I, Alex Cross Read online

  “Jesus Christ.” Skuba lowered the camera and muted his headset. “Did you see the rack on her? I don’t mind saying, I’m a little jealous out here. And, uh, horny.”

  “Don’t be. Quantico’s on the case now,” Villanovich told him, still watching the empty window. “When this place goes down, they’re all going down with it.”

  Chapter 31

  BEFORE NANA WAS allowed to come home, I had to meet with Dr. Englefield one more time. In the confines of her office on the first floor at St. Anthony’s, the doctor was considerably more relaxed and easygoing and human.

  “We’ve unloaded the fluid in your grandmother’s chest and gotten her blood pressure back to a baseline level, but that’s only a start. She, and you, are going to have to be vigilant. Regina won’t admit it, but she’s over ninety years old. This is a serious problem.”

  “I understand,” I said. “And so does my grandmother— believe it or not.”

  Nana was already on a whole new regimen of medications—ACE inhibitors, diuretics, and a hydralazine-nitrate combination that had been shown especially effective with African American patients for some reason. There was also a new no-salt diet to think about, and daily weight monitoring to make sure she wasn’t retaining excess fluid.

  “It’s a lot to get used to all at once,” Dr. Englefield said, offering a rare half smile. “Lack of compliance is a major contributor to cardiac arrest for someone in her position, and family support is crucial. It’s critical.”

  “Believe me, we’ll do whatever it takes,” I told her. Even Jannie had been researching congestive heart failure online.

  “I’d also recommend bringing in a home care provider any time you and your wife are out of the house.” Englefield had met Bree only once in passing; I didn’t bother to correct her. “Of course, that might be a tough sell with your grandmother. I suspect it will be.”

  I grinned for the first time. “I see you’ve been getting to know each other. And yes, we’ve already started looking into it.”

  The doctor smiled too—for about a tenth of a second. “Regina was lucky to have someone on hand when she collapsed the other day. You’d be wise to make sure she’s just as lucky if—or when—it happens again.”

  It wasn’t hard to see why Nana had dubbed this one “Dr. Sunshine.” But if she was trying to scare me, it was definitely working.

  Chapter 32

  THE DOCTOR AND I went upstairs to see Nana together. There was safety in numbers, after all. Wasn’t that right?

  “Mrs. Cross,” Dr. Englefield said, “you’re doing quite well, all things considered. I’d recommend one more night’s stay and then we can send you off.”

  “I like that word, recommend,” Nana said. “Thank you for your recommendation, Doctor. I appreciate it. Now, if you’ll excuse us, my grandson is going to take me home. I have things to do today, cakes to bake, thank-you notes to write, and so on and so forth.”

  With a quick shrug from Englefield, I let it go. So did she. Forty-five minutes later, Nana and I were on our way home.

  In the car, Nana reminded me of an old chocolate Lab we’d had when I was a kid in North Carolina, just before my parents died. The window was down and she was letting the air blow over her while the world flew by outside. I half expected her to start quoting Dr. King. Free at last, free at last…

  Or maybe some choice line of Morgan Freeman’s from The Bucket List.

  She turned to me and patted the upholstery with both hands. “How do they get these seats so comfortable? I could sleep much better here than in that hospital bed, I’ll tell you that.”

  “So you won’t mind that we turned your room into a den,” I deadpanned.

  She cackled and started to recline the seat. “Just watch me.” But when she got too low, her laugh turned into a coughing jag. Her lungs were still tentative; it doubled her over with a hacking sound that went right to my gut.

  I pulled over and got a hand behind her until I could raise the seat again.

  She waved me off, still coughing but better. My own heart was working overtime. This recovery was going to be an interesting dance, I could tell.

  The coughing episode seemed like a good segue, so once we were moving again, I said, “Listen. Bree and I have been thinking about getting someone at the house—”

  Nana gave a wordless grunt.

  “Just for when we’re at work. Maybe half a day.”

