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  Millard’s brow furrowed. He was starting to show some irritation and I couldn’t blame him. “Maybe because you never properly thanked me for finding and bringing home your family? You’re welcome. Now you can go. Go.”

  I hit Steven Millard then. It was a strong right hand that lifted him right out of the kitchen chair, and knocked him onto the pinewood floor. His nose was bleeding, but he didn’t go out. I could tell he wasn’t sure where he was; his hands were feeling around the floor for some purchase.

  “That’s for taking my family in the first place,” I said to him.

  “Ellie had a typist for her manuscripts,” I went on. “A woman in DC named Barbara Groszewski. I found that out through some checks Ellie paid every month.

  “The good news, the reason I’m here, is that Barbara Groszewski had the last part of Ellie’s manuscript, the section where she traveled to Lagos and met Adanne Tansi among others. Ian Flaherty is mentioned several times in the pages. So are you, Millard. Adanne was aware of what you and Flaherty were up to.

  “In fact, you were the one who set up the oil meetings with the Chinese. You took their bribes. And you were the one who hired Sowande, the Tiger.

  “You’re under arrest, Millard, and the Central Intelligence Agency isn’t going to protect you. They’ve already given you over to us. So maybe there still are some good guys left.”

  Millard actually smiled. “A manuscript? Part of one? A writer’s notes? You have nothing to hold me on.”

  “I think we do,” I told him. “I’m sure of it.”

  I opened the kitchen door and let in several agents from the FBI, including my buddy Ned Mahoney. These were definitely the good guys.

  I turned back to Millard. “Oh, I left out the best part, the most important. We found Ian Flaherty. You lied about holding him. In fact, we have Flaherty now. He’s talking. That’s why I’m arresting you. You’re going down, Millard. You made a big mistake in judgment.”

  “What was that?” Millard finally asked.

  Now it was my turn to smile. “You should’ve killed me when you had the chance. I’m very persistent. I don’t ever give up.”

  Thus spake the Dragon Slayer.

  On my way home, at around five that morning, my cell phone started to ring. I grabbed it off the seat and answered with my name.

  I heard a voice that I didn’t want to hear, not ever again, but especially not now.

  “You are so damn impressive, Alex. I’m awfully proud of you,” said Kyle Craig. “Believe it or not, I was right there in Millard’s house with you. Guess I’m kind of special myself. And I don’t give up either.”

  Then Kyle clicked off.

  And as always, he was scarier than anyone else.

  About the Author

  James Patterson has had more New York Times bestsellers than any other writer, ever, according to Guinness World Records. Since his first novel won the Edgar Award in 1977, James Patterson’s books have sold more than 240 million copies. He is the author of the Alex Cross novels, the most popular detective series of the past twenty-five years, including Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider. Mr. Patterson also writes the bestselling Women’s Murder Club novels, set in San Francisco, and the top-selling New York detective series of all time, featuring Detective Michael Bennett.

  James Patterson also writes books for young readers, including the Maximum Ride, Daniel X, Witch & Wizard, and Middle School series. In total, these books have spent more than 220 weeks on national bestseller lists.

  His lifelong passion for books and reading led James Patterson to launch the website ReadKiddoRead.com to give adults an easy way to locate the very best books for kids. He writes full-time and lives in Florida with his family.

  jamespatterson.com

  Follow James Patterson on Facebook.

  Download the FREE James Patterson app.

  A beloved Cross family member has been murdered.

  For an excerpt from the next Alex Cross novel,

  turn the page.

  I CELEBRATED MY birthday with a small, very exclusive, very festive and fun party on Fifth Street. It was just the way I wanted it.

  Damon had come home from boarding school in Massachusetts as a special surprise. Nana was there, acting large and in charge of the festivities, along with my babies, Jannie and Ali. Sampson and his family were on hand; and of course Bree was there.

  Only the people I loved most in the world were invited. Who else would you want to celebrate another year older and wiser with?

