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  That’s my father. Taking offence on behalf of others. Feeling free to continually offend his own.

  There’s no relief in my life. No relief. I can’t offer you any. It’s one thing to read about a life like mine. It’s another thing to live it . . . every relentless day. Why don’t I change my occupation? Just shake off this life leeching away at my being. I could easily shut down my nursing home. I’d save on the nurse’s wages and the monthly packet of bribes I have to pass on to all those poor Municipal officials. Afsana would start fulfilling her wife’s role willingly. And all this pain, rage, and congestion of unborn-baby voices in my head would be out from my system. But people like me, rational, responsible, sane, level-headed, careful, thinking, always thinking, can never take such rash steps.

  I’d need a careless fuck-you attitude towards everything around me, including my own body, to throw away everything I have. Or else a greedy, gigantic embrace of everything life has to offer and spend my time doing, getting, doing, getting, getting, getting, getting . . .

  No, people like me get the rawest of deals. We do our jobs. Live moderate, upright lives. Don’t drink. Don’t stone ourselves on bits of paper dipped in hallucinogenic acids. Have no burning ambitions.

  People like me preserve our minds and bodies by living tepid, languid lives. Just to end up as cold, brittle artefacts. Like life-sized cut-outs pinned to the floor by the worst of memories. And like ink from a leaking pen, we let the past blot our shining futures. Continually.

  The Christmas Present

  Jeffery Deaver

  “How 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 walked across the lab, found the bottle of Macallan and poured a healthy dose into a tumbler. The detective inserted a straw and mounted the cup in the holder on Rhyme’s chair.

  Rhyme sipped the liquor. Ah, heaven . . . His aide, Thom, and the criminalist’s partner, Amelia Sachs, were out shopping; if they’d been here Rhyme’s beverage might have been tasty but, given the hour, would undoubtedly have been non-alcoholic.

  “All right. Here’s the story. Rachel’s a friend of Susan and her daughter.”

  So it was a friend-of-the-family good deed. Rachel was Sellitto’s girlfriend. Rhyme said, “The daughter being Carly. See, I was listening, Lon. Go on.”

  “Carly—”

  “Who’s how old?”

  “Nineteen. Student at NYU. Business major. She’s going with this guy from Garden City—”

  “Is any of this relevant, other than her age? Which I’m not even sure is relevant.”

  “Tell me, Linc: You always in this good a mood during the holidays?”

  Another sip of the liquor. “Keep going.”

  “Susan’s divorced, works for a PR firm downtown. Lives in the burbs, Nassau County—”

  “Nassau? Nassau? Hmm, would they sort of be the right constabulary to handle the matter? You understand how that works, right? That course on jurisdiction at the Academy?”

  Sellitto had worked with Lincoln Rhyme for years and was quite talented at deflecting the criminalist’s feistiness. He ignored the comment and continued. “She takes a couple days off to get the house ready for the holidays. Rachel tells me she and her daughter have a teenage thing – you know, going through a rough time, the two of them. But Susan’s trying. She wants to make everything nice for the girl, throw a big party on Christmas Day. Anyway, Carly’s living in an apartment in the Village near her school. Last night she tells her mom she’ll come by this morning, drop off some things and then’s going to her boyfriend’s. Susan says good, they’ll have coffee, yadda yadda . . . Only when Carly gets there, Susan’s gone. And her—”

  “Car’s still in the garage.”

  “Exactly. So Carly waits for a while. Susan doesn’t come back. She calls the local boys but they’re not going to do anything for twenty-four hours, at least. So, Carly thinks of me – I’m the only cop she knows – and calls Rachel.”

  “We can’t do good deeds for everybody. Just because ’tis the season.”

  “Let’s give the kid a Christmas present, Linc. Ask a few questions, look around the house.”

  Rhyme’s expression was scowly but in fact he was intrigued. How he hated boredom . . . And, yes, he was often in a bad mood during the holidays – because there was invariably a lull in the stimulating cases that the NYPD or the FBI would hire him to consult on as a forensic scientist, or “criminalist” as the jargon termed it.

  “So . . . Carly’s upset. You understand.”

  Rhyme shrugged, one of the few gestures allowed to him after the accident at a crime scene some years ago had left him a quadriplegic. Rhyme moved his one working finger on the touch pad and maneuvered the chair to face Sellitto. “Her mother’s probably home by now. But, if you really want, let’s call the girl. I’ll get a few facts, see what I think. What can it hurt?”

  “That’s great, Linc. Hold on.” The large detective walked to the door and opened it.

  “What was this?”

  In walked a teenage girl, looking around shyly.

  “Oh, Mr Rhyme, hi. I’m Carly Thompson. Thanks so much for seeing me.”

