The Mercedes Coffin [antikvár]

CHAPTER 1TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, they were called nerds. Today, they're called billionaires.Even among outcasts, Genoa Greeves suffered more than most. Saddled with a weird nameher parents' love for Italy produced two other children, Pisa and Romaand a gawky frame, Genoa spent her adolescence in retreat. She talked if spoken to, but that was the extent of her social interaction. Her teenage years were spent in a self-imposed exile. Even the oddest of girls would have nothing to do with her, and the boys acted as if she'd been stricken by the plague. She remained an island to herself: utterly alone.Her parents had been concerned about her isolation. They had taken her through an endless parade of shrinks who offered multiple diagnoses: depression, anxiety disorder, Asperger's syndrome, autism, schizoid personality disorder, all of the above in comorbidity. Medication was prescribed: psychotherapy was five days a week. The shrinks said the right things, but they couldn't change the school situation. No amount of ego bolstering or self-esteem-enhancing exercises could possibly counteract the cruehy of being so profoundly different. When