Jeffery Deaver

“Deaver is at his best here, slowly revealing layer after layer of a twisting and turning plot and building in suspicion and tension very carefully, so that eventually there seems to be something suspicious about each character. ”
– Booklist

“Thriller readers can always count on getting extra value from Jeffery Deaver –strong plots, fascinating research, believable characters, and plenty of surprise endings.”
– Amazon.com

“The Devil’s Teardrop has a tight plot, interesting characters, and an unexpected conclusion”
– Library Journal

Narrated by Richard Perry Turner. Listen to an excerpt.

She came here to lay flowers at the place where the boy died and the girl was kidnapped.

She came here because she was a heavy girl and had a pocked face and not many friends.

She came because she was expected to.

She came because she wanted to.

Ungainly and sweating, twenty-six-year-old Lydia Johansson walked along the dirt shoulder of Route 112, where she’d parked her Honda Accord, then stepped carefully down the hill to the muddy bank where Blackwater Canal met the opaque Paquenoke River.

She came because she thought it was the right thing to do.

She came even though she was afraid.

It wasn’t long after dawn but this August had been the hottest in years in North Carolina and Lydia was already sweating through her nurse’s whites by the time she started toward the clearing on the riverbank, surrounded by willows and tupelo gum and broad-leafed bay trees. She easily found the place she was looking for; the yellow police tape was very evident through the haze.

Early morning sounds. Loons, an animal foraging in the copious brush nearby, hot wind through sedge and swamp grass.

Lord, I’m scared, she thought. Flashing back vividly on the most gruesome scenes from the Stephen King and Dean Koontz novels she had read late at night with her companion, a pint of Ben & Jerry’s. Those sorts of books made her boyfriend laugh but they spooked Lydia every time she read them, even when she’d read them before and knew the ending.

More noises in the brush. She hesitated, looked around. Then continued on.

“Hey,” a man’s voice said. Very near.

Lydia gasped and spun around. Nearly dropped the flowers. “Jesse, you scared me.”

“Sorry.” Jesse Corn stood on the other side of a weeping willow, near the clearing that was roped off. Lydia noticed that their eyes were fixed on the same thing: a glistening white outline on the ground where the boy’s body’d been found. She could see a dark stain that, as a nurse, she recognized immediately as old blood.

“So that’s where it happened,” she whispered.

“It is, yep.” Jesse wiped his forehead and rearranged the floppy comma of blond hair. His uniform — the beige outfit of the Paquenoke County Sheriff’s Department — was wrinkled and dusty. Dark stains of sweat blossomed under his arms.  He was thirty and boyishly cute and, though he wasn’t the lanky, unsmiling cowboy type that appealed to her, she thought now, as she often did, that you could do worse in the husband department.

“How long you been here?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Since five maybe.”

“I saw another car. Up the road.” Lydia asked, “Is that Jim?”

“Nope. Ed Schaeffer. He’s on the other side of the river.”

Jesse nodded at the flowers. “Those’re pretty.”

After a moment Lydia looked down at the daisies in her hand. “Two forty-nine. At Food Lion. Got ’em last night. I knew nothing’d be open this early. Well, Dell’s is but they don’t sell flowers.” She wondered why she was rambling. She looked around again.  “No where Mary Beth is?”

Jesse shook his head. “Not hide nor hair.”

“Him neither, I guess that means.”

“Him neither.” Jesse looked at his watch. Then out over the dark water, dense reeds and concealing grass, the rotting pier.

Lydia didn’t like it that a county deputy, sporting a large pistol, seemed as nervous as she was. Jesse started up the grassy hill to the highway. He paused. “Only two ninety-nine?”

“Forty-nine. Food Lion.”

“That’s a bargain,” the young cop said, squinting toward a thick sea of grass. He started up the hill again. “I’ll be up by the patrol car.”

Lydia Johansson walked closer to the crime scene. She prayed for a few minutes. She prayed for the soul of Billy Stail, which had been released from his bloody body on this very spot just yesterday morning.

For the soul of Mary Beth McConnell, wherever it might be.

For herself too.

More noise in the brush. Snapping, rustling.

