Roses Are Red Read online

  Kyle also said that Senior Agent Cavalierre was running the task force. I wasn’t too surprised. She had struck me as one of the brightest and most energetic of the Bureau agents I’d met, other than Kyle himself.

  The agent from the original Dougherty team was named Sam Withers. Kyle, Agent Cavalierre, and I met with him in Kyle’s conference room at Quantico. Withers was in his mid-sixties now; he was retired and told us he played a lot of golf in the Scottsdale area. He admitted he hadn’t given much thought to bank robbers in several years, but the horror of these robberies had caught his attention.

  Betsey Cavalierre got right down to business. “Sam, did you get a chance to read our write-ups of the Citibank and First Union robberies?”

  “Sure did. I read them a couple of times on my way here,” Withers said, running the palm of his hand over his buzz cut. He was a beefy man, probably two hundred forty pounds or more, and reminded me of retired baseball sluggers like Ted Klusewski and Ralph Kiner.

  “First impressions?” she asked the former agent. “What do you think, Sam? Is there any connection to the current mess?”

  “Big, big differences between these jobs and the ones I worked on. Neither Dougherty nor Connor was violent by nature. Those guys were basically small-town, small-time criminal minds. ‘Old school,’ like those commercials you see on ESPN. Even the hostages spoke of them as ‘congenial’ and ‘pleasant.’ Connor always carefully explained that he didn’t want to steal anything in the hostages’ homes. Said he didn’t want to harm anyone. He and Dougherty both despised banks, and they despised insurance companies. That might be the hookup with your perps.”

  Withers continued to reminisce and conjecture in a soft, sleepy Midwestern drawl. I sat back and thought about what he had said. Maybe somebody else out there despised banks and insurance companies, too. Or possibly they hated bankers and their families for some reason. Someone with a deep enough grudge could be behind the robberies and murders. It made some sense, as much as anything else we had.

  After Sam Withers left the conference room we talked about other cases that might relate to this one. One in particular caught my attention. A major robbery had occurred outside Philadelphia in January. Two men had kidnapped a bank executive’s husband and infant son. They said they had a bomb and threatened to blow up their hostages unless the bank vault was opened.

  “They kept in touch with walkie-talkies. Used police scanners, too. Kind of like the First Union job,” Betsey reported from her extensive notes. “It might be the same people who did the First Union.”

  “Any violence in the job outside Philly?” I asked her.

  She shook her head, and her shiny black hair flipped to one side. “No, none.”

  With all the resources of the FBI and hundreds of local police departments, we were still nowhere on the robbery-murders. Something was very wrong with this picture. We still weren’t thinking like the killers.

  Chapter 24

  I GOT BACK TO ST. ANTHONY’S around four-thirty in the afternoon. Jannie wasn’t in her room, which surprised me. Nana and Damon were sitting and reading. Nana said she had been taken for tests ordered by her neurologist, Dr. Petito.

  Jannie returned at quarter to five. She looked tired. She was so young to be going through this kind of ordeal. She and Damon had always been healthy, even as babies, which made this even more of a shock.

  When Jannie rolled into the room in a wheelchair, Damon suddenly choked up. So did I.

  “Give us a big bear hug, Daddy,” Jannie looked at us and said, “like you used to when we were little.”

  The vivid image came flooding back to me. I remembered the feeling of holding them both in my arms when they were much smaller. I did what Jannie asked: I bear-hugged my two babies.

  As the three of us embraced, Nana came back from a walk down the hall. She had someone tagging along.

  Christine Johnson entered the room behind Nana. She wore a silver-gray blouse with dark blue skirt and matching shoes. She must have come to the hospital from school. She seemed a little distant to me, but at least she was there for Jannie.

  I would ask Nana later who was taking care of Alex.

  “Here’s everybody,” Christine said. She never made eye contact with me. “I wish I had my camera.”

  “Oh, we’re always like this,” Jannie said to her. “This is just our family.”

  We talked some, but mostly we listened to Jannie describe her long, scary day. She seemed so vulnerable suddenly, so small. She was brought dinner at five. Rather than complain about the bland hospital food, she compared it favorably to her favorite dishes prepared by Nana.

