Twisted

for the next case.
    Dennis then gave a long speech, rambling on about the significance of blank messages—about how what is unsaid can often be a lot worse than what’s said. “A message like that, or a nonmessage, I should say, would definitely justify killing your wife and her lover. Don’t you agree, Your Honor?”
    It was at that point that the judge had Dennis escorted out of the courtroom and ruled from the bench that he be indefinitely committed to the Westchester County Maximum Security Facility for the Criminally Insane.
    “You’re not fooling anyone!” Dennis screamed to his tearful wife as she sat in the back of the courthouse. The two bailiffs muscled him through the door and his frantic shouts echoed through the courthouse for what seemed like an eternity.

    It was eight months later that the orderly supervising the game room at the mental hospital happened to see in the local newspaper a short notice that Dennis’s ex-wife was remarrying—an investment banker named Sid Farnsworth.
    The article mentioned that the couple were going to honeymoon in San Francisco, which was “my favorite city,” Mary was quoted as saying. “Sid and I had our first real date here.”
    The orderly thought about mentioning the story to Dennis but then decided it might upset him. Besides,the patient was, as usual, completely lost in one of his projects and wouldn’t want to be disturbed. Dennis spent most of his time these days sitting at a crafts table, making greeting cards out of red construction paper. He’d give them to the orderly and ask him to mail them. The man never did, of course; patients weren’t allowed to send mail from the facility. But the orderly couldn’t have posted them anyway—the cards were always blank. Dennis never wrote any messages inside, and there was never a name or address on the front of the envelope.

T HE C HRISTMAS P RESENT

    “H ow long has she been missing?”
    Stout Lon Sellitto—his diet shot because of the holiday season—shrugged. “That’s sort of the problem.”
    “Go on.”
    “It’s sort of—”
    “You said that already,” Lincoln Rhyme felt obliged to point out to the NYPD detective.
    “About four hours. Close to it.”
    Rhyme didn’t even bother to comment. An adult was not even considered missing until at least twenty-four hours had passed.
    “But there’re circumstances, “ Sellitto added. “You have to know who we’re talking about.”
    They were in an impromptu crime scene laboratory—the living room of Rhyme’s Central Park West town house in Manhattan—but it had been impromptu for years and had more equipment and supplies than most small-town police departments.
    A tasteful evergreen garland had been draped around the windows, and tinsel hung from the scanning electron microscope. Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols played brightly on the stereo. It was Christmas Eve.
    “It’s just, she’s a sweet kid. Carly is, I mean. And here her mother knows she’s coming over but doesn’t call her and tell her she’s leaving or leave a note or anything. Which she always does. Her mom—Susan Thompson’s her name—is totally buttoned up. Very weird for her just to vanish.”
    “She’s getting the girl a Christmas present,” Rhyme said. “Didn’t want to give away the surprise.”
    “But her car’s still in the garage.” Sellitto nodded out the window at the fat confetti of snow that had been falling for several hours. “She’s not going to be walking anywhere in this weather, Linc. And she’s not at any of the neighbors’. Carly checked.”
    Had Rhyme had the use of his body—other than his left ring finger, shoulders and head—he would have given Detective Sellitto an impatient gesture, perhaps a circling of the hand, or two palms skyward. As it was, he relied solely on words. “And how did this not-so-missing-person case all come about, Lon? I detect you’ve been playing Samaritan. You know what they say about good deeds, don’t you? They never go unpunished. . . . Not to mention, it seems to sort of be falling on my shoulders, now, doesn’t it?”
    Sellitto helped himself to another homemade Christmas cookie. It was in the shape of Santa, but the icing face was grotesque. “These’re pretty good. You want one?”
    “No,” Rhyme grumbled. Then his eye strayed to a shelf. “But I’d be more inclined to listen agreeably to your sales pitch with a bit of Christmas cheer.”
    “Of . . . ? Oh. Sure.” He