  I even made a little speech that night, most of which I forgot immediately, but not the opening few words. “I, Alex Cross,” I began, “do solemnly promise—to all those present at this birthday party—to do my best to balance my life at home with my work life, and not to go over to the dark side ever again.”

  Nana raised her coffee cup in salute, but then she said, “Too late for that,” which got a laugh.

  Then, to a person, everybody did their best to make sure I was aging with a little humility but also a smile on my face.

  “Remember the time at Redskin stadium?” Damon cackled. “When Dad locked the keys in the old car?”

  I tried cutting in. “To be fair—”

  “Called me out of bed past midnight,” Sampson said, and growled.

  “Only after he tried breaking in for an hour because he didn’t want to admit he couldn’t do it,” Nana said.

  Jannie cupped a hand around her ear. “’Cause he’s what?” And everyone chorused back, “America’s Sherlock Holmes!” It was a reference to a national-magazine piece from a few years ago that I will apparently never live down.

  I swigged my beer. “Brilliant career—or so they say—dozens of big cases solved, and what am I remembered for? Seems to me, someone was supposed to have a happy birthday tonight.”

  “Which reminds me,” Nana said, somehow taking the bait and cutting me off at the same time. “We’ve got a piece of unfinished business here. Children?”

  Jannie and Ali jumped up, more excited than anyone. Apparently, there was a Big Surprise coming for me now. No one was saying what it was, but I’d already opened a pair of Serengetis from Bree, a loud shirt and two minis of tequila from Sampson, and a stack of books from the kids that included the latest George Pelecanos and a biography of Keith Richards.

  Another clue, if I can call it that, was the fact that Bree and I had become notorious plan cancelers, with one long weekend after another falling by the wayside since we’d met. You might think that working in the same department, same division—Homicide—would make it easier for us to coordinate our schedules, but it was just the opposite most of the time.

  So I had some idea, but nothing really specific, about what might be coming.

  “Alex, you stay put,” said Ali. He’d started calling me Alex lately, which I thought was all right but for some reason gave Nana the creeps.

  Bree said she’d keep an eye on me and stayed back while everyone else snuck off to the kitchen.

  “The plot thickens,” I muttered.

  “Even as we speak,” said Bree with a smile and a wink. “Just the way you like it.”

  She was on the couch, across from where I sat in one of the old club chairs. Bree always looked good, but I preferred her like this, casual and comfortable in jeans and bare feet. Her eyes started on the floor and worked their way up to mine.

  “Come here often?” she asked.

  “Once in a while, yeah. You?”

  She sipped her beer and casually cocked her head. “Want to get out of here?”

  “Sure thing.” I jerked my thumb toward the kitchen door. “Just as soon as I get rid of those pesky, um—”

  “Beloved family members?”

  I couldn’t help thinking that this birthday was getting better and better. Now I had two big surprises coming up.

  Make that three.

  The phone rang in the hall. It was our home line, not my cell, which everyone knew to use for work. I also had a pager up on the
dresser where I could hear it. So it seemed safe to go ahead and answer. I even thought it might be some friendly soul calling to wish me a happy birthday, or at the very worst, someone trying to sell me a satellite dish.

  Will I ever learn? Probably not in this lifetime.

  “ALEX, IT’S DAVIES. I’m sorry to bother you at home.” Ramon Davies was superintendent of detectives with Metro, and also my boss, and he was on the line.

  “It’s my birthday. Who died?” I asked. I was ticked off, mostly at myself for answering the phone in the first place.

  “Caroline Cross,” he said, and my heart nearly stopped. At that very moment, the kitchen door swung open and the family came out singing. Nana had an elaborate pink-and-red birthday cake on a tray, with an American Airlines travel folio clipped on top.

  “Happy birthday to you…”

  Bree held up a hand to quiet them. My posture and my face must have said something. They all stopped right where they were. The joyful singing ended almost midnote. My family remembered whose birthday this was: Detective Alex Cross’s.

