“We’ll hope for the best. If he does wake up, maybe somebody could read it to him. Might help. Sometimes it does. Just hearing a story. Oh, and tell him or his family there’s a good luck charm inside.”

“That’s right kind of you.” Bell closed her door and walked to the living room to call his boys and tell them that he’d be home in a little while. He then checked with the other guards on his SWAT team, who reported that all was secure.

He settled down in the living room, hoping that Geneva’s uncle was doing some serious grocery shopping. That poor niece of his surely needed some meat on her bones.

On his route to Geneva Settle’s apartment, Alonzo “Jax” Jackson slowly made his way down one of the narrow passages separating the brownstones in western Harlem.

He wasn’t, however, at this particular moment Jax the limpin’ ex-con, the blood-spraying Graffiti King of Harlem past. He was some unnamed, wack homeless dude in dusty jeans and a gray sweatshirt, pushing a perped grocery cart, which held five dollars’ worth of newspapers, all wadded up. And a bunch of empties he’d racked from a recycling bin. He doubted that up close anybody would buy the role – he was a little too clean for your typical homeless guy – but there were only a few people he needed to fool: like the cops staying steady on Geneva Settle.

Out of one alleyway, across the street, into another. He was about three blocks from the back door of the apartment building that poor-ass Kevin Cheaney had pointed out.

Nice place, damn.

Feeling shitty again, thinking of his own plans for family gone bad.

Sir, I must talk to you. I am sorry. The baby…We could not save him.

Was a him?

I’m sorry, sir. We did what we could, I promise you but…

It was a him…

He pushed those thoughts away. Fighting a bum wheel on the cart, which kept veering to the left, talking to himself a bit, Jax moved slowly but with determination, thinking: Man, funny if I got nailed for jacking a shopping cart. But then he decided, no, it wouldn’t be so funny at all. It’d be just like a cop to decide to roust him for something little like that and find the gun. Then run the ID and he’d get his ass violated back to Buffalo. Or someplace even worse.

Clatter, clatter – the littered passageway was hell on the broken wheel of the cart. He struggled to keep it straight. But he had to stick to this dark canyon. To approach a nice town house from the sidewalk, in this fancy part of Harlem, would flag him as suspicious. In the alley, though, pushing a cart wasn’t that wack. Rich people throw their empties out more’n the poor. And as for the garbage, it was a better quality round here. Naturally a homeless dude’d rather scrounge in West Harlem than in Central.

How much farther?

Jax the homeless dude looked up and squinted. Two blocks to the girl’s apartment.

Almost there. Almost done.

He felt an itch.

In Lincoln Rhyme’s case this could be literal – he had sensation on his neck, shoulders and head, and, in fact, this was a nondisabled, sensate condition he could do without; for a quadriplegic, not being able to scratch an itch was the most fucking frustrating thing in the world.

But this was a figurative itch he was feeling.

Something wasn’t right. What was it?

Thom asked him a question. He didn’t pay attention.

“Lincoln?”

“I’m thinking. Can’t you see?”

“No, that happens on the inside,” the aide retorted.

“Well, be quiet.”

What was the problem?

More scans of the evidence charts, the profile, the old letters and clippings, the curious expression on the inverted face of The Hanged Man…But somehow the itch didn’t seem to have anything to do with the evidence.

In which case he supposed he should just ignore it.

Get back to -

Rhyme cocked his head. Almost grabbed the thought. It jiggled away.

It was some anomaly, words someone had said recently that didn’t quite mesh.

Then:

“Oh, goddamn it,” he snapped. “The uncle!”

“What?” Mel Cooper asked.

“Jesus, Geneva’s uncle.”

“What about him?”

“Geneva said he was her mother’s brother.”

“And?”

“When we just talked to him, he said that he’d talked to his brother.”

“Well, he probably meant brother-in-law.”

“If you mean brother-in-law, that’s what you say… Command, dial Bell.”

The phone rang and the detective answered on the first note of the cell phone tone that meant the call was from Lincoln Rhyme’s town house.

“ Bell here.”

“Roland, you’re at Geneva ’s?”

“Right.”

“Your cell doesn’t have a speaker, does it?”

“No. Go ahead.” The detective instinctively pulled his jacket aside and unsnapped the thong holding the larger of his two pistols. His voice was as steady as his hand, though his heart ratcheted up a few beats per second.

“Where’s Geneva?”

“Her room.”

“Uncle?”

“Don’t know. He just went to the store.”

“Listen. He flubbed the story about how he’s related to her. He said he’s her father’s brother. She said he’s her mother’s.”

“Hell, he’s a ringer.”

“Get to Geneva and stay with her until we figure it out. I’m sending another couple of RMPs over there.”

Bell walked fast to the girl’s room. He knocked but got no response.

Heart pumping fast now, he drew his Beretta. “Geneva!”

Nothing.

“Roland,” Rhyme called, “what’s going on?”

“Just a second,” the detective whispered.

In a combat shooting crouch, he pushed the door open and, lifting his weapon, stepped inside.

The room was empty. Geneva Settle was gone.

“Central, I have a ten twenty-nine, possible abduction.”

In his calm drawl Bell repeated the ominous message and gave his location. Then: “Vic is a black female, age sixteen, five-two, one hundred pounds. Suspect is a black male, stocky, early to mid forties, short hair.”

“Roger. Units en route, K.”

Bell clipped his radio to his belt and sent Martinez and Lynch to search the apartment building itself while he hurried downstairs. The street in front of the building had been under surveillance by Lynch, while Martinez had been on the roof. But they’d been expecting Unsub 109 or his accomplice to be heading toward the building, not going away from it. Martinez thought he’d seen a girl and a man, who could have been the uncle, walking away from the apartment about three minutes ago. He hadn’t paid attention.

Scanning the street, Bell saw no one but a few businesspeople. He jogged down the service alley beside the building. He noticed a homeless man pushing a grocery cart but he was two blocks away. Bell ’d talk to him in a minute and find out if he’d seen the girl. Now, he opted for the other possible witnesses, some young girls playing double-Dutch jump rope.

“Hi.” The rope went slack as they looked up at the detective.

“Hey there. I’m a police officer. I’m looking for this teenage girl. She’s black, thin, got short hair. She’d be with an older man.”

The sirens from the responding officers’ cars filled the air, growing closer.

“You got a badge?” one girl asked.

Bell tamped down his anxiety, kept smiling and flashed his shield.

“Wow.”

“Yeah, we saw ’em,” one tiny, pretty girl offered. “They went up that street there. Turned right.”

“No, left.”

“You weren’t looking.”

“Was too. You gotta gun, mister?”

Bell jogged to the street they’d pointed to. A block away, to his right, he saw a car pulling away from the curb. He grabbed his radio. “Units responding to that ten two nine. Anybody close to One One Seven Street…there’s a maroon sedan moving west. Stop it and check occupants. Repeat: We’re looking for a black female, sixteen. Suspect is black male, forties, K. Assume he’s armed.”