The Twelfth Card (60 page)
Authors: Jeffery Deaver
Lincoln Rhyme generally didn’t find soft descriptions helpful. But he conceded that “bad” fit the situation.
So did the word “intriguing.” He asked, “Why do you say it’s the same MO?”
“Perp left a calling card at both scenes. Clocks.”
“As in tick-tock?”
“Yup. The first one was next to the pool of blood on the pier. The other was next to Adams’s head. It was like the doer wanted them to see it. And, I guess, hear it.”
“Describe them. The clocks.”
“Looked old-fashioned. That’s all I know.”
“Not a bomb?” Nowadays—in the time of the After—every item of evidence that ticked was routinely checked for explosives.
“Nope. Won’t go bang. But the squad sent ’em up to Rodman’s Neck to check for bio or chemical agents. Same brand of clock, looks like. Spooky, one of the respondings said. Has this face of a moon on it. Oh, and just in case we were slow, he left a note, under the clocks. Computer printout. No handwriting.”
“And they said . . . ?”
Sellitto glanced down at his notes, not relying on memory. Rhyme appreciated this in the detective. He wasn’t brilliant but he
was
a bulldog and did everything slowly and with perfection. He read, “ ‘The full Cold Moon is in the sky, shining on the corpse of earth, signifying the hour to die and end the journey begun at birth.’ ” He looked up at Rhyme. “It was signed ‘The Watchmaker.’ ”
Rhyme raised an eyebrow. “We’ve got two vics and a
lunar motif.” Often, an astronomical reference meant that the killer was planning to strike multiple times. “He’s got more on the agenda.”
“Hey, why d’you think I’m here, Linc?”
Rhyme glanced at the beginning of his missive to the
Times.
He closed his word processing program. The essay about Before and After would have to wait.
JEFFERY DEAVER
is the
New York Times
bestselling author of twenty-two suspense novels, and the originator of the acclaimed detective hero Lincoln Rhyme, featured in the bestsellers
The Cold Moon, The Twelfth Card, The Vanished Man, The Stone Monkey, The Empty Chair, The Coffin Dancer,
and
The Bone Collector.
His new thriller,
The Sleeping Doll,
is available in hardcover from Simon & Schuster. As William Jefferies, he is the author of
Shallow Graves, Bloody River Blues,
and
Hell’s Kitchen.
His short fiction is anthologized in two acclaimed collections from Pocket Books:
Twisted
and
More Twisted.
He is a five-time Edgar Award nominee, an Anthony Award nominee, a three-time recipient of the Ellery Queen Reader’s Award for Best Short Story of the Year, and a winner of the British Thumping Good Read Award. He has also won a Steel Dagger for best thriller of the year for
Garden of Beasts
and a Short Story Dagger from the British Crime Writers’ Association. His novel
The Bone Collector
became a Universal Pictures feature film starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. A former attorney, Deaver has been hailed as “the best psychological thriller writer around” (
The Times
, London).
Visit his website at
www.jefferydeaver.com
.
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A
LSO BY
J
EFFERY
D
EAVER
Carte Blanche
Edge
The Burning Wire*
Best American Mystery Stories 2009
(Editor)
The Watch List
(
The Copper Bracelet
and
The Chopin Manuscript
) (Contributor)
Roadside Crosses**
The Bodies Left Behind
The Broken Window*
The Sleeping Doll**
More Twisted: Collected Stories, Volume Two
The Cold Moon*/**
The Twelfth Card*
Garden of Beasts
Twisted: Collected Stories
The Vanished Man*
The Stone Monkey*
The Blue Nowhere
The Empty Chair*
Speaking in Tongues
The Devil’s Teardrop
The Coffin Dancer*
The Bone Collector*
A Maiden’s Grave
Praying for Sleep
The Lesson of Her Death
Mistress of Justice
Hard News
Death of a Blue Movie Star
Manhattan Is My Beat
Hell’s Kitchen
Bloody River Blues
Shallow Graves
A Century of Great Suspense Stories
(Editor)
A Hot and Sultry Night for Crime
(Editor)
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
(Introduction)
*Featuring Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs
**Featuring Kathryn Dance
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2005 by Jeffery Deaver
Originally published in hardcover in 2005
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
For information address Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
ISBN-13: 978-0-7434-9156-3
ISBN-10: 0-7434-9156-4
This Simon & Schuster premium edition May 2006
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Jacket Photograph © Photomorgana/Corbis;
Author Photography by David Sharpe