  “I don’t need some oversolicitous stranger hovering around me and fluffing my pillows. It’s embarrassing. And costly. We need a new roof, Alex, not nursemaids.”

  “I hear you,” I said. I’d been expecting that answer. “But I’m not going to feel comfortable leaving the house otherwise. We have enough money.”

  “Oh, I see.” She folded her hands in her lap. “This is all about what you want. I understand perfectly now.”

  “Come on, let’s not argue. You’re going home,” I said, but then I caught a little eye roll from her. She was just busting my chops because she could—for the sheer fun of it.

  Which was not to say she’d agreed to anything about any “nursemaid.”

  “Well, at least the patient’s in a good mood,” I said.

  “Yes, she is,” Nana answered. We were coming onto Fifth Street, and she sat up a little higher in her seat. “And no one, not even the great Alex Cross, is going to get under her skin on a day as nice as this one.”

  A few seconds later, she added, “No nursemaids!”

  Chapter 33

  A HASTILY MADE banner hung over the front door: it said Welcome Home, Nana! in a half dozen colors.

  The kids came streaking out as soon as they saw us. I ran interference and scooped Ali off the ground before he could tackle Nana on the walkway.

  “Gently!” I called to Jannie, who had already put the brakes on some.

  “We missed you so much!” she shrieked. “Oh, Nana, welcome home! Welcome, welcome!”

  “Give me a real hug, Janelle. I’m not going to break.” Nana turned on like a lightbulb and grinned.

  Ali insisted on carrying Nana’s suitcase, which he thunk-thunk-thunked up the steps behind us, while Nana took my arm on one side, Jannie’s on the other.

  When we came into the kitchen, Bree was on the phone. She flashed a big smile Nana’s way and held up a just-one-second finger.

  “Yes, sir. Yes. I will. Thank you so much!” said Bree into the receiver.

  “Who was that?” I asked, but Bree was already rushing over to give Nana a hug of her own.

  “Gently!” Ali said, which cracked Nana up.

  “I’m not a basket of eggs,” she said. “I’m a tough old bird.”

  We settled in at the kitchen table after Nana made it clear she’d go to bed when “real people” did, thank you very much.

  Once we were sitting, Bree cleared her throat like she had an announcement to make. She looked at each of us, then started in. “I’ve been thinking that maybe this whole idea of hiring someone to be here with Nana might not go over so well. Is that correct?”

  “Mm-hm.” Nana gave me a look that said, See? I’m not so hard to figure out.

  “So… I’m going to cut back at work and stay home with you for a while, Nana. That is, if you’ll have me.”

  Nana beamed. “That’s so thoughtful, Bree. And you put it so well. Now that is a health care plan I can live with.”

  I was a little stunned. “Cut back?” I asked.

  “That’s right. I’ll stay available for whatever you need on Caroline’s case, but everything else, I’m farming out. Oh—and Nana, here.” She got up and took a sheaf of papers off the counter. “I printed these recipes out from the Net. See if any of them look good to you. Or not. Whatever. You want some tea?”

  While Nana was reading, I followed Bree over to the stove. One look in her eyes and I realized that it would be wrong for me to ask if this was what she really wanted. Bree had always done what she wanted, and I mean that in a good way.

  “Thank you,”
I said quietly. “You are the best.” She smiled to let me know that thanks weren’t necessary here, and also that she definitely was the best. “I love her too,” she whispered.

  “Eggplant?” Nana held up one of the pages she’d been reading. “You can’t make decent eggplant without salt. It’s just not possible.”

  “Well, keep looking,” Bree said, going over to sit down next to Nana. “There’s a ton more recipes. What about the crab cakes?”

  “Crab cakes could work,” Nana said.

  I just hung back and watched the two of them for a while. It felt like a real circle-of-life moment. I noticed the way Bree leaned into Nana when they laughed, and the way Nana always seemed to keep a hand on Bree, as if they’d been buddies forever. God willing, I thought, they would be for a long time to come.

  “Angel food cake with chocolate icing?” Nana said, and beamed mischief. “Is that on your good-to-eat list, Bree? Should be.”