The day was lighter now but the sun didn’t do much to brighten up Blackwater Landing. The river was deep here and fringed with messy black willows and thick trunks of cedar and cypress — some living, some not, and all choked with moss and viney kudzu. To the northeast, not far, was the Great Dismal Swamp, and Lydia Johansson, like every Girl Scout past and present in Paquenoke County, knew all the legends about that place: the Lady of the Lake, the Headless Trainman. . . . But it wasn’t those apparitions that bothered her; Blackwater Landing had its own ghost — the boy who’d kidnapped Mary Beth McConnell.

Lydia couldn’t stop thinking about all the stories she’d heard about him. How he’d roam silently through the marshes and woods here, pale and skinny as a reed. How he’d sneak up on lovers lying on blankets or parked along the river. How he’d slip into the side yard of some house along Canal Road and ease up to a girl’s window after she’d gone to sleep. Peer in at her, rubbing his hands like a white-faced Carolina mantis, stare until he couldn’t stand it anymore then reach through a hole he’d cut in the screen to snake a hand up inside her pajamas. Or just crouch on the shoulder of the road in front of a house in Blackwater Landing and look through the windows, hoping to catch of glimpse of a girl he’d been stalking after school.

Lydia opened her purse, found a package of Merits and lit a cigarette with shaking hands. Felt a bit calmer. She strolled along the shore. Stopped beside a stand of tall grass and cattails, which bent in the scorching breeze.

On top of the hill she heard a car engine. Jesse wasn’t leaving, was he? Lydia looked toward it, alarmed. But saw the car hadn’t moved. Just getting the air conditioning going, she supposed. When she looked back toward the water she noticed the sedge and cattails and wild rice plants were still bending, waving, rustling.

As if someone was there, moving closer to the yellow tape, staying low to the ground.

But no, no, of course that wasn’t the case. It’s just the wind, she told herself. And she reverently set the flowers in the crook of a gnarly black willow not far from the eerie outline of the sprawled body, spattered with blood dark as the river water.

* * *

 

“This new Lincoln Rhyme mystery is as intricate, well written, and enormously satisfying as its predecessors.”
– Booklist

“The Empty Chair is Jeffery Deaver at his best and most devious and is recommended, without reservation, to anyone in search of intelligent, high-adrenaline entertainment.”
– BarnesandNoble.com

“Deaver combines engaging narration, believable characters, and his trademark ability to repeatedly pull the rug out from under the reader’s feet.”
– Amazon.com

“Deaver is still aces”
–  Publishers Weekly

Narrated by Ed Sala. Listen to an excerpt.

Crazy Megan parks the car.

Doesn’t want to do this. No way.

Doesn’t get out, listens to the rain . . .

The engine ticked to silence as she looked down at her clothes. It was her usual outfit: JNCO jeans. A sleeveless white tee under a dark denim work shirt. Combat boots. Wore this all time. But she felt uneasy today, wearing this stuff. Embarrassed, wished she’d worn a skirt at least. The pants were too baggy. The sleeves dangled to the tips of her black-polished fingernails and her socks were orange as tomato soup. Well, what did it matter? The hour’d be over soon.

Maybe he’d concentrate on her good qualities — her wailing blue eyes and blonde hair. Oh, and her boobs too. He was a man.

Anyway the clothes covered up the extra seven…well, all right, ten pounds that she carried on her tall frame.

Stalling. Crazy Megan doesn’t want to be here one bit.

Rubbing her hand over her upper lip, she looked out the rain-spattered window at the lush trees and bushes of suburbia.  This April in Northern Virginia had been like June or July and ghosts of mist rose from the asphalt. It was so deserted here. She’d never noticed that before.

Crazy Megan whispers, Just. Say. No. And leave.

But she couldn’t do that. Mega-hassle.

She took off the wooden peace symbol dangling between her breasts and flung it into the back seat. Megan brushed her hair with her fingers, pulled it away from her face. Her ruddy knuckles seemed big as golf balls. A glance in the rearview mirror. She wiped off the black lipstick, pulled the blonde strands into a ponytail.

Okay, let’s do it. Get it over with.

A jog through the rain. She hit the intercom and a moment later the door latch buzzed.