  “Ah, you’ve been waiting outside,” Rhyme said and offered the detective an acerbic glance. “If my friend Lon here had shared that fact with me, I’d’ve invited you in for a cup of tea.”

  “Oh, that’s okay. Nothing for me.”

  Sellitto lifted a cheerful eyebrow and found a chair for the girl.

  She had long
, blonde hair and an athletic figure and her round face bore little makeup. She was dressed in MTV chic – flared jeans and a black jacket, chunky boots. To Rhyme the most remarkable thing about her, though, was her expression: Carly gave no reaction whatsoever to his disability. Some people grew tongue-tied, some chatted mindlessly, some locked their eyes on to his and grew frantic – as if a glance at his body would be the faux pas of the century. Each of those reactions pissed him off in its own way.

  She smiled. “I like the decoration.”

  “I’m sorry?” Rhyme asked.

  “The garland on the back of your chair.”

  The criminalist swiveled but couldn’t see anything.

  “There’s a garland there?” he asked Sellitto.

  “Yeah, you didn’t know? And a red ribbon.”

  “That must have been courtesy of my aide,” Rhyme grumbled. “Soon to be ex, if he tries that again.”

  Carly said, “I wouldn’t’ve bothered Mr Sellitto or you. . . . I wouldn’t have bothered anyone but it’s just so weird, Mom disappearing like this. She’s never done that before.”

  Rhyme said, “Ninety-nine percent of the time there’s just been a mix-up of some kind. No crime at all . . . And only four hours?” Another glance at Sellitto. “That’s nothing.”

  “Except, with Mom, whatever else, she’s dependable.”

  “When did you talk to her last?”

  “It was about eight last night, I guess. She’s having this party tomorrow and we were making plans for it. I was going to come over this morning and she was going to give me a shopping list and some money and Jake – that’s my boyfriend – and I were going to go shopping and hang out.”

  “Maybe she couldn’t get through on your cell,” Rhyme suggested. “Where was your friend? Could she have left a message at his place?”

  “Jake’s? No, I just talked to him on my way here.” Carly gave a rueful smile. “She likes Jake okay, you know.” She played nervously with her long hair, twining it around her fingers. “But they’re not the best of friends. He’s . . .” The girl decided not to go into the details of the disapproval. “Anyway, she wouldn’t call his house. His dad’s . . . difficult.”

  “And she took today off from work?”

  “That’s right.”

  The door opened and Rhyme heard Amelia Sachs and Thom enter, the crinkle of paper from the shopping bags.

  The tall woman, dressed in jeans and a bomber jacket, stepped into the doorway. Her red hair and shoulders dusted with snow. She smiled at Rhyme and Sellitto. “Merry Christmas and all that.”

  Thom headed down the hall with the bags.

  “Ah, Sachs, come on in here. It seems Detective Sellitto has volunteered our services. Amelia Sachs, Carly Thompson.”

  The women shook hands.

  Sellitto asked, “You want a cookie?”

  Carly demurred. Sachs too shook her head. “I decorated ’em, Lon – yeah, Santa looks like Boris Karloff, I know. If I never see another cookie again it’ll be too soon.”

  Thom appeared in the door, introduced himself to Carly and then walked toward the kitchen, from which Rhyme knew refreshments were about to appear. Unlike Rhyme, his aide loved the holidays, largely because they gave him the chance to play host nearly every day.

  As Sachs pulled off her jacket and hung it up, Rhyme explained the situation and what the girl had told them so far.

  The policewoman nodded, taking it in. She reiterated that a person’s missing for such a short time was no cause for alarm. But they’d be happy to help a friend of Lon’s and Rachel’s.

  “Indeed we will,” Rhyme said with an irony that everyone except Sachs missed.

  No good deed goes unpunished . . . .

  Carry continued. “I got there about eight-thirty this morning. She wasn’t home. The car was in the garage. I checked all the neighbors’. She wasn’t there and nobody’s seen her.”

  “Could she have left the night before?” Sellitto asked.

  “No. She’d made coffee this morning. The pot was still warm.”

  Rhyme said, “Maybe something came up at work and she didn’t want to drive to the station, so she took a cab.”

  Carly shrugged. “Could be. I didn’t think about that. She’s in public relations and’s been working real hard lately. For one of those big Internet companies that went bankrupt. It’s been totally tense. . . . But I don’t know. We didn’t talk very much about her job.”

  Sellitto had a young detective downtown call all the cab companies in and around Glen Hollow; no taxis had been dispatched to the house that morning. They also called Susan’s company to see if she’d come in, but no one had seen her and her office was locked.

  Just then, as Rhyme had predicted, his slim aide, wearing a white shirt and a Jerry Garcia Christmas tie, carted in a large tray of coffee and tea and a huge plate of pastries and cookies. He poured drinks for everyone.