  Caroline was my niece, my brother’s only daughter. I hadn’t seen her in twenty years; not since just after Blake died. That would have made her twenty-four now.

  At the time of her death.

  The floor under my feet felt like it was gone. Part of me wanted to call Davies a liar. The other part, the cop, spoke up. “Where is she now?”

  “I just got off the phone with Virginia State Police. The remains are at the ME’s office in Richmond. I’m sorry, Alex. I hate to be the one to tell you this.”

  “Remains?” I muttered. It was such a cold word, but I appreciated Davies not over-handling me. I walked out of the room, sorry I’d said even that much in front of my family.

  “Are we talking homicide here? I assume that we are.”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “What happened?” My heart was thudding dangerously. I almost didn’t want to know.

  “I don’t have a lot of details,” he told me, in a way that instantly gave me a hint—he was holding something back.

  “Ramon, what’s going on here? Tell me. What do you know about Caroline?”

  “Just take one thing at a time, Alex. If you leave now, you can probably be there in about two hours. I’ll ask for one of the responding officers to meet you.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  “And Alex?”

  I’d almost hung up the phone, my mind in splinters. “What is it?”

  “I don’t think you should go alone.”

  Read an extended excerpt and learn more about I, Alex Cross.

  Detective Alex Cross hunts three serial killers—but is someone else hunting him?

  For an excerpt of the new Alex Cross novel, turn the page.

  IT’S NOT EVERY DAY THAT I GET A NAKED GIRL ANSWERING THE DOOR I knock on.

  Don’t get me wrong—with twenty years of law enforcement under my belt, it’s happened. Just not that often.

  “Are you the waiters?” this girl asked. There was a bright but empty look in her eyes that said ecstasy to me, and I could smell weed from inside. The music was thumping, too, the kind of relentless techno that would make me want to slit my wrists if I had to listen to it for long.

  “No, we’re not the waiters,” I told her, showing my badge. “Metro police. And you need to put something on, right now.”

  She wasn’t even fazed. “There were supposed to be waiters,” she said to no one in particular. It made me sad and disgusted at the same time. This girl didn’t look like she was even out of high school yet, and the men we were here to arrest were old enough to be her father.

  “Check her clothes before she puts them on,” I told one of the female officers on the entry team. Besides myself there were five uniformed cops, a rep from Youth and Family Services, three detectives from the Prostitution Unit, and three more from Second District, including my friend John Sampson.

  Second District is Georgetown—not the usual stomping grounds for the Prostitution Unit. The white brick N Street town house where we’d arrived was typical for the neighborhood, probably worth somewhere north of five million. It was a rental property, paid six months in advance by proxy, but the paper trail had led back to Dr. Elijah Creem, one of DC’s most in-demand plastic surgeons. As far as we could make out, Creem was funneling funds to pay for these “industry parties,” and his partner in scum, Josh Bergman, was providing the eye candy.

  Bergman was the owner of Cap City Dolls, a legit modeling agency based out of an M Street office, with a heavily rumored arm in the underground flesh trade. Detectives at the department were pretty sure that while Bergman was running his aboveboard agency with one hand, he was also dispatching exotic dancers, overnight escorts, masseuses, and porn “talent” with the other. As far as I could tell, the house was filled with “talent” right now, and they all seemed to be about eighteen, more or less. Emphasis on the less.

  I couldn’t wait to bust these two scumbags.

  Surveillance had put Creem and Bergman downtown at Minibar around seven o’clock that night, and then here at the party house as of nine thirty. Now it was just a game of smoking them out.

  Beyond the enclosed foyer the party was in full swing. The front hall and formal living room were packed. It was all Queen Anne furniture and parquet floors on the one hand and half-dressed, tweaked-out kids stomping to the music and drinking out of plastic cups on the other.

  “I want everyone contained in this front room,” Sampson shouted at one of the uniforms. “We’ve got an anytime warrant for this house, so start looking. We’re checking for drugs, cash, ledgers, appointment books, cell phones, everything. And get this goddamn music off!”

