The Twelfth Card

tick-tock?”
    “Yup. The first one was next to the pool of blood on the pier. The other was next to Adams’s head. It was like the doer wanted them to see it. And, I guess, hear it.”
    “Describe them. The clocks.”
    “Looked old-fashioned. That’s all I know.”
    “Not a bomb?” Nowadays—in the time of the After—every item of evidence that ticked was routinely checked for explosives.
    “Nope. Won’t go bang. But the squad sent ’em up to Rodman’s Neck to check for bio or chemical agents. Same brand of clock, looks like. Spooky, one of the respondings said. Has this face of a moon on it. Oh, and just in case we were slow, he left a note, under the clocks. Computer printout. No handwriting.”
    “And they said . . . ?”
    Sellitto glanced down at his notes, not relying on memory. Rhyme appreciated this in the detective. He wasn’t brilliant but he was a bulldog and did everything slowly and with perfection. He read, “ ‘The full Cold Moon is in the sky, shining on the corpse of earth, signifying the hour to die and end the journey begun at birth.’ ” He looked up at Rhyme. “It was signed ‘The Watchmaker.’ ”
    Rhyme raised an eyebrow. “We’ve got two vics and alunar motif.” Often, an astronomical reference meant that the killer was planning to strike multiple times. “He’s got more on the agenda.”
    “Hey, why d’you think I’m here, Linc?”
    Rhyme glanced at the beginning of his missive to the Times. He closed his word processing program. The essay about Before and After would have to wait.

A LSO BY J EFFERY D EAVER
    Carte Blanche
    Edge
    The Burning Wire*
    Best American Mystery Stories 2009 (Editor)
    The Watch List ( The Copper Bracelet and
    The Chopin Manuscript ) (Contributor)
    Roadside Crosses**
    The Bodies Left Behind
    The Broken Window*
    The Sleeping Doll**
    More Twisted: Collected Stories, Volume Two
    The Cold Moon*/**
    The Twelfth Card*
    Garden of Beasts
    Twisted: Collected Stories
    The Vanished Man*
    The Stone Monkey*
    The Blue Nowhere
    The Empty Chair*
    Speaking in Tongues
    The Devil’s Teardrop
    The Coffin Dancer*
    The Bone Collector*
    A Maiden’s Grave
    Praying for Sleep
    The Lesson of Her Death
    Mistress of Justice
    Hard News
    Death of a Blue Movie Star
    Manhattan Is My Beat
    Hell’s Kitchen
    Bloody River Blues
    Shallow Graves
    A Century of Great Suspense Stories (Editor)
    A Hot and Sultry Night for Crime (Editor)
    Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (Introduction)
    *Featuring Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs
    **Featuring Kathryn Dance



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    This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
    Copyright © 2005 by Jeffery Deaver
    Originally published in hardcover in 2005
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    ISBN-13: 978-0-7434-9156-3
    ISBN-10:         0-7434-9156-4
    This Simon & Schuster premium edition May 2006
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