  “No figgy pudding?” Rhyme asked acerbically.

  Sachs asked Carly, “Has your mom been sad or moody?”

  Thinking for a minute, she said, “Well, my grandfather – her dad – died last February. Grandpa was a great guy and she was totally bummed for a while. But by the summer, she’d come out of it. She bought this really cool house and had a lot of fun fixing it up.”

  “How about other people in her life, friends, boyfriends?”

  “She’s got some good friends, sure.”

  “Names, phone numbers?”

  Again the girl fell quiet. “I know some of their names. Not exactly where they live. I don’t have any numbers.”

  “Anybody she was seeing romantically?”

  “She broke up with somebody about a month ago.”

  Sellitto asked, “Was this guy a problem, you think? A stalker? Upset about the breakup?”

  The girl replied, “No, I think it was his idea. Anyway, he lived in L. A. or Seattle or some place out west. So it wasn’t, you know, real serious. She just started seeing this new guy. About two weeks ago.” Carly looked from Sachs to the floor. “The thing is, I love Mom and everything. But we’re not real close. My folks were divorced seven, eight years ago, and that kind of changed a lot of things. . . . Sorry I don’t know more about her.”

  Ah, the wonderful family unit, thought Rhyme cynically. It was what made Park Avenue shrinks millionaires and kept police departments around the world busy answering calls at all hours of the day and night.

  “You’re doing fine,” Sachs encouraged. “Where’s your father?”

  “He lives in the city. Downtown.”

  “Do he and your mother see each other much?”

  “Not anymore. He wanted to get back together but Mom was lukewarm and I think he gave up.”

  “Do you see him much?”

  “I do, yeah. But he travels a lot. His company imports stuff, and he goes overseas to meet his suppliers.”

  “Is he in town now?”

  “Yep. I’m going to see him on Christmas, after Mom’s party.”

  “We should call him. See if he’s heard from her,” Sachs said.

  Rhyme nodded and Carly gave them the man’s number. Rhyme said, “I’ll get in touch with him. . . . Okay, get going, Sachs. Over to Susan’s house. Carly, you go with her. Move fast.”

  “Sure, Rhyme. But what’s the hurry?”

  He glanced out the window, as if the answer were hovering there in plain view.

  Sachs shook her head, perplexed. Rhyme was often piqued that people didn’t tumble to things as quickly as he did. “Because the snow might tell us something about what happened there this morning.” And, as he often liked to do, he added a dramatic coda: “But if it keeps coming down like this, there won’t be any story left to read.”

  A half-hour later Amelia Sachs pulled up on a quiet, tree lined street in Glen Hollow, Long Island, parking the bright red Camaro three doors from Susan Thompson’s house.

  “No, it’s up there,” Carly pointed out.

  “Here’s better,” Sachs said
. Rhyme had drummed into her that access routes to and from the site of the crime could be crime scenes in their own right and could yield valuable information. She was ever-mindful about contaminating scenes.

  Carly grimaced when she noticed that the car was still in the garage.

  “I’d hoped . . .”

  Sachs looked at the girl’s face and saw raw concern. The policewoman understood: Mother and daughter had a tough relationship that was obvious. But you never cut parental ties altogether – can’t be done – and there’s nothing like a missing mother to set off primal alarms.

  “We’ll find her,” Sachs whispered.

  Carly gave a faint smile and pulled her jacket tighter around her. It was stylish and obviously expensive but useless against the cold. Sachs had been a fashion model for a time but when not on the runway or at a shoot she’d dressed like a real person, to hell with what was in vogue.

  Sachs looked over the house, a new, rambling two-story Colonial on a small but well-groomed lot, and called Rhyme. On a real case she’d be patched through to him on her Motorola. Since this wasn’t official business, though, she simply used her hands-free cord and cell phone, which was clipped to her belt a few inches away from her Glock automatic pistol.

  “I’m at the house,” she told him. “What’s that music?”

  After a moment “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” went silent.

  “Sorry. Thom insists on being in the spirit. What do you see, Sachs?”

  She explained where she was and the layout of the place. “The snow’s not too bad here but you’re right: in another hour it’ll cover up any prints.”

  “Stay off the walks and check out if there’s been any surveillance.”

  “Got it.”

  Sachs asked Carly what prints were hers. The girl explained that she had parked in front of the garage – Sachs could see the tread marks in the snow – and then had gone through the kitchen door.

  Carly behind her, Sachs made a circuit of the property.

  “Nothing in the back or side yard, except for Carly’s footprints,” she told Rhyme.

  “There are no visible prints, you mean,” he corrected. “That’s not necessarily ‘nothing.’ ”