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  “No, but a dirty little birdie told me that you’re about to die,” she said, and grinned. “I can’t wait.”

  In two strides, Anthony crossed the floor and smashed me in the face with the butt of his gun. “Keep it up, Dr. Cross!” He loomed there, ready to swing again, but I figured he wouldn’t want me unconscious now.

  I was here to watch!

  I spit a mouthful of blood on the floor. “Madeline Purvis. Boston, 1958.” I threw out another psychopathic killer’s name for him.

  “All right, that’s it. I’m invoking the gag rule.” He stormed over to the “props” table, tucked the gun in his waistband again, and picked up a roll of duct tape. It crackled loudly as he tore off a length, then started back to me.

  I turned my head away, not to stop him but to get him into a better position. One way or the other, this was it. Either Bree was ready or she wasn’t.

  As Anthony stepped in close with the strip of tape, Bree’s hands flew up from behind her back.

  Sandy saw it too. “Bro, look out!”

  Bro? The two of them were brother and sister? That was a twist that I hadn’t seen coming. Maybe because of the sex scene on the couch in my office. But possibly they were lovers too?

  Chapter 120

  WHOEVER ANTHONY WAS, he wheeled on Bree as she managed to pull away his gun. He caught her face with a fast, hard backhand. The Glock fired—missed Anthony—but Bree went spinning to one side. She hit the wall behind her overturned chair.

  Suddenly Sandy had a gun in her hand, and it was aimed at me.

  Bree managed to level the Glock at her and fire. Twice! She wasn’t fooling around. Both shots struck Sandy Quinlan in the chest. Her mouth opened wide in shock, and I think she was dead as she stood there with the gun in her hand. Then Sandy crumpled like a marionette, and that didn’t make me feel very good. I’d spent too much time with Sandy; I thought I knew her, even if I hadn’t. She’d been a patient.

  I was struggling to my feet now, pulling with all my might on the spike in the floor, which started to give. It had to give.

  Bree fired again!

  One of the spotlights exploded as Anthony passed under it. He was getting away—running in a low crouch. He was also laughing. Playing another part? Or just being himself?

  I heaved, legs straining, and the rope finally pulled free. It slackened on my wrists, enough for me to wrench my hands out, anyway.

  Then I ran after Anthony.

  “Call for backup!” I shouted to Bree. The black Motorola was still on the ground. So was Sandy Quinlan, wide-eyed and bleeding from two wounds so tightly bunched that they almost looked like one.

  I hit the stairs and immediately heard glass smashing above me. Anthony—DCAK—was getting out of there, wasn’t he? Seconds later, I stumbled up into an empty storefront.

  The door to the street was closed and still had a padlock. But the display window was no more than glass shards and air. I spotted an old wooden chair lying out on the sidewalk.

  I ran up and climbed through the opening in the window. People hovered outside, watching me like I was the boogeyman. A kid pointed up the block. “White guy,” he said.

  I saw Anthony then, running at a full clip on the other side of the street. He looked back and spotted me too. Then he ducked into a store on his right.

  “Call the police!” I shouted for anyone who would listen and maybe help. “That’s DCAK!” I added. Then I tore up the sidewalk after him.

  Chapter 121

  THE PLACE DCAK HAD ENTERED was a hole-in-the-wall restaurant for Mexican takeout. There were no tables in the front, just one very shaken old woman splayed on the floor and a skinny cashier still pressed to the wall like he was his own shadow.

  I ran around the counter, pushing through a swinging door back into the kitchen.

  The temperature instantly went up about twenty degrees. Two cooks shouted at me in Spanish.

  Too late—I saw Anthony come at me from the right. What the hell? A cast-iron pan burned through my shirt and sent searing pain up my arm and right into my brain.

  I countered reflexively with my other hand, an uppercut to his temple, a second punch to his throat.

  He let go of the frying pan, and I grabbed it myself. I pushed it into Anthony’s face, then let it go before it fried the skin off my hand. He howled and stumbled back, blackened prosthetic skin sagging around one ear. Both of the cooks screamed as if they were the ones who’d just gotten burned.

