The Cold Moon

made very good money. But six years ago, she decided to change course once again. With the help of a supportive, tireless husband and her mother and father, who lived in nearby Carmel, she headed back to school once more: the California State Bureau of Investigation training academy in Sacramento.
    Kathryn Dance became a cop.
    The CBI doesn’t break out kinesics as a specialty so Dance was technically just another investigative agent, working homicides, kidnappings, narcotics, terrorism and the like. Still, in law enforcement, talents are spotted early and news of her talent quickly spread. She found herself the resident expert in interview and interrogation (fine with her, since it gave her some bargaining power to trade off undercover and forensic work, which she had little interest in).
    She now glanced at her watch, wondering how long this volunteer mission would take. Her flight wasn’t until the afternoon but she’d have to give herself plenty of time to get to JFK; traffic in the city was horrendous, even worse than the 101 Freeway around San Jose. She couldn’t miss the plane. She was eager to get back to her children, and—funny about caseloads—the files on your desk never seem to disappear when you’re out of the office; they only multiply.
    The cab squealed to a stop.
    Dance squinted out the window. “Is this the right address?”
    “It’s the one you gave me.”
    “It doesn’t look like a police station.”
    He glanced up at the ornate building. “Sure don’t. That’ll be six seventy-five.”

    Yes and no, Dance thought to herself.
    It was a police station and yet it wasn’t.
    Lon Sellitto greeted her in the front hallway. The detective had taken her course in kinesics the day before at One Police Plaza and had just called, asking if she could come by now to give them a hand on a multiple homicide. When he’d telephoned he’d given her the address and she’d assumed it was a precinct house. It happened to be filled with nearly as much forensic equipment as the lab at the Monterey CBI headquarters but was, nonetheless, a private home.
    And it was owned by Lincoln Rhyme, no less.
    Another fact Sellitto had neglected to mention.
    Dance had heard of Rhyme, of course—many law enforcers knew of the brilliant quadriplegic forensic detective—but wasn’t aware of the details of his life or his role in the NYPD. The fact he was disabled soon failed to register; unless she was studying body language intentionally, Kathryn Dance tended to pay most attention to people’s eyes. Besides, one of her colleagues in the CBI was a paraplegic and she was accustomed to people in wheelchairs.
    Sellitto now introduced her to Rhyme and a tall, intense police detective named Amelia Sachs. Dance noted at once that they were more than professional partners. No great kinesic deductions were necessary to make this connection; when she walked in, Sachs had her fingers entwined with Rhyme’s and was whispering something to him with a smile.
    Sachs greeted her warmly and Sellitto introduced her to several other officers.
    Dance was aware of a tinny sound coming from over her shoulder—earbuds dangling behind her. She laughed and shut off her iPod, which she carried with her like a life-support system.
    Sellitto and Sachs told her about the homicide case they needed some help on—a case that Rhyme seemed to be in charge of, though he was a civilian.
    Rhyme didn’t participate much in the discussion. His eyes continually returned to a large whiteboard, on which were notations of the evidence. The other officers were giving her details of the case, though she couldn’t help but observe Rhyme—the way he squinted at the board, would mutter something under his breath and shake his head, as if chastising himself for missing something. Occasionally his eyes would close. Once or twice he offered a comment about the case but he largely ignored Dance.
    She was amused. The agent was used to skepticism. Most often it arose because she simply didn’t look like a typical cop, this five-foot-five woman with dark blond hair worn usually, as now, in a tight French braid, light purple lipstick, iPod earbuds dangling, the gold and abalone jewelry her mother had made, not to mention her passion—quirky shoes (chasing perps didn’t usually figure in Dance’s daily life as a cop).
    Now, though, she suspected she understood Lincoln Rhyme’s lack of interest. Like many forensic scientists, he wouldn’t put much stock in