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"Will do."
The doorbell rang. Everybody was on edge with the main perp and accomplice still unaccounted for and they looked at the doorway cautiously. Sellitto had answered the bell and he stepped into the lab with an African-American boy, midteens, tall, wearing calf-length shorts and a Knicks jersey. He was carrying a heavy shopping bag. He blinked in surprise at the sight of Lincoln Rhyme--and then at everything else in the room.
"Yo, yo, Geneva. What happenin'?"
She looked at him with a frown.
"Yo, I'm Rudy." He laughed. "You ain't remember me."
Geneva nodded. "Yeah. I think so. You're--"
"Ronelle's brother."
The girl said to Rhyme, "A girl in my class."
"How'd you know I was here?"
"Word up. Ronee hear it from somebody."
"Keesh probably. I told her," Geneva said to Rhyme.
The boy looked around the lab again then back to Geneva. "Yo, what it is, some of the girls got some shit together for you. You know, you ain't be in school and all so they thought you might want something to read. I say, damn, give the girl a Game-Boy, but they said, no, she like books. So they got it up for you with these."
"Really?"
"Word. Ain't no homework or nothing like that. Shit you can read for the fun of it."
"Who?"
"Ronelle, some other girls, don't know. Here. Weigh a ton."
"Well, thanks."
She took the bag.
"Girls tell me, say ever'thing gonna be cool."
Geneva gave a sour laugh and thanked him again, told him to say hello to the other kids in her class. The boy left. Geneva glanced down into the bag. She lifted out a book by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Geneva gave another laugh. "Don't know what they're thinking of. I read this, must be seven years ago." She dropped it back in the bag. "Anyway, it was nice of them."
"And useful," Thom said pointedly. "Not much here for you to read, I'm afraid." A sour glance at Rhyme. "I keep working on him. Music. He listens to music a lot now. Even threatens to write some tunes himself. But reading fiction? We haven't gotten that far yet."
Geneva gave him an amused smile and she took the heavy bag and walked toward the hallway as Rhyme said, "Thank you for airing laundry, Thom. In any case, now Geneva can read to her heart's content, which I'm sure she'd rather do than listening to your tedious editorializing. And as for my leisure time? I guess I don't have much of it, you know, trying to catch killers and all." His eyes returned to the evidence charts.
THOMPSON BOYD'S RESIDENCE AND PRIMARY SAFE HOUSE
* More falafel and yogurt, orange paint trace, as before.
* Cash (fee for job?) $100,000 in new bills. Untraceable. Probably withdrawn in small amounts over time.
* Weapons (guns, billy club, rope) traced to prior crime scenes.
* Acid and cyanide traced to prior crime scenes, no links to manufacturers.
* No cell phone found. Other telephone records not helpful.
* Tools traced to prior crime scenes.
* Letter revealing that G. Settle was targeted because she was a witness to a jewelry heist in the planning. More pure carbon--identified as diamond dust trace.
