The Broken Window (57 page)
Authors: Jeffery Deaver
The pocket watch is a Breguet. It is the favorite of the many timepieces I have come across in the
past year. It was made in the early 1800s and features a ruby cylinder escapement, perpetual
calendar and parachute anti-shock device. I hope you appreciate the phases-of-the-moon window,
in light of our recent adventures together. There are few specimens like this watch in the world. I
give it to you as a present, out of respect. In my years at this profession, no one has ever stopped
me from finishing a job; you’re as good as they get. (I would say you’re as good as I, but that is
not quite true; you did not, after all, catch me.)
Keep the Breguet wound (but gently); it will be counting out the minutes until we meet again.
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Some advice—If I were you, I would make every one of those seconds count.
You’re good, Rhyme spoke silently to the killer.
But I’m good too. Next time, we finish our game.
Then his thoughts were interrupted. Rhyme squinted, looking away from the watch and focusing out the window. Something had caught his eye.
A man in casual clothing was dawdling on the sidewalk across the street. Rhyme maneuvered his TDX
to the window and looked out. He sipped more whisky. The man stood beside a dark overpainted bench in front of the stone wall bordering Central Park. He was staring at the town house, hands in his pockets.
Apparently he couldn’t see that he was being observed from inside the town house’s large window.
It was his cousin, Arthur Rhyme.
The man started forward, nearly crossing the street. But then he stopped. He walked back to the park and sat on one of the benches facing the town house, beside a woman in a running suit, sipping water and bobbing her foot as she listened to her iPod. Arthur pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, looked at it and put it back. His eyes returned to the town house.
Curious. He looks like me, Rhyme reflected. In all their years of comradeship and separation, he’d never realized it.
Suddenly, for some reason, his cousin’s words from a decade ago filled his mind:
Did you even try with
your
father? What do you think he felt, having a son like you, who was a
hundred times smarter than he was? Going off all the time because he’d rather hang out with his
uncle. Did you even give Teddy a chance?
The criminalist shouted, “Thom!”
No response.
A louder summons.
“What?” the aide asked. “You finished the scotch already?”
“I need something. From the basement.”
“The basement?”
“I just said that. There’re a few old boxes down there. They’ll have the word ‘Illinois’ on them.”
“Oh, those. Actually, Lincoln, there are about thirty of them.”
“However many.”
“Not a few.”
“I need you to look through them and find something for me.”
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“What?”
“A piece of concrete in a little plastic box. About three by three inches.”
“Concrete?”
“It’s a present for someone.”
“Well, I can’t
wait
for Christmas, to see what’s in
my
stocking. When would you—?”
“Now. Please.”
A sigh. Thom disappeared.
Rhyme continued to watch his cousin, staring at the front door of the town house. But the man wasn’t budging.
A long sip of scotch.
When Rhyme looked back, the park bench was empty.
He was alarmed—and hurt—by the man’s abrupt departure. He drove the wheelchair forward quickly, getting as close to the window as he could.
And he saw Arthur, dodging traffic, making for the town house.
Silence for a long, long moment. Finally the doorbell buzzed.
“Command,” Rhyme said quickly to his attentive computer. “Unlock front door.”
Author’s Note
Calvin Geddes’s comment about a “brave new world” is, of course, a reference to the title of Aldous Huxley’s 1932 futuristic novel about the loss of individual identity in a supposedly utopian society. The book remains as harrowing as ever, as does George Orwell’s
1984.
Readers wishing to know more about the issue of privacy might want to peruse some of the following organizations’ Web sites: Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC.org); Global Internet Liberty Campaign (www.gilc.org); In Defense of Freedom (www.indefenseoffreedom.org); Internet Free Expression Alliance (http://ifea.net); The Privacy Coalition (http://privacycoalition.org); Privacy International (www.privacyinternational.org); Privacy.org (www.privacy.org); and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (www.eff.org).
I think you’ll also enjoy—and be unnerved by—the excellent book from which I borrowed several quotations to use as epigrams,
No Place to Hide,
by Robert O’Harrow, Jr.
Those who’d like to know more about how Amelia Sachs came to meet Pam Willoughby might wish to
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read
The Bone Collector,
and their follow-up story in
The Cold Moon
. Similarly,
The Cold Moon
describes Lincoln Rhyme’s first meeting with the killer whom he and Inspector Longhurst try to capture in this novel.
Oh, and be sure to keep an eye on your identity. If you don’t, there’re plenty of people out there who will.
Acknowledgments
My thanks to a great crew: Will and Tina Anderson, Louise Burke, Luisa Colicchio, Jane Davis, Julie Deaver, Jamie Hodder-Williams, Paolo Klun, Carolyn Mays, Deborah Schneider, Vivienne Schuster, Seba Pezzani, Betsy Robbins, David Rosenthal, Marysue Rucci… and, of course, Madelyn Warcholik.
About The Author
Aformer journalist, folksinger and attorney, Jeffery Deaver is an international number-one best-selling author. His novels have appeared on a number of best-seller lists around the world, including
The New
York Times, The Times
of London and
The Los Angeles Times.
His books are sold in 150 countries and translated into 25 languages. The author of twenty-three novels and two collections of short stories, he’s been awarded the Steel Dagger and Short Story Dagger from the British Crime Writers’
Association, is a three-time recipient of the Ellery Queen Reader’s Award for Best Short Story of the Year and is a winner of the British Thumping Good Read Award. He’s been nominated for six Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America, an Anthony Award and a Gumshoe Award. His book
A
Maiden’s Grave
was made into an HBO movie starring James Garner and Marlee Matlin, and his novel
The Bone Collector
was a feature release from Universal Pictures, starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. His most recent books are
The Sleeping Doll, The Cold Moon, The Twelfth Card
and
More Twisted: Collected Stories, Volume II
. And, yes, the rumors are true, he did appear as a corrupt reporter on his favorite soap opera,
As the World Turns.
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Deaver is presently writing the second in the Kathryn Dance series, who had her book-length debut in last year’s
The Sleeping Doll
, and the next Lincoln Rhyme novel for 2010.
Readers can visit his Web site at www.jefferydeaver.com.
Copyright
This book was
copied right, in
the dark, by
Illuminati.
Table of Contents
I
II
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
III
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
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Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
IV
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Chapter Forty-five
Chapter Forty-six
Chapter Forty-seven
Chapter Forty-eight
V
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-one
Chapter Fifty-two
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
About The Author
AboutThe
e-Book:
TITLE: The Broken Window
AUTHOR: Deaver, Jeffery
ABEB Version: 5.1
Hog Edition
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