The Broken Window

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.”
    “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.”

A CKNOWLEDGMENTS
    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.

ROADSIDE CROSSES
    JEFFERY DEAVER
    Coming in June 2009 in hardcover from Simon & Schuster
    Turn the page for a preview of Roadside Crosses. . . .

MONDAY

    Chapter 1
    Out of place.
    The California Highway Patrol trooper, young with bristly yellow hair beneath his crisp hat, squinted through the windshield of his Crown Victoria Police Interceptor as he cruised south along Highway 1 in Monterey. Dunes to the right, modest commercial sprawl to the left.
    Something was out of place. What?
    Heading home at 5:00 p.m. after his tour had ended, he surveyed the road. The trooper didn’t write a lot of tickets here, leaving that to the county deputies—professional courtesy—but he occasionally lit up somebody in a German or Italian car if he was in a mood, and this was the route he often took home at this time of day, so he knew the highway pretty well.
    There . . . that was it. Something colorful, a quarter mile ahead, sat by the side of the road, sitting at thebase of one of the hills of sand that cut off the view of Monterey Bay.
    What could it be?
    He hit his light bar—protocol—and pulled over onto the right shoulder. He parked with the hood of the Crown Vic pointed leftward toward traffic, so a rear-ender would shove the car away from, not over, him, and climbed out. Stuck in the sand just beyond the shoulder was a cross—a roadside memorial. It was about eighteen inches high and homemade, cobbled together out of dark, broken-off branches, bound with wire like florists use. Dark red roses lay in a splashy bouquet at the base. A cardboard disk was in the center, the date of the accident written on it in blue ink. There were no names on the front or back.
    Officially these memorials to traffic accident victims were discouraged, since people were occasionally injured, even killed, planting a cross or leaving flowers or stuffed animals.
    Usually the memorials were tasteful and poignant. This one was spooky.
    What was odd, though, was that he couldn’t remember any accidents along here. In fact this was one of the safest stretches of Highway 1 in California. The roadway becomes an