  That got a laugh out of everybody except Nana, who pretended to be miffed. “Well, we can just order out from the hospital when you get home,” Nana said as she gave Jannie the evil eye. “Save me a lot of aggravation and work.”

  “Oh, you like to work,” Jannie told Nana. “And you love aggravation.”

  “Almost as much as you love to tease me,” Nana countered.

  As Christine was getting up to leave, the nurse brought a phone from the nurses’ station. She announced that there was an important call for Detective Cross. I groaned and shook my head. Everybody stared at me as I took the phone.

  “It’s okay, Daddy,” Jannie said.

  Kyle Craig was on the line. He had bad news. “I’m on my way to the First Virginia branch in Rosslyn. They hit another bank, Alex.”

  Nana shot poisoned darts at me with her eyes. Christine wouldn’t look at me. I felt guilty and ashamed, and I hadn’t done anything wrong.

  “I have to go for an hour or so,” I finally said. “I’m sorry.”

  Chapter 25

  THE BANK ROBBERIES were coming too fast, one after the other, like dominoes tumbling. Whoever was behind them didn’t want to give us a chance to think, to catch a breath, or to organize ourselves.

  Rosslyn was only about fifteen minutes from St. Anthony’s Hospital. I didn’t know what I would find there: the possible brutalities, the number of dead bodies.

  The branch of First Virginia was only a block away from Bell Atlantic headquarters. It was another freestanding bank. Did that mean something to the perps? Probably. What, though? The few clues we had so far weren’t adding up to anything. Not for me, anyway.

  I noticed a Dunkin’ Donuts and a Blockbuster Video directly across the street. People were going in and out. The suburban neighborhood was busy and operating as if nothing had happened.

  Something had definitely happened.

  I spotted four dark sedans clustered together in the bank parking lot. I suspected they were FBI cars and pulled in beside them. There were no police cars on the scene yet. Kyle had called me, but he hadn’t called in the Rosslyn police. Not a good sign.

  I showed my detective’s badge to a tall, lanky agent posted at the back door. He looked to be in his late twenties. Nervous and scared.

  “The ADIC is inside. He’s expecting you, Detective Cross,” the agent said in a soft Virginia accent not unlike Kyle’s.

  “Casualties in there?” I asked.

  The agent shook his dark, crew-cut, bullet-shaped head. He was trying not to show that he was nervous. “We just arrived, sir. I don’t know the casualty situation inside. I was told to wait out here by Senior Agent Cavalierre. It’s her case.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  I opened the glass door. I paused for a beat alongside the ATMs in the vestibule. Focused. Prepared myself a little. I saw Kyle and Betsey Cavalierre across the lobby.

  They were talking to a silver-haired man who seemed to be the bank’s manager, or possibly the assistant manager. It didn’t look as if anyone had been hurt. Jesus. Was that possible?

  Kyle saw me and immediately walked my way. Agent Cavalierre stayed close at his side, so close she looked glued to Kyle.

  “It’s a miracle,” Kyle said. “No one’s hurt here. They took the money and got away clean, though. We’re going to the manager’s house. His wife and daughter wer
e held hostage, Alex. The phones at the house are dead.”

  “Call the Rosslyn police, Kyle. They’ll have squad cars there.”

  “We’re three minutes away. Let’s go!” Kyle barked. He and Agent Cavalierre were already headed toward the door.

  Chapter 26

  THE MESSAGE FROM KYLE was loud and clear. The FBI was in charge of the bank robbery–murders investigation. I was welcome to join up, or leave. For the moment, I went along. It was Cavalierre and Kyle’s case and their huge headache, their time in the pressure cooker.

  No one spoke as we rode through Rosslyn in one of the FBI sedans. One pattern of the robberies had been clear so far: Somebody died when a robbery took place. It almost seemed that a serial killer was robbing banks.

  “The bank alarm went directly to the FBI?” I finally spoke up about something that had bothered me since I got Kyle’s call at St. Anthony’s.

