Cross Country

people who did this. I need to talk to him. Please make sure that he gets this message. It could be a matter of life or death.”
    “Yes, sir,” said the assistant, “it always is.”

Chapter 130
    SAMPSON, BREE, AND I stayed in the house another hour or so. We searched every room again, looking for anything to work with.
    But I understood that the two of them were here to make sure I was all right, especially since I was showing a few cracks.
    Finally I told John to go home to his family and get some sleep.
    No one had called or tried to get a message to me.
    “There are two squad cars outside,” Sampson said. “They’ll stay here the rest of the night. Don’t argue with me about it.”
    “I know. I can see them.”
    “That’s the idea, sugar. They’re supposed to be seen.”
    “Make sure they’re on their toes,” Bree said. “I’ll be here too. Tell them I’ll be checking.”
    Sampson hugged Bree, then did the same with me. There was no cop humor tonight, no making light of this. “
Anything
— you call,” he told me.
    Then he started out the kitchen door. He stopped and turned back. “I’ll talk to the men outside. Maybe put on one more car.”
    I didn’t bother to agree or disagree. I was in no shape to make decisions right now. “Thank you.”
    “We’ll be fine,” Bree said.
    “I have no doubt,” Sampson said and nodded. “Call me if
anything
happens!” Finally he shut the door behind him.
    I went over and locked the door, which would give us an extra few seconds if somebody tried to come in. Maybe we’d need it.
    “You all right with this?” Bree asked.
    I nodded. “You staying with me? Of course I am.”
    She drifted over and hugged me again. “Let’s go upstairs, then.” She took my hand. “Alex, come.”
    I let Bree take me upstairs. I was numb and in a faraway dreamscape anyway.
    “There’s a phone in here,” she said as we entered the bedroom. Then she hugged me again and reached down and started to unhook my belt. I didn’t think that was what I needed, but I was wrong about that.
    Until the phone in the bedroom rang
.

Chapter 131
    THE CALLS TO the house started at a few minutes past four in the morning.
Hang-ups,
one after the other, virtually nonstop.
    The calls were emotional torture for me, but I answered every time; and I didn’t dare take the phone off the hook.
How could I?
The phone was my lifeline to Nana and the kids. Whoever was calling had them. I had to believe that.
    Bree and I held each other through the night, probably the worst night of my life.
    I told her some of what I’d done and seen in Africa — about the horrors and Adanne and her family — their senseless murders. But I also talked about the goodness and naturalness of the people; their helplessness, caught in a nightmare they hadn’t created and didn’t want.
    “And this Tiger, what more did you learn about that bastard, Alex?”
    “Terrorist, assassin — seems to work both sides of the street. Anyone who pays him. He’s the most violent killer I’ve ever seen, Bree. He likes to hurt people. And there are others like him. It’s a name they have for killers for hire:
Tiger
.”
    “So he took Nana and the kids? He did this? You’re sure about that?”
    “Yes,” I said as the phone rang again. “And that’s him.”
    The phone kept ringing — and I began to pace around the house, going from room to room, thinking about my family all the while. Rosie followed me everywhere.
    In the kitchen, Nana’s favorite cookbook was still out —
The Gift of Southern Cooking
. I checked and saw it was open to a starred recipe for chocolate-pecan cake.
    Nana’s famous gabardine raincoat was draped over the back of a kitchen chair. How many times had she told me, “I don’t want another raincoat. It took me half a century to get this one worn in right”?
    I walked around Ali’s room.
    I saw his Pokémon cards laid out carefully on the floor. His beloved plush toy Moo. A hand-painted T-shirt from his fifth birthday party. A copy of
Ralph S. Mouse
spread open on the night table.
    When I got to Jannie’s room, I sat down heavily on the bed. My eyes ran over her precious collection of books. And the wire baskets brimming with hair accessories, lip glosses, fruit-scented lotions. Then I spotted her reading glasses, prescribed only a month or so ago. That got to me. There was something so vulnerable and telling about her new glasses sitting on the desk.
    I sat there holding Rosie and