Anyways, we were going to be kicked out of the apartment and I didn't have money for Geneva's clothes or schoolbooks or even food sometimes. That girl needed a normal life. I thought if I could get together some benjamins I'd get Venus into treatment or something, get her straight. And if she wouldn't do it, then I'd take Geneva away from her, give the girl a good home.