Megan McCall walked into the waiting room where she’d spent every Saturday morning for the last seven weeks. Ever since The Incident. She kept waiting for the place to become familiar. It never did.

She hated this. The sessions were bad enough but waiting really killed her. Dr. Hanson always kept her waiting. Even if she was on time, even if there were no other patients ahead of her, he always started the session five minutes or so late. It pissed her off but she never said anything about it.

Today though she found the new doctor standing in the doorway, smiling at her, lifting an eyebrow in greeting.

“You’re Megan?” the man said, offering an easy smile. “I’m Bill Peters.” He was about her father’s age, handsome. Full head of hair. Hanson was bald and looked like a shrink. This guy . . . Maybe a little George Clooney, Crazy Megan decides. Her reluctance fades slightly.

And he doesn’t call himself “Doctor.”  Interesting.

“Hi.”

“Come on in.” He gestured. She stepped into the office.

“How’s Dr. Hanson?” she asked, sitting in the chair across from his desk. “Somebody in his family’s sick?”

“His mother. An accident. I hear she’ll be all right. But he had to go to Leesburg for the week.”

“So you’re like a substitute teacher?”

He laughed. “Something like that.”

“I didn’t know shr—therapists took over other patients.”

“Some don’t. Dr. Hanson likes continuity.” He paused, as if he weren’t sure she knew what it meant.

Dr. Peters — Bill Peters — had called yesterday after school to tell her that Hanson had arranged for him to take over his appointments and, if she wanted, she could make her session after all. No way, Crazy Megan had whispered at first. But after she talked with him for a while she decided she’d give it a try. There was something so comforting about his voice. Besides, baldy Hanson wasn’t doing diddly for her. What a loser. All she remembered about the sessions was her lame bitching about school and about being lonely and about Amy and Josh and Brittany, and Hanson nodding and saying she had to be friends with herself. Whatever the hell that meant.

“This’ll be repeating some things,” he said, “but if you don’t mind could we go over some of the basics?

“I guess.”

He asked, “It’s Megan Collier?”

“No, Collier’s my father’s name. I use my mother’s. McCall.” She rocked in the stiff-backed chair, crossing her legs. Her tomato socks showed. She planted her feet squarely on the floor.

“You don’t like therapy, do you?” he asked suddenly.

Hanson had never asked that. Wouldn’t ask anything so blunt. And, unlike this guy, he didn’t look into her eyes when he spoke. Staring right back, she said, “No, I don’t.”

“You know why you’re here?”

Silent as always, Crazy Megan answers first, Because I’m fucked up, I’m dysfunctional. I’m a nut case. I’m psycho. I’m loony. And half the school knows and do you have a fucking clue how hard it is to walk through those halls with everybody looking at you and thinking, Shrink bait, shrink bait. Crazy Megan also mentions what Megan would never in a million years tell him — about the fake computerized picture of Megan in a straightjacket that made the rounds of Jefferson High two weeks ago.

But now Megan merely responded, “‘Cause if I didn’t come to see a therapist they’d send me to juvenile.”

When she’d been found, drunk, strolling along the catwalk of the municipal water tower two months ago she’d been committing a crime. The county police got involved and it turned messy. But finally everybody agreed that if she saw a counselor the commonwealth’s attorney wouldn’t press charges.

“That’s true. But it’s not the answer.”

She lifted an eyebrow.

“The answer is that you’re here so that you can feel better.”

Oh, Please, Crazy Megan begins, rolling her crazy eyes.

And, okay, it was way stupid, the words themselves. But. . . but . . . there was something about the way Dr. Peters said them that, just for a second, less than a second, made Megan believe that he meant it. This guy’s in a different universe from Loser Elbow-Patch Hanson.

He opened his brief case and took out a yellow pad. A brochure fell out onto the desk. She glanced at it. A picture of San Francisco was on the cover.

“Oh, you’re going there?” she asked.

“A conference,” he said, flipping through the brochure. He handed it to her.

“Awesome.”

“I love the city,” he continued. “I’m a former hippie. Dyed-in-the-wool Deadhead and Airplane fan. . . Whole nine yards. Course that was before your time.”

