Along Came a Spider

countless pictures and posters, and I couldn’t believe she was really standing there. After all this time.
    Maggie Rose didn’t smile, or react in any way, as she watched us coming up the hill in the U.S. embassy van.
    She didn’t seem happy that someone had finally come for her, that she was being rescued.
    She appeared very confused, wounded, and afraid. She would take a step forward, then a step backward, then look back at her “family.”
    I wondered if Maggie Rose knew what was happening. She had been severely traumatized. I wondered if she could feel anything at all. I was glad I could be there to help.
    I thought of Jezzie again, and I shook my head involuntarily. The storm inside wouldn’t stop. How could she have done this to the little girl? For a couple of million dollars? For all the money in the known universe?
    Katherine Rose was the first one out of the minivan. At that very moment, Maggie Rose opened her arms. “Mommy!” she cried out. Then, hesitating for only a split second, she seemed to leap forward. Maggie Rose ran toward her mother. They ran into each other’s arms.
    For the next minute, I couldn’t see much of anything through my tears. I looked at Sampson and saw a tear seeping from under his dark glasses.
    “Two tough
de
-tectives,” he said and grinned at me. It was that lone wolf’s smile I love.
    “Yeah, we sure are Washington, D.C.’s finest,” I said.
    Maggie Rose was finally going home. Her name was an incantation in my head — Maggie Rose, Maggie Rose. It was worth everything, just to see that moment.
    “The End,” Sampson pronounced.

----
Part Six
The Cross House
----

CHAPTER 87

    THE CROSS HOUSE was right there across the street, There it was, in all of its humble glory.
    The Bad Boy was mesmerized by the glittering orangish house lights. His eyes roamed from window to window. A couple of times, he caught sight of a black woman shuffling past one of the windows downstairs. Alex Cross’s grandmother, no doubt.
    He knew her name, Nana Mama. He knew Alex had named her that as a boy. In the last few weeks, he’d learned everything there was to know about the Cross family. He had a plan for them now. A neat little fantasy.
    Sometimes the boy liked to be afraid like this. Afraid for himself; afraid for the people in the house. He enjoyed this feeling as long as he could control it, and turn it on and off at will.
    He finally urged himself to leave his hiding place, to go even closer to the Cross house.
To be the fear
.
    His senses were much sharper when the fear was with him. He could concentrate and maintain focus for very long stretches of time. As he crossed 5th Street, there was nothing in his consciousness other than the house and the people inside.
    The boy disappeared into the bushes that ran alongside the front of the house. His heart was beating strongly now. His breathing was fast and shallow.
    He took one deep breath, then slowly let it out through his mouth.
Slow down, enjoy this
, he thought.
    He turned so that he
faced away
from the house. He could actually feel warmth from the walls on his back. He watched the inner-city street through the tangle of branches. It was always darker in Southeast. Streetlights were never replaced.
    He was careful. He took his sweet time. He watched the street for ten minutes or more. No one had seen him. No one was spying on him this time.
    “One last touch, and then on to other bigger and better things.”
    He thought the words, or spoke them under his breath. Sometimes he couldn’t tell which was which anymore. A lot of things were coming together now, becoming one: his thoughts, his words, his actions, his stories to himself.
    Each detail had been thought through hundreds of times before this particular night. Once they were all sound asleep, probably between two and three in the morning, he would take the two children, Damon and Janelle.
    He would drug them, right there in their bedroom on the second floor. He would let Doctor/Detective Alex Cross sleep through everything.
    He had to do that. The famous Dr. Cross needed to suffer a great deal now. Cross had to be part of the new search. That was the way it had to be. It was the only worthy solution. He would be the victor.
    Not that Cross would need any extra motivation, but he’d get it, anyway. First, the boy would murder the old woman, Cross’s grandmother. Then he would go to the children’s bedroom.
    None of it would ever be solved, of course. The Cross