  Chapter 34

  WHEN I GOT a call from my FBI friend Ned Mahoney the next day, I never would have guessed it had to do with Caroline’s murder case. All he told me over the phone was to meet him at the food court at Tysons Corner Center in McLean. Coming from anyone else, it would have seemed a strange request. Since it came from Ned, whom I trusted implicitly, I knew something was up.

  Ned was a pretty big deal who had once headed the Hostage Rescue Team at the FBI training facility out in Quantico. Now he had an even bigger job, supervising field agents up and down the East Coast. We’d worked together when I was an agent at the Bureau, and again more recently, at a bizarre showdown with dirty cops from SWAT and some drug dealers in DC.

  I sat down across from Ned at an orange plastic table with white plastic chairs, where he was gulping coffee.

  “I’m pretty busy these days. The hell do you want?” I said, and grinned.

  “Let’s walk,” he said, and we got right back up. “I’m busy too. Monnie Donnelley says hello, by the way.”

  “Hello back at Monnie. So, Ned, what’s on your mind? Why the John le Carré cloak-and-dagger stuff?” I asked as we left the food court at a brisk pace.

  “I know some interesting things about Caroline,” he told me, point-blank. “Honestly, Alex, I wouldn’t be talking to you if she wasn’t your niece. This whole thing is getting hinkier and more dangerous every day.”

  I stopped walking across from a store with David Sedaris books stacked up high in the window. “What whole thing? Ned, start me at the beginning.” Mahoney is one of the smartest cops I’ve ever known, but information moves through his brain too fast sometimes.

  He began walking again, eyes scanning the mall. He was starting to make me nervous. “We’ve had a surveillance team on a certain location in Virginia. Private club. Very heavy hitters. Alex, I’m talking about people who can go over both our heads—in more ways than one.”

  “Go on,” I said. “I’m listening to every word.”

  He looked at the ground. “You know that your niece was, um…”

  “Yeah. I know the forensics, all the other details. I saw her at the medical examiner’s.”

  He threw the rest of his coffee into a garbage can. “It’s possible, even probable, that Caroline was murdered by someone at that club.”

  “Hold on.” We stopped again. I waited for a blond mother with three small towheads and an armful of Baby Gap bags to go by. “Why is the Bureau involved?”

  “Technically, Alex? Because a body was transported across state lines.”

  I thought of the mobster who’d been found and then lost: Johnny Tucci. “You’re talking about the punk from Philly?”

  “We have no interest in him. Chances are he’s dead anyway. Alex, this club is frequented by some of the more important people in Washington. It’s gotten heavy at the Bureau in the last couple of days. Top heavy.”

  “I assume you mean Burns is involved.” Ron Burns was the Bureau’s director, and a decent guy. Mahoney shook his head; he wouldn’t answer that one directly, but I could figure it out for myself.

  “Ned, whatever happens, I’m only going to help.”

  “I figured as much. But listen, Alex. You should assume you’re being watched on this one. It’s going to get nasty like you wouldn’t believe.”

  “The nastier the better. Just means somebody cares. I’ll take my chances with that.”

  “You already have.” Ned clapped me on the shoulder and offered a grim smile. “You just didn’t know it until now.”

  Chapter 35

  THE MEETING WITH Ned was useful, but it had also given me a headache, so I was playing a little Brahms in the car on the way back to Judiciary Square. I picked up a voice mail from Ramon Davies’s secretary as I sped along the streets of DC. The superintendent wanted to see me as soon as possible. That didn’t sit too well on top of Ned’s warning at the mall. The last time Davies called, it was to tell me that Caroline had been killed.

  When I got to the Daly Building, I bypassed the elevator and jogged up the stairs to the third floor. Davies’s office door was open, and I rapped two knuckles on the frame.

  He was hunched over paperwork at his desk. The wall behind him was hung with some of his large collection of commendations, including MPD’s Detective of the Year for 2002. I had the award for ’04, but no big office to put a plaque up in. Actually, the certificate was in a drawer someplace at home; at least I thought it was.

