The Twelfth Card

waiting for her when she returned.
    “She’s the best employee we’ve got,” the man said over the speakerphone. “A teenager who’s more responsible than somebody twice that age. You don’t see that very often.”
    Rhyme and Geneva shared a smile and he disconnected the call.
    It was then that the doorbell rang. Bell and Sachs immediately grew vigilant, their hands slipping toward their weapons. Sellitto, Rhyme noted, still looked spooked, and though he glanced down at his weapon, he didn’t reach for it. His fingers remainedon his cheek, rubbing gently, as if the gesture could conjure up a genie to calm his troubled heart.
    Thom appeared in the doorway. He said to Bell, “There’s a Mrs. Barton here, from the school. She’s brought a copy of some security video.”
    The girl shook her head in dismay. “No,” she whispered.
    “Send her in,” Rhyme said.
    A large African-American woman walked in, wearing a purple dress. Bell introduced her. She nodded to everyone and, like most of the counselors Rhyme himself had met, had no reaction to his disabled condition. She said, “Hello, Geneva.”
    The girl nodded. Her face was a still mask. Rhyme could tell she was thinking about the threat this woman represented to her: rural Alabama or a foster home.
    Barton continued, “How’re you doing?”
    “Okay, fine, thank you,” the girl said with a deference that wasn’t typical of her.
    “This’s got to be tough on you,” the woman said.
    “I’ve been better.” Geneva now tried a laugh. It sounded flat. She glanced at the woman once and then looked away.
    Barton said, “I spoke to maybe a dozen or so people about that man near the school yard yesterday. Only two or three remember seeing anybody. They couldn’t describe him, except he was of color, wore a green combat jacket and old work shoes.”
    “That’s new,” Rhyme said. “The shoes.” Thom wrote this on the board.
    “And here’s the tape from our security department.” She handed a VHS cassette to Cooper, who played it.
    Rhyme wheeled close to the screen and felt his neck straining with the tension as he studied the images.
    It wasn’t much help. The camera was aimed mostly at the school yard, not the surrounding sidewalks and streets. In the periphery it was possible to see some vague images of passersby, but nothing distinctive. Without much hope that they’d pick up anything, Rhyme ordered Cooper to send the cassette off to the lab in Queens to see if it could be digitally enhanced. The tech filled out the chain-of-custody card and packed it up, called for a pickup.
    Bell thanked the woman for her help.
    “Anything we can do.” She paused and looked the girl over. “But I really do need to talk to your parents, Geneva.”
    “My parents?”
    She nodded slowly. “I have to say—I’ve been talking to some of the students and teachers, and to be honest, most of them say your folks haven’t been very involved in your classes. In fact, I haven’t found anybody who’s actually met them.”
    “My grades’re fine.”
    “Oh, I know that. We’re real happy with your academic work, Geneva. But school’s about children and parents working together. I’d really like to talk to them. What’s their cell number?”
    The girl froze.
    A dense silence.
    Which Lincoln Rhyme finally broke. “I’ll tell you the truth.”
    Geneva looked down. Her fists were clenched.
    Rhyme said to Barton, “I just got off the phone with her father.”
    Everyone else in the room turned and stared at him.
    “Are they back home?”
    “No, and they won’t be for a while.”
    “No?”
    “I asked them not to come.”
    “You did? Why?” The woman frowned.
    “It’s my decision. I did it to keep Geneva safe. As Roland Bell here will tell you”—a glance at the Carolina detective, who nodded, a fairly credible gesture, considering he had no clue what was going on—“when we set up protection details, sometimes we have to separate the people we’re guarding from their families.”
    “I didn’t know that.”
    “Otherwise,” Rhyme continued, vamping, “the attacker could use their relatives to draw them into public.”
    Barton nodded. “Makes sense.”
    “What’s it called, Roland?” Rhyme glanced at the detective again. And filled in the answer himself, “Isolation of Dependents, right?”
    “IOD,” Bell said, nodding. “What we call it. Very important technique.”
    “Well, I’m glad to know that,” the counselor said. “But your