  Anthony steadied himself on the edge of an industrial range. He grabbed another cooking pan and hurled sizzling oil and vegetables in my direction. I avoided the flying grease, but Anthony was headed toward the back door.

  He pulled down a set of baker’s shelves as he went. Dishes and equipment crashed everywhere. Lots of noise and chaos and shattering pottery.

  “My sister’s dead!” he screamed back at me. Meaning what—that now he was really mad?

  I grabbed a kitchen knife and went after him.

  Chapter 122

  AS I JUMPED OUT into a long, wide alleyway—the delivery entrance—I heard sirens wailing from somewhere in the neighborhood. I hoped to hell they were for us and that somebody would figure out real fast that I was back here with DCAK.

  The alley ran behind several buildings, with a dead end to my right and a busy street to my left, about fifty yards off—farther than he could have run by now, anyway.

  So where was he hiding? He had to be close. But where?

  I threw open the nearest Dumpster, and a repulsive wave of garbage smell came up at me, but no Anthony. No DCAK. I turned my back on the alley just long enough to lean into the trash and make sure he wasn’t there.

  Another three Dumpsters lined the wall. Dusty, rusting cars were stacked on the other side. I checked down low. He wasn’t hiding under any of them. Where was he?

  I saw him out of the corner of my eye—and just in time. I narrowly missed getting sliced across the face. He’d been behind one of the Dumpsters, and he had a knife. He seemed confident and scarily under control considering the circumstances, almost like he was playing another role.

  I sure wasn’t; knives weren’t my thing. But the kitchen blade was the only weapon I had right now.

  He came for me again. The blade whiffed past my face, barely missing flesh. He sliced the blade at me again, and again, and again.

  I feinted a short thrust back at him, and he laughed. “I think I’m going to like this,” he said. “I know I am. I trained in hand-to-hand. How about you, Dr. Cross?”

  He didn’t bother to taunt or test, just stabbed the knife at me again. I jumped away, and he missed. But not by much. An inch or so.

  Anthony’s face was intense, the veins pulsed, but his eyes remained playful. He was toying with me. Was he missing on purpose? Stretching this out?

  “The once great Alex Cross,” he said. “Too bad we don’t have an audience.”

  “Oh, but you do. I’m your audience this time, DCAK,” said a voice.

  We both turned—and there was Kyle Craig.

  Chapter 123

  KYLE SPOKE, and he sounded exuberant, almost joyful. To see us? To be seen? “What a sight for sore eyes! The great DCAK—the great Alex Cross. Together at last in a duel to the death. With kitchen knives? I’d pay to see that one. But hey, I don’t have to pay. I’m right here, aren’t I?”

  DCAK held his knife up and poised, but he kept sneaking glances at Kyle. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “Admiring your work, of course,” Kyle said, and seemed sincere enough. “Just like any of your other fans would if they could. They’d be lined up twenty-deep on the street to see this. I’ve been following you. Ever since we met at the Cross house.”

  “You think I don’t get your sarcasm,” DCAK snarled.

  “Be a waste of breath if you didn’t. Be careful with Dr. Cross, now. Watch him. He’ll slice you up if he can. He’s a cagey one.”

  “He can’t,” DCAK stated flatly, “hurt me. He’s ou
t of his league. And so are you.”

  “Oh my,” said Kyle. “Now you’ve gone and cut me, so to speak.”

  I said nothing to either of them. I was still looking for some kind of an opening. I wasn’t very good with knives, but I was quick on my feet. Maybe that would help me, save me somehow. But now I had Kyle to worry about too. How had he gotten here, and what was his current connection to DCAK? Had it just changed?

  “He’s focused on the fight. You’re not,” Kyle coached DCAK from the sidelines. “That’s all I’m trying to point out. Take it for what it’s worth.”

  DCAK looked back at me. “All right, then. Let me put Cross down. In your honor.”

  In your honor? What was that supposed to mean? Then he thrust his knife again and missed, but this time he meant business. Another fast swipe, and he sliced my arm. Blood streamed onto my shirt and dripped onto the pavement.

  “That’s better, DCAK,” Kyle cheered him on, his voice suddenly guttural. “Now go for it! Put him down! Kill the bastard!”

