More Twisted

sooner I’ll be able to say no.”
    “He’s been in that kind of mood,” Thom told Sellitto.
    “Yeah, for the last twenty years.”
    “Onward and upward,” Rhyme said with cheerful impatience, sipping more coffee through the straw.
    “Ronald Larkin hit it big in energy. Pipelines, electricity, water, geothermal.”
    “He was a good guy,” Thom interjected, feeding Rhyme a breakfast of eggs and a bagel. “Environmentally conscious.”
    “Happy day,” Rhyme said sourly.
    Sellitto helped himself to a second bagel and continued, “He’d retired last year, turns the company over to somebody else and starts a foundation with his brother. Doing good things in Africa, Asia and Latin America. He lives in LA but he and his wife have a place here. They flew into town last night. Early this morning they’re in bed and somebody fires through the window, takes him out.”
    “Robbery?”
    “Nope.”
    Really? Rhyme grew more intrigued. He turned quickly away from the incoming bagel, like a baby avoiding a spoon of mashed carrots.
    “Lincoln,” Thom said.
    “I’ll eat later. The wife?”
    “She got hit but rolled onto the floor, grabbed the phone, called nine-one-one. The shooter didn’t wait around to finish the job.”
    “What’d she see?”
    “Not much, I don’t think. She’s in the hospital. Haven’t had a chance to talk to her more than a few words. She’s hysterical. They only got married a month ago.”
    “Ah, a recent wife . . . . Even if she was wounded, that doesn’t mean she didn’t hire somebody to kill hubby and hurt her a little in the process.”
    “You know, Linc, I’ve done this before . . . . I checked already. There’s no motive. She’s got money of her own from Daddy. And she signed a prenup. In the event of his death all she gets is a hundred thousand and can keep the engagement ring. Not worth the needle, you know.”
    “That’s the deal he cut with his wife? No wonder he’s rich. You mentioned politically sensitive?”
    “Here’s one of the richest men in the country, way involved in the Third World, and he gets offed in our backyard. The mayor’s not happy. The brass isn’t happy.”
    “Which means you must be one sad puppy.”
    “They want you and Amelia, Linc. Come on, it’s an interesting case. You like challenges.”
    After the accident at the subway crime scene that left him disabled, Rhyme’s life became very differentfrom his life before. Back then he would prowl through the playground that is New York City, observing people and where they lived and what they did, collecting samples of soil, building materials, plants, insects, trash, rocks . . . anything that might help him run a case. His inability to do this now was terribly frustrating. And, always independent, he detested relying on anyone else.
    But Lincoln Rhyme had always lived a cerebral life. Before the accident, boredom had been his worst enemy. Now, it was the same. And Sellitto—intentionally, of course—had just teased him with two words that often got his attention.
    Interesting . . . challenge . . .
    “So, what do you say, Linc?”
    Another pause. He glanced at the half-eaten bagel. He’d lost his appetite altogether. “Let’s get downstairs. See if we can find out a little more about Mr. Larkin’s demise.”
    “Good,” said Thom, sounding relieved. He was the one who often took the brunt of Rhyme’s bad moods when he was involved in uninteresting, unchallenging cases, as had been the situation lately.
    The handsome blond aide, far stronger than his slim physique suggested, dressed Rhyme in sweats and executed a sitting transfer to move him from the elaborate motorized bed into an elaborate motorized wheelchair, a sporty red Storm Arrow. Using the one working finger of his left hand, the ring finger, Rhyme maneuvered the chair into the tiny elevator that took him down to the first floor of the Central Park West town house.
    Once there, he steered into the parlor, which bore no resemblance to the Victorian sitting room it had once been. The place was now a forensic lab that would rival those in a medium-size town anywhere in America. Computers, microscopes, chemicals, petri dishes, beakers, pipettes, shelves containing books and supplies. Not a square inch was unoccupied, except for the examination tables. Wires like sleeping snakes lay everywhere.
    Sellitto clomped down the stairs, finishing the bagel—either his or Rhyme’s.
    “I better track down Amelia,”