  Betsey Cavalierre turned toward me from the front seat. “First Union, Chase, First Virginia, and Citibank are all connected to us for the time being. It was their decision — we didn’t pressure them. We’ve moved several dozen extra agents into the D.C. area so we’d be ready when and if another bank was hit. We arrived at the branch in Rosslyn in less than ten minutes. They got out, anyway.”

  “You call the Rosslyn PD yet?” I asked.

  Kyle said, “We called, Alex. We don’t want to step on anybody’s toes if we don’t have to. They’re on their way to the bank branch.”

  I shook my head and rolled my eyes. “Not to the bank manager’s house, though.”

  “We want to check the house ourselves first,” Agent Cavalierre answered for Kyle. “The killers aren’t making any mistakes. Neither can we.” She was brusque and impatient with me. I didn’t much like her tone, and she didn’t seem to care what I thought.

  “Rosslyn has a very good police force,” I told her. “I’ve worked with them before. Have you?” I felt I had to defend some of the people I knew and respected.

  Kyle sighed. “You know it depends on who responds first. That’s the problem. Betsey’s right — we can’t make mistakes on this one. They don’t.”

  We turned onto High Street in Rosslyn. The neighborhood looked peaceful, serene, thriving: nicely groomed lawns, two-car garages, large homes both new and old.

  They always kill somebody, I couldn’t help thinking. They’ve done it to a family before.

  We parked in front of a house with a big red number 315 on a pale yellow mailbox. A second dark sedan edged into the curb behind us — more agents. The more the scarier.

  “The crew is probably gone,” Kyle spoke into his walkie-talkie. “But remember, you never know. These guys are killers. They seem to like it, too.”

  Chapter 27

  YOU NEVER KNOW, I thought. How true that was, and how thoroughly frightening it could be sometimes.

  Was it part of what kept me on the job? The adrenaline spike that wasn’t like anything else I’d ever experienced? The uncertainty of each new case? The thrill of the hunt? A dark side of myself? What? Good occasionally triumphing over evil? Evil often triumphing over good?

  As I unholstered my Glock, I tried to clear my mind of anything that would interfere with my timing or reflexes in the next few moments. Kyle, Betsey Cavalierre, and I hurried toward the front door. We had our guns drawn. Everyone looked solid, professional, appropriately nervous.

  You never know.

  The house was deadly quiet from the outside. Somewhere in the neighborhood a dog howled. A baby bawled. The baby’s cry hadn’t come from the bank manager’s house.

  Somebody had died at each of the first two robberies. That was the only pattern so far. The killer’s ritual? The warning? The what? Could this be a pattern murderer robbing banks? What in the name of God was happening?

  “I go in first,” I said to Kyle. I wasn’t asking his permission. “We’re in Washington. We’re close, anyway.”

  Kyle chose not to argue with me. Agent Cavalierre was silent. Her dark eyes studied my face. Had she been on the front line before? I wondered. What was she feeling right now? Had she ever used her gun?

  The door of the house was unlocked. They had left it open. On purpose? Or because they’d departed in a hurry?

  I moved inside. Quickly, silently, hoping for the best, expecting the worst. The foyer, living room, and kitchen beyond were all dark. Except for the stuttering red glow of a blinking digital clock on the stove. The only sound was the refrigerator humming.

  Agent Cavalierre motioned for the three of us to split off. There wasn’t so much as a whisper inside the house. This wasn’t good. Where was the family?

  I moved in a low crouch toward the kitchen. I took a look inside. No one there.

  I opened a wooden door at the rear of the kitchen: closet. The pungent odor of spices and condiments.

  I opened a second door: back stairs leading to the second floor.

  A third door: stairs leading down to the cellar.

  The cellar had to be checked out. I flicked on the light switch. No light came on. Damnit.

  “Police,” I called out. No answer.

  I took a deep breath. I didn’t see any immediate danger to myself, but I feared what I might find down there. I hesitated a second or two, then I stepped on creaking wooden stairs. I hate cellars, always have.