  DCAK was starting to breathe harder, through his mouth. Maybe that could be an advantage for me? I circled to the left, then I changed directions. No logic to it, just instinct.

  I was moving the other way when he swiped his knife at me again. He missed! I stabbed at him and nicked his arm. Blood spurted from the wound. Nasty game, knives.

  Kyle applauded. He slowly, slowly clapped his hands, but he didn’t speak any more encouragement.

  I moved in a circle again, but I went faster this time. Abruptly I reversed directions. Then I came back the other way.

  Suddenly DCAK roared in a deep voice and charged at me. I pivoted to the left, and for a second my back was exposed. He was still leaning the other way. Which meant . . . what? I continued to pivot—all the way around. Then I set my right leg and drove my knife up and under his arm. The knife found flesh, muscle. It finally sank into his chest.

  He moaned almost as loudly as he had roared a second before. “You stupid sonofabitch!” Then he went down and lay there on his back, wide eyes staring at nothing. I spun away from DCAK and looked at Kyle.

  I had a knife.

  He had a gun.

  “He wasn’t much, was he?” Kyle said, and grinned.

  Chapter 124

  HE KEPT ON TALKING, almost as if he were excited to see me. Maybe I was the one he’d been following. “I was so hurt that you didn’t come out to Florence to visit me more, Alex. You have no idea. They put you in a tiny cell and keep you there twenty-three hours every day. It’s inhumane and does no good at all. I’m serious about that.

  “Maybe I’ll make a deeply disturbing film, like An Inconvenient Truth, or The Road to Guantánamo. Call it Never See the Sun Again. Play it in all the art houses here in the East. Get the bleeding hearts on my side.”

  “You killed a lot of people, Kyle. You committed murders since you’ve been out. How many this time?”

  Kyle shrugged, and then he mugged for me. He wasn’t as good an actor as Anthony, just a more subtle killer. “Honestly, I didn’t bother to keep count. There was Mom, of course. Or was that a hallucination that I had?”

  “No, you slaughtered your mother.”

  “Slaughtered her, did I? That seems extreme. I don’t actually recall that much about it. Perhaps I was in a rage state. Can you give me some gory details? I want to hear it from you, Dr. Cross.”

  “Is that part of this, Kyle? The psychologist connection?”

  “Could be. I never thought about it quite like that.”

  I stared at Kyle for a moment and didn’t speak. He was so incredibly evil, with no conscience. I wondered how his reflexes were these days. He seemed confident enough with the gun in his hand. And why shouldn’t he be? Why would he have any trouble shooting me now?

  “Kneel on the ground, Alex. Just to be on the safe side. All that training at Quantico is kicking in.”

  I stood there, refused to obey him.

  Kyle held his gun arm out, perfectly straight and still. “I said—kneel on the ground. There’s still a chance that I won’t kill you. I might want an audience for what I’m going to do next.”

  That got my attention. An audience? “What are you going to do now, Kyle? And what part did you play for DCAK and his partner?”

  He smiled and seemed to be formulating an answer. “Interesting questions. If I tell you, is it because you won’t be around to see it or because I want you to be able to anticipate the slaughter, as you call it? Kneel! This is your last warning, Alex.”

  I bent my knees slightly, and then I went down on them. I didn’t see that I had a choice. Kyle didn’t like to be disobeyed. That much I knew for sure.

  “Ah, that’s good. This is how I like seeing you. As a supplicant. You know, I almost wish DCAK was alive to witness this.”

  “You could have saved him.”

  “Maybe. Probably not. I really think the boy wanted to die. I studied his early murders while I was still an agent. He made contact with me at Florence. I think . . . I might have been a father figure to him. You’d know better than me. I can’t live in the past, though. I’m not much for regrets either. You can understand that, can’t you?”

  “What did he mean when he said, ‘In your honor’?”

  “Oh, that. He was a fan, of course. Who isn’t? So was the girl. His sister? Who knows? They got the messages to me at ADX through my lawyer. Another fan. They’re all just freaks, Alex. Although . . . he did give you a good run.