“No way. I’m totally into Janis Joplin and Hendrix.”

“Yeah? You ever been to the Bay area?”

“Not yet. But I’m going someday. Bett doesn’t know it. But I am.”

He squinted. “Hey, you know, there is a resemblance — you and Joplin. If you didn’t have your hair up it’d be the same as hers.”

Megan wished she hadn’t done the cheerleader pert ‘n’ perky ponytail.

The doctor added, “You’re prettier, of course. And thinner. Can you belt out the blues?”

“Uh-uh.”

“But you don’t remember hippies.” He chuckled.

“Hey,” she said enthusiastically, “I’ve seen Woodstock like eight times.”

She also wished she’d kept the peace symbol.

“So tell me, d’you really try to kill yourself? Cross your heart?”

“And hope to die?” she asked coyly.

He smiled.

She said, “No.”

“What happened?”

“Okay, what it is is I was drinking a little Southern Comfort. All right, maybe more than a little.”

“Joplin’s drink,” he said. “Too fucking sweet for me.”

Whoa, the f word. Cool. She was almost, almost beginning to like him.

He glanced again at her hair. The fringes of her face. Then back to her eyes. It was like one of Josh’s caresses. Somewhere within her she felt a tiny ping — of reassurance and pleasure.

Megan continued her story. “And somebody I was with said no way they’d climb up to the top and I said I would and I did. That’s it.”

“All right, so you got nabbed by the cops on some bullshit charge.”

“That’s about it.”

“Not exactly the crime of the century.”

“I didn’t think so either. But they were so . . . you know.”

“I know,” he said. “Now tell me about yourself. Your secret history.”

“Well, my parents are divorced. I live with Bett. She has this business? It’s really a decorating business is all but she says she’s an interior designer ’cause it sounds better. Tate’s got this farm in Prince William. He used to be this famous lawyer but now he just does people’s wills and selling houses and stuff. He hires people to run the farm for him. Sharecroppers. Which sound like slaves, or whatever, but they’re just people he hires.”

“And your relationship with the folks? Is the porridge too hot, too cold or just right?”

“Just right.”

He nodded, made a small notation on his pad though he might’ve been just doodling. Maybe she bored him. Maybe he was writing a grocery list.

Things to buy after my appointment with Crazy Megan.

She told him about growing up, about the deaths of her mother’s parents and her father’s dad, school, her friends. Her Aunt Susan — her mother’s twin sister. “She’s a nice lady, but she’s had a rough time. She’s been sick all her life. And she really really wanted kids but couldn’t have them.”

“Ah,” he said.

None of it felt important to her and she guessed it was even less important to him.

“What about friends?”

Count ’em on one hand, Crazy Megan says.

Shhhh.

“I hang with the Goth crowd mostly,” she told the doctor.

“As in gothic?
”
“Yeah. Only . . . .” She decided she could tell him the truth. “What it is is I kinda stay by myself a lot. I meet people but I end up figuring, why bother? There’re a lot of losers out there.”

“Oh, yeah.” He laughed. “That’s why my business is so good.”

She blinked in surprise. Then smiled too.

“What’s the boyfriend situation?”

“This’ll be short,” she said, laughing ruefully. “I was going with this guy? Joshua? And he was, like, all right, only he was older. And he was black. I mean, he wasn’t a gangsta or anything. His father’s a soldier, like an officer in the Pentagon and his mother’s some big executive. I didn’t have a problem with the race thing. But Dr. Hanson said I was probably involved with him just to make my parents nuts.”

“Were you?”

“I don’t know. I kinda liked him. No, I did like him.”

“But you broke up?”

“Sure. Dr. Hanson said I ought dump him.”

“He said that?”

“Well, not exactly. But I got that impression.”

Crazy Megan thinks Mr. Handsome Shrink, Mr. George Clooney stud, ought to’ve figured this out: How can a psycho nut case like me go out with anybody? If I hadn’t dumped him — which I cried about for two weeks — if I hadn’t left, then everybody at George Mason’d be on his case. ‘He’s the one with the loony girl.’ And then his folks would find out — they’re the nicest people in the universe and totally in love — and they’d be crushed . . . . Well, of course, I had to leave . . .