  “Police,” I repeated. Still no answer from down there. Checking out dark places in a house isn’t fun. Not even when you have a gun and know how to use it pretty well. I flicked on my Maglite flashlight. Okay, here we go.

  My heart was beating wildly as I hurried down the flight of stairs. My gun was at the ready. I lowered my head and took a good look around. Jesus!

  I saw them as soon as I cleared the wooden overhang. I felt the adrenaline spike.

  “I’m Detective Cross. I’m the police!”

  The wife and the baby girl were there. The mother was bound and gagged with black tape over different-colored cloths. Her eyes were wide and as bright as searchlights. The baby had black tape over her mouth. The infant’s chest was heaving with silent sobs.

  They were alive, though. No one had been hurt either here or at the bank.

  Why was that?

  The pattern had changed!

  “What’s going on down there? You all right, Alex?” I heard Kyle Craig call. I flashed the light up and saw Kyle and Agent Cavalierre standing at the top of the stairs.

  “They’re here. They’re safe. Everyone’s alive.”

  What in hell was going on?

  Chapter 28

  THE MASTERMIND — what a quaint, totally absurd name. It was almost perverse. He liked it for just that reason.

  He actually watched the scene at the bank manager’s house, and he felt as if he were standing outside of his own body. He remembered an old TV show from his youth: You Are There. He was, wasn’t he?

  He found it quite thrilling to see the FBI technicians enter the house with their magic black boxes. He knew all about them, the VCU, or Violent Crime Unit.

  He closely observed the somber, serious-faced agents come and go.

  Then the Rosslyn police arrived en masse. Half a dozen squad cars with their turret lights blazing. Sort of pretty.

  Finally, he saw Detective Alex Cross leave the house. Cross was tall and well built. He was in his early forties, resembled the fighter Muhammad Ali at his best. Cross’s face wasn’t flat, though. His brown eyes sparkled constantly. He was better looking, actually, than Ali had ever been.

  Cross was one of his prime opponents, and this was a fight to the death, wasn’t it? It was an intensive battle of wits, but even more than that, a battle of wills.

  The Mastermind was confident that he would win against Cross. If anything, this was a mismatch. The Mastermind always won, didn’t he? And yet, he felt a little unsure. Cross exuded confidence, too, and that made him angry. How dare he? Who did the detective think he was?

  He watched the house for a while longer, and knew it was perfectly safe for
him to be there.

  Perfectly safe.

  On a numerical scale of 9.9999 out of 10.

  He had a crazy thought then, and he knew where it came from. When he was just a boy, he absolutely loved cowboy-and-Indian movies and TV shows. He always rooted for the Indians. And he particularly loved one extraordinary trick that they had — they would sneak into an enemy’s camp and simply touch the enemy while he slept. It was called, he believed, counting coup.

  The Mastermind wanted to count coup on Alex Cross.

  Chapter 29

  AS SOON AS WE KNEW that everyone in the house was safe, I called St. Anthony’s Hospital to check on Jannie. Guilt, paranoia, and duty were all pulling hard at me. The furies had me in a terrible vise. The bank manager’s family was safe. What about my own?

  I was put in contact with the nurses’ station on Jannie’s floor. I spoke to an RN, Julietta Newton, who sometimes stopped by Jannie’s room when I came to visit. Julietta reminded me of an old friend, a nurse who had died the year before, Nina Childs.

  “This is Alex Cross. I’m sorry to bother you, Julietta, but I’m trying to reach my grandmother. Or my daughter, Jannie.”

  “Nana isn’t on the floor at the moment,” the nurse told me. “Jannie just went down for an MRI. A spot opened up and Dr. Petito wanted her to take it. Your grandmother accompanied her downstairs.”

  “I’m on my way. Is Jannie all right?”

  The nurse hesitated, then she spoke. “She had another seizure, Detective. She’s stabilized, though.”

  I rushed back to the hospital from Rosslyn and got there in about fifteen minutes. I hurried down to B-1 and found an area marked DIAGNOSTIC TESTING. It was late, almost ten o’clock. No one was at the front desk, so I walked right past and down a light blue corridor that looked eerie and forbidding at that time of night.