  “I helped him with a few ideas. The football stadium—that was me. And I suggested Tess Olsen, of course. That one was in my honor.”

  Kyle walked forward, and he put the gun to my temple. There wasn’t any unsteadiness in his hand.

  “I, Kyle Craig, being of sound mind and body,” he said, and smiled broadly, wickedly, insanely, “choose to spare the life of Alex Cross. At this time, anyway.”

  He took a step away. “I told you, twenty-three hours a day. Four years in there. I can’t let you off this easy. A couple of minutes of abject fear—that’s nothing in comparison to what I went through. It’s not enough payback. Not even close! You’ll see.”

  Kyle continued to back away. “I have bigger and better plans for you, Alex. One thing is for sure, I’m going to torture you and your family to death. Don’t bother to try to hide them. I’m really good at finding people. That was my specialty at the Bureau. I have skills, Alex. The Mastermind. Remember?”

  “Put the gun down, Craig. Do it slowly, you piece of shit. Or you really will understand payback.”

  It was Bree. I couldn’t see her yet, but I wanted to warn her.

  About Kyle Craig, and why you should never, ever warn him.

  My mouth opened—

  Chapter 125

  “BREE!”

  Kyle had been an FBI field agent, and before that he was with Special Forces in the army. He was an expert with knives, guns, even explosives, and I knew that from past experience. He was no one to fool with—no one to warn.

  He heard Bree’s voice, and before she finished her threat, he was twisting his body around toward her and diving at the ground. I watched—unable to do anything to stop it from happening.

  “Bree!”

  His Beretta came up level and was aimed at the center of her chest—he wouldn’t take a chance of missing what would be a difficult shot, especially while he was still moving. He had her in his sights, and I had one thought: Take me instead.

  I’m not sure if Bree waited until she had finished the words “you really will understand payback.” I doubt it.

  She fired—and Kyle Craig jerked in midair. His mouth flew open in surprise. His eyes went wide.

  He never got a shot off. He landed with a dull thud on the ground and lay there with one leg twitching. Finally he let go of the Beretta. Then, nothing at all.

  Nothing.

  Blessedly, nothing.

  I hurried forward, kicked away his gun. I crouched beside Kyle, who I’d once thought was a friend and who had tur
ned into my worst enemy. His eyes were open, and he looked at me, right into my eyes, maybe my soul. He stared, and I wondered if he was dying at that instant, and if he knew it.

  Then Kyle spoke, and he said something so very strange, something I didn’t understand, not to this day. “In your honor,” he said.

  Then a horrible rattle began to stir somewhere back in his throat.

  And I liked it. Sad to say, horrifying to me, I was relieved and exultant. I’d liked being in the audience, so much so that I clapped my hands together and applauded Bree.

  And then, suddenly, Kyle was on all fours, then up on his feet. He pulled another gun from a holster behind his back.

  Bree had lowered her gun, and now he had us.

  “Put down the gun, Detective,” he said in the calmest voice I’d ever heard. “I don’t want to kill you right now. Not just yet. Tell her, Alex.”

  “She won’t listen,” I said.

  “Then she’s a dead girl. Put the gun down. For Christ’s sake, if I wanted to kill you, I would have pulled the trigger already.”

  Bree bent at the knees and lowered her gun to the ground.

  Kyle pulled the trigger.

  But he missed her on purpose.

  “You know, Bree,” he said in the same deadly calm voice, “the advice about chest shots versus head shots is good as far as it goes, but”—he patted his own chest—“it doesn’t allow for the possibility of vests, which I always wear to parties like this one. You should too. Especially with that exemplary chest of yours.”

  Kyle started to back away from us. Then he smiled and said, “Oh, what the hell! Sorry, Alex!”

  He fired in Bree’s direction—twice—and purposely missed again. Then he laughed and ran down the alley, disappearing around the first corner, still laughing.

  The Mastermind.

  Chapter 126

  DCAK WAS STILL ALIVE. Bree and I met up with Nana and the kids at Washington Hospital Center, where Sampson and “Anthony” were being treated. “Sandy Quinlan” hadn’t made it; she died before the ambulance came.