  Davies nodded when he saw me. We weren’t exactly friends, but we worked well together and there was respect on both sides. “Come in, and close the door.”

  As I sat down, I couldn’t help noticing my own handwriting on some of the photocopied pages he was studying.

  “Is that Caroline’s file?” I asked.

  Davies didn’t answer at first. He sat back and eyeballed me for a few seconds. Then he said, “I had a call this morning from Internal Affairs.”

  There it was—just about the last thing I wanted to deal with right now. Internal Affairs used to be called the Office of Professional Responsibility. Before that, it was—Internal Affairs. MPD is nothing if not fluid that way.

  “What did they want?” I asked.

  “I think you know. Did you threaten that anchor asshole Ryan Willoughby at Channel Nine? He says you did. So does his assistant.”

  I sat back and took a breath before I answered. “It’s bullshit. Things got a little heated, that’s all.”

  “Okay. I had another call yesterday, from a Congressman Mintzer. Want to guess what he was calling about?”

  I couldn’t believe it—though it was typical enough Washington power-playing and outright bullying. “Both of their phone numbers were found in Caroline’s apartment.”

  “I don’t need you to give me the 101. Not yet anyway.” He held up the file to illustrate his point. “I just need to know that you’ve got a cool head on this.”

  “I do. But this isn’t just another homicide investigation, and I don’t mean because my niece was killed and cut up into pieces.”

  “Damn straight it’s not, Alex. That’s the whole point. These complaints could become a problem. For you and for the entire investigation.”

  I was talking to Davies, but I was also trying to think this thing through. Citizen complaints—when they’re investigated—can end up at one of four conclusions. They can be sustained, determined unfounded, deemed unprovable for lack of evidence, or the officer can be exonerated because no regulation was broken. I felt confident that at worst, I was in the last category.

  Davies wasn’t done with me, though. “I give you more leeway than just about any detective in this division,” he said.

  “Thank you. I’m handling it okay, right? Despite appearances.”

  That got a microscopic grin. He studied me for another few seconds and then sat back. When he started putting away his notes, I knew we were over the hump. At least for right now.

  “I want you on this investigation, Alex. But believe me when I say that the minute—and I mean the minute—anyon
e tries to take this over my head, I’m pulling you off.”

  He stood up then, my sign to get out of there while I still could. “Keep me in the loop. I don’t want to have to call you again. You call me.”

  “Of course,” I assured him, and then I left. If I stuck around longer, I’d have to tell him about my meeting with Ned Mahoney, and that was something I couldn’t afford to do right now. Not if Davies was already considering reining me in.

  I’d tell him everything later. Just as soon as I had some answers myself.

  Chapter 36

  TONY NICHOLSON RECALLED a particular short story that had been popular when he was a schoolboy. He thought it was called “The Most Dangerous Game.” Well, he was playing such a game now, only in real life, and it was much more dangerous than some story in an anthology.

  Nicholson stared at the monitors on his desk—watching and waiting, forcing himself to go slowly on the scotch. Zeus was due any minute, at least he was scheduled to appear, and Nicholson had a decision to make.

  For months now, it had been the same game with this madman. Nicholson kept the carriage barn apartment vacant at all times, booked escorts whenever Zeus demanded it, and then tortured himself wondering if it would be suicide to record one of these little parties of his.

  Nicholson had seen plenty in the few sessions he’d watched, but he had no idea exactly what Zeus was capable of, or even who he was. The man definitely played rough, though. In fact, some of the escorts he’d had sessions with had completely disappeared; at least they’d never come back to work after seeing Zeus.

  Just after 12:30, a black Mercedes with tinted windows pulled up to the front gate. No one buzzed; Nicholson admitted the car remotely, then sat back, waiting for it to show up at the top of the drive.

  His fingers played compulsively back and forth over the keyboard’s touchpad. Record, don’t record, record, don’t record.