Cross Fire

death, slowly, back in that cell in Colorado where you came from. You’re going back.”
    “Oh, that reminds me,” he said — and then abruptly hung up. It was pure Kyle, just one more way of saying he’d started this thing and he was going to finish it, his way. Control was like oxygen to him.
    Suddenly, Bree was right there, with her arms around me. “I spoke to Nana,” she said. “Everything’s fine, but she knows we’re coming home. And I’ve got a squad car headed over there right now.”
    I got up and started dressing as fast as I could. My body was shaking with anger, and not just at Kyle.
    “I messed up, Bree,” I said. “Bad. I can’t let him get to me like that. I can’t! It’s only going to make things worse.”
    If that was possible.

Chapter 19

    GODDAMN HIM!
For everything.
    Kyle had just accomplished exactly what he wanted, which was to inject himself into my life. He had my number, in more ways than one. Now I had no choice but to respond.
    An MPD cruiser was in front of the house when we got there, with another uniformed officer in the back by the garage. Sampson was there, too; I’m not even sure who called him, but I was glad he came.
    “All cool, sugar, we’re good here,” he said as we came in. He and Nana were hanging out in the kitchen. She’d even managed a ham sandwich and chips for him by then.
    “This isn’t over,” I said. It was a struggle to keep my voice down while the kids slept upstairs. “We have to talk about moving the family.”
    “Oh, is that so?” Nana said, and the temperature in the room dropped about twenty degrees.
    “Nana —”
    “Alex, no. Not again. You do what you need to with the children. I, for one, meant it the last time when I said it would
be
the last time. I’m not moving out of this house, and that’s my final word on the subject.”
    Before I could even respond, she decided she wasn’t done after all.
    “And another thing. If this Kyle Craig is as good as you say he is, then it doesn’t matter where you put the children. What matters, Detective Cross, is that you protect them where they are.” Her voice was shaking, but her finger was steady as she pointed it right at my face. “Defend your home, Alex. Make it happen! You’re supposed to be good at your job.”
    She smacked the table twice with the flat of her hand and leaned back again. My move.
    First, I took a breath and counted to ten. Then I asked Bree to start the APB process right away. “Get it out on WALES, all jurisdictions, and then NCIC at the Bureau as soon as we can.” For that, we’d need a warrant number, and Sampson got on the stick to track it down.
    I put in my own call to the FBI field office in Denver. Technically, Kyle was their case, since he’d escaped from prison in Colorado.
    Over the phone, an Agent Tremblay told me that they had nothing new to report but that he’d be in touch with all mid-Atlantic field offices right away. This was a priority case for them, too, and not just because of the damage Kyle had done to the Bureau’s reputation the first time around. I had a feeling I’d be hearing from Jim Heekin at the Directorate in Washington first thing in the morning.
    Meanwhile, I made another call — and woke up my good buddy and sometimes sparring mate Rakeem Powell.
    Rakeem had been with the force for fifteen years, and a detective with the 103 for eight. Then, in the same six-month period, he’d gotten married and shot, in that order, and ended up taking early retirement.
    No one ever thought Rakeem would leave the department, but then again, no one thought he’d ever settle down either. Now he had his own close-security firm in Silver Spring, and I was about to become a client.
    By seven that morning, we had a whole system in place. The kids were covered to and from school by me and Bree, with Sampson as backup. Rakeem’s firm would provide overnight security, front and back, with daytime coverage as needed. They’d also spend the first day working up an assessment of penetrable areas of the house and try to have them wired up before the kids got home.
    Nana tried to put her foot down about FBI agents in the yard, but I came out on top of that one. As instructed by her, I was doing whatever I needed to do to make things happen. She and I were barely speaking at this point, and no one was happy about any of it, but this was our reality now.
    Life under siege. Kyle Craig was back in our lives.

Chapter 20

    AND THEN LIFE does go