“Nobody else on the horizon?” he asked.

“Nup.” She shook her head.

“Okay, let’s talk about the family some more. Your mother.”

“Bett and I get along great.” She hesitated. “Only it’s funny about her — she’s into her business but she also believes in all this new age crap. I’m like, just chill, okay? That stuff is so bogus. But she doesn’t hassle me about it. Doesn’t hassle me about anything really. It’s great between us. Really great. The only problem is she’s engaged to a geek.”

“Do you two talk, your mom and you? Chew the fat, as my grandmother used to say.”

“Sure. . . . I mean, she’s busy a lot. But who isn’t, right? Yeah, we talk.” She hoped he didn’t ask her about what. She’d have to make up something.

“And how ’bout dad?”

She shrugged. “He’s nice. He takes me to concerts, shopping. We get along great.”

“Great?”

C.M.— Crazy Megan — chides, Is that the only word you know, bitch? Great, great, great…You sound like a parrot.

“Yeah,” Megan said. “Only . . .”

“Only what?”

“Well, it’s like we don’t have a lot to talk about. He wants me to go windsurfing with him but I went once and it’s a totally superficial way to spend your time. I’d rather read a book or something.”

“You like to read?”

“Yeah, I read a lot.”

“Who’re some of your favorite authors?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Her mind went blank.

Crazy Megan isn’t much help. Yep, he’s gonna think you’re damaged.

Quiet! Megan ordered. She remembered the last book she’d read. “You know Marquez? I’m reading Autumn of the Patriarch.”

His eyebrow lifted. “Oh, I loved it.

“No kidding. I—”

Dr. Peters added, “Love in the Time of Cholera. Best love story ever written. I’ve read it three times.”

Another ecstatic ping. “Me too. Well, I only read it once.” The book was sitting on her bedside table.

“Tell me more,” he continued, “about your father.”

“Uhm, he’s pretty handsome still — I mean for a guy in his forties. And he’s in pretty good shape. He dates a lot but he can’t seem to settle down with somebody. He says he wants a family.”

“Does he?”

“Yeah. But if he does then why does he date girls named Bambi? . . . Just kidding. But they look like they’re Bambis.” They both laughed.

“Tell me about the divorce.”

“I don’t really remember them together. They split up when I was three.”

“Why?”

“They got married too young. That’s what Bett says. They kind of went different ways. Mom was like real flighty and into that new age crap I was telling you about. And dad was just the opposite.”

“Whose idea was the divorce?”

“I think my dad’s.”

He jotted another note then looked up. “So how mad are you at your parents?”

“I’m not.”

“Really?” he asked, as if he were completely surprised. “You’re sure the porridge isn’t too hot?”

“I love ’em. They love me. We get along gre—fine. The  porridge is just right. What the fuck is porridge anyway?”

“Don’t have a clue. Give me an early memory about your mother.”

“What?”

“Quick! Now! Do it!” His eyes flashed.

Megan felt wave of heat crinkle through her face. “I—”

“Don’t hesitate,” he whispered. “Say what’s on your mind!”

She blurted, “Bett’s getting ready for a date, putting on makeup, staring in a mirror and poking at a wrinkle, like she’s hoping it’ll go away. She always does that. Like her face is the most important thing in the world to her. Her looks, you know.”

“And what do you think as you watch her?” His dark eyes were fervent. Her mind froze again. “No, you’re hesitating. Tell me!”

“‘Slut.'”

He nodded. “Now that’s wonderful, Megan.”

She felt swollen with pride.

“Brilliant. Now give me a memory about your father. Fast!”

“Bears.” She gasped and lifted a hand to her mouth. “No . . . . Wait. Let me think.”

But the doctor pounced. “Bears? At the zoo?”

“No, never mind.”

“Tell me.”

She was shaking her head, no.

“Tell me, Megan,” he insisted.

“It’s not important.”

“Oh, it is important,” he said. “Listen. You’re with me now, Megan. Forget whatever Hanson’s done. I don’t operate his way, groping around in the dark. I go deep.”

She looked into his eyes and for a moment froze like a deer in headlights.

“Don’t worry,” he said softly. “I’m going to change your life forever.”