The Burning Wire

need?”
    I nodded yes.
    “Will you tell me?”
    If I could hold out for fifteen minutes there was a chance local police would get here while I was still alive. I shook my head no.
    Impassive, as if my response were neither good or bad, he set to work.
    Hold out for fifteen minutes, I told myself.
    I gave my first scream thirty seconds later. Another followed shortly after that and from then on every exhalation was a shrill cry. Tears flowed and pain raged like fire throughout my body.
    Thirteen minutes, I reflected. Twelve . . .
    But, though I couldn’t say for certain, probably no more than six or seven passed before I gasped, “Stop, stop!” He did. And I told him exactly what he wanted to know.
    He jotted the information and stood. Keys to the truck dangled in his left hand. In his right was the pistol.He aimed the automatic toward the center of my forehead and what I felt was mostly relief, a terrible relief, that at least the pain would cease.
    The man eased back and squinted slightly in anticipation of the gunshot, and I found myself w—

JEFFERY DEAVER, a former attorney and the New York Times bestselling author internationally hailed as “the best psychological thriller writer around” ( The Times , London), is the originator of the acclaimed detective hero Lincoln Rhyme, featured in The Burning Wire, The Broken Window, The Cold Moon, The Twelfth Card, The Vanished Man, The Stone Monkey, The Empty Chair, The Coffin Dancer , and The Bone Collector —which became a Universal Pictures feature film starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. He featured investigative agent Kathryn Dance in Roadside Crosses and The Sleeping Doll ; and sheriff’s deputy Brynn McKenzie debuted in The Bodies Left Behind , winner of the 2009 Best Novel of the Year award from the International Thriller Writers organization. As William Jefferies, he is the author of Shallow Graves, Bloody River Blues , and Hell’s Kitchen . His short fiction is anthologized in two volumes: Twisted and More Twisted .
    He’s been nominated for six Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America, an Anthony Award, and a Gumshoe Award, and was recently short-listed for the ITV3 Crime Thriller Award for Best International Author. He is a three-time recipient of the Ellery Queen Readers Award for Best Short Story of the Year, and a winner of the British Thumping Good Read Award. He has also won a Steel Dagger for best thriller of the year for Garden of Beasts and a Short Story Dagger from the British Crime Writers’ Association. The Cold Moon won a Grand Prix from the Japanese Adventure Fiction Association and was named Book of the Year by the Mystery Writers Association of Japan.
    Visit www.jefferydeaver.com .

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B Y THE S AME A UTHOR
    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*
    Deave_Edge_3p_jdh.indd 4 5/24/11 10:05 AM
    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 either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to