"No," Geneva replied. And thought: Ask me if I care.
*
Lincoln Rhyme was directing Mel Cooper to organize the evidence that they'd collected from the bombing scene, in between reviewing some of the evidence-analysis reports that had returned.
A federal team, under Dellray's direction, had tracked down Jon Earle Wilson, the man whose fingerprints were on the transistor radio bomb in Boyd's safe house. He'd been collared and a couple of agents were going to bring him over to Rhyme's for interrogation to shore up the case against Thompson Boyd.
It was then that Bell's phone rang. He answered, "Bell here . . . Luis, what's up?" He cocked his head to listen.
Luis . . .
This would be Martinez, who had been tailing Geneva and her father on foot since they'd left Rhyme's to go to Langston Hughes. They were convinced that Jax, Alonzo Jackson, was her father and no threat to the girl, and that the terrorist had been working alone. But that didn't mean Bell and Rhyme were going to let Geneva go anywhere in the immediate future without protection.
But something was wrong. Rhyme could read it in Bell's eyes. The detective said to Cooper, "We need a DMV check. Fast." He jotted a tag number on a Post-it note then hung up, handed the slip of paper to the CS tech.
"What's happening?" Sachs asked.
"Geneva and her father were at the bus stop near the school. A car pulled up. They got inside. Luis wasn't expecting that and couldn't get across the street fast enough to stop them."
"Car? Who was driving?"
"Heavyset black woman. Way he described her, sounds like it might've been that counselor, Barton."
Nothing to worry about necessarily, Rhyme reflected. Maybe the woman just saw them at the bus stop and offered them a ride.
Information from the DMV flickered over his screen.
"What do we have, Mel?" Rhyme asked.
Cooper squinted as he read. He typed some more. He looked up, eyes wide through his thick glasses. "A problem. We have a problem."
*
Mrs. Barton was heading into south-central Harlem, moving slowly though the early evening traffic. She slowed as they drove past yet another real estate redevelopment project.
Her father shook his head. "Look at all this." He nodded at the billboard. "Developers, banks, architects." A sour laugh. "Betcha there's not a single black person running any of 'em."
Lame, Geneva thought. She wanted to tune him out.
Whining about the past . . .
The counselor glanced at the site and, shrugged. "You see that a lot around here." She braked and turned down an alley between one of the old buildings being gutted and a deep excavation site.
In response to her father's questioning glance, Mrs. Barton said, "Shortcut."
But her father looked around. "Shortcut?"
"Just to miss some of the southbound traffic."
He looked again, squinted. Then spat out, "Bullshit."
"Dad!" Geneva cried.
"I know this block. Road's closed off up ahead. They're tearing down some old factory."
"No," Mrs. Barton said. "I just came this way and--"
But her father grabbed the parking brake and pulled up as hard as he could, then spun the wheel to the left. The car skidded into the brick wall with the wrenching sound of metal and plastic grinding into stone.