  We left half the team to secure the front of the house and took the rest toward the back, where there was more party going on.

  In the open kitchen there seemed to be a big game of strip poker in progress at the large marble-topped island. Half a dozen well-muscled guys and twice as many girls in their underwear were standing around holding cards, drinking, and passing a few joints.

  Several of them scrambled as we came in. A few of the girls screamed and tried to run out, but we’d already blocked the way.

  Finally, somebody cut the music.

  “Where are Elijah Creem and Joshua Bergman?” Sampson asked the room. “First one to give me a straight answer gets a free ticket out of here.”

  A skinny girl in a black lace bra and cutoffs pointed toward the stairs. From the size of her chest in relation to the rest of her, my guess was she’d already gone under the knife with Dr. Creem at least once.

  “Up there,” she said.

  “Bitch,” someone muttered under his breath.

  Sampson hooked a finger at me to follow him, and we headed up.

  “Can I go now?” cutoffs girl called after us.

  “Let’s see how good your word is first,” Sampson said.

  When we got to the second-floor hall, it was empty. The only light was a single electric hurricane lamp on a glossy antique table near the stairs. There were equestrian portraits on the walls and a long Oriental runner that ended in front of a closed double door at the back of the house. Even from here I could make out more music thumping on the other side. Old-school this time. Talking Heads, “Burning Down the House.”

  Watch out, you might get what you’re after.

  Cool babies, strange but not a stranger.

  I could hear laughing, too, and two different men’s voices.

  “That’s it, sweetheart. A little closer. Now pull down her panties.”

  “Yeah, that’s what you call money in the bank right there.”

  Sampson gave me a look like he wanted to either puke or kill someone.

  “Let’s do this,” he said, and we started up the hall.

  “POLICE! WE’RE COMING IN!”

  Sampson’s voice boomed over everything else. He gave one hard pound on the paneled mahogany door—his own version of knock and announce—and t
hen threw it open.

  Elijah Creem was standing just inside, looking every bit as pulled together as the pictures I’d seen of him—slicked-back blond hair, square cleft chin, perfect veneers.

  He and Bergman were fully dressed. The other three—not so much. Bergman had an iPhone held up in front of him, taking a video of the freaky little ménage à trois they had staged there on the king-size sleigh bed.

  One girl was laid out flat. Her bra was open at the front, and her bright pink thong was down around her ankles. She was also wearing a clear breathing mask of some kind, tethered to a tall gray metal tank at the side of the bed. The boy on top of her was buck naked except for the black blindfold around his eyes, while the other girl stood over him with a small digital camera, shooting more video from another angle.

  “What the hell is this?” Creem said.

  “My question exactly,” I said. “Nobody move.”

  All of them were wide-eyed and staring at us now, except for the girl with the mask. She seemed pretty out of it.

  “What’s in the tank?” I said as Sampson went over to her.

  “It’s nitrous oxide,” Creem said. “Just calm down. She’s fine.”

  “Screw you,” John told him and eased the mask off the girl.

  The buzz from nitrous is pretty short lasting, but I didn’t assume for a second that it was the only thing these kids were on. There were several blue tabs of what I assumed was more XTC on the nightstand. Also a couple of small brown glass bottles, presumably amyl nitrate, and a half-empty fifth of Cuervo Reserva.

  “Listen to me,” Creem said evenly, looking me in the eye. As far as I could tell, he was the ringleader here. “Do you see that briefcase in the corner?”

  “Elijah? What are you doing?” Bergman asked, but Creem didn’t respond. He was still watching me like we were the only two in the room.

  “There’s an envelope with thirty thousand dollars in that case,” he said. Then he looked pointedly from a brown leather satchel on the antique setback cabinet, over to one of the three windows at the back of the bedroom. The fringed shades were all drawn, but it was pretty clear to me what he was going for.