The Stone Monkey

the game and set it up on the table near where Rhyme was parked. She glanced at his eyes, which were examining the grid of the board, and said, “I think I’m being hustled, Rhyme. You’ve played this before.”
    “Sonny and I played a few games,” he said casually.
    “How few?”
    “Three is all. I’m hardly an expert, Sachs.”
    “How’d you do?”
    The criminalist said defensively, “It takes a while to get the feel for a game.”
    “You lost,” she said. “All of them.”
    “But the last one was close.”
    She looked over the board. “What’ll we play for?”
    With a cryptic smile Rhyme replied, “We’ll think ofsomething.” Then he explained the rules and she leaned forward, raptly taking in his words. Finally he said, “That’s it . . . .Now, you’ve never played so you get an advantage. You can make the first move.”
    “No,” Sachs answered. “No advantages. We’ll flip a coin.”
    “It’s customary,” Rhyme assured her. “No advantage,” Sachs repeated. Then dug a quarter out of her pocket. “Call it,” she said.
    And tossed the coin into the air.

Acknowledgments
    My thanks to Kim Arthur and the folks at Invacare and to Cheryl Lehman for their extremely helpful insights on care of and equipment available for spinal cord injury patients. And, as always, to Madelyn.

JEFFERY DEAVER , a former attorney and the New York Times bestselling author internationally hailed as “the best psychological thriller writer around” ( The Times, London), has most recently added to his myriad literary achievements as the author of the new James Bond novel, Carte Blanche. He has featured his acclaimed detective hero Lincoln Rhyme in nine hit novels including The Bone Collector —which became a Universal Pictures feature film starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. A six-time Edgar Award nominee, Deaver’s numerous stand-alone novels include the “ingenious” ( Library Journal ) page-turner Edge; The Devil’s Teardrop, which became a Lifetime Television movie; and The Bodies Left Behind, winner of the 2009 Best Novel of the Year award from the International Thriller Writers organization.
    Visit www.jefferydeaver.com .
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    COVER DESIGN BY RICHARD YOO • MONKEY SYMBOL BY BEN PERINI
    AUTHOR PHOTOGRAPH BY JERRY BAUER

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 either 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 © 2003 by Jeffery Deaver
    Originally published in hardcover in 2003
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