Cross Fire

knife still in his hand. He gets up, disoriented, and stumbles into the bedroom to find Bree gutted in their bed. When he runs to check on the children, it’s more of the same. The grandmother, too. Alex can’t remember a thing, not even how he got home that night. Flash forward a year or two, and he’s learning all about the unique hell that is maximum-security lockup, festering in his own innocence while the walls close in around him a little more every day.
    Or — maybe not.
    Maybe he’d take Alex out definitively, once and for all. Good old-fashioned torture and murder, not to mention getting to actually watch Cross die, had considerable appeal, too.
    In the meantime, there was no specific hurry to decide the final option. His only job for now was to breathe Max Siegel’s air, stay open to the possibilities, and focus on whatever was right in front of him.
    And, at the present moment, that was Agent Patel.
    When he went back to check on her, she was just starting to soften up around the edges. All well and good. By the time she started putting up any kind of smell, he’d be rid of her.
    “Fun while it lasted, roomie,” he said, and leaned down to give her a chaste good-bye kiss on the lips. Then he rolled his departing guest into a standard white body bag and zipped her up for transport.

Chapter 67

    ANOTHER EARLY MORNING, and another phone call from Sampson. This time, I wasn’t even out of bed. “Listen, sugar, I know you had a hell of a night out on the parkway, but I thought you’d want to know. We just got another body in this numbers case.”
    “Great timing,” I said, still flat on my back with Bree’s arm slung over my chest.
    “I guess nobody’s getting my memos about that. Listen, I can cover this if you need to take a pass.”
    “Where are you?” I asked him.
    “The bus terminal behind Union Station. Seriously, though, you sound like the bad half of a hangover, Alex. Why don’t you stay put, and forget I called?”
    “No,” I said. Every part of me wanted to stay attached to that mattress, but you get only one first shot at a crime scene. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
    Bree grabbed at my arm as I sat up and swung my feet to the floor.
    “God, Alex, this is, like, the definition of ‘early.’ What’s going on now?”
    “Sorry to wake you,” I said, and leaned back far enough to kiss her good morning. “You know, I can’t wait to marry you, by the way.”
    “Oh yeah? How’s that going to change any of this?”
    “It won’t,” I said. “I just can’t wait.”
    She smiled, and even in the semidark it was a beautiful thing to see. No woman I’ve ever known can look as good as she does in the morning. Or as sexy. I had to get up again fast before I started something I couldn’t finish.
    “Do you want me to come with you?” she asked, a little groggy but up on one elbow now.
    “Thanks, no. I’ve got this. But if you could get the kids to school —”
    “Done. Anything else?”
    “A couple of quick, unspeakable acts before I leave?”
    “Rain check,” she said. “Sampson’s waiting. Now go — before we both do something we won’t regret.”
    I was gone a few minutes later, and had to wave off the security detail in the backyard when they saw me launch out the door. It had been only a few hours since I’d come dragging past them, moving in the opposite direction.
    “Hey, guys. Regina’s just getting up,” I said. “Coffee’ll be out for you soon.”
    “And biscuits?” asked one of them.
    “I wouldn’t doubt it,” I said, and laughed.
    This was getting out of hand, though. I knew about crazy hours as well as the next guy, but leaving the house before Nana Mama even gets her kitchen up and running for the day?
That
is the definition of “early.”

Chapter 68

    ALL OF THE EARLY-MORNING buses were lined up on the street outside Union Station when I got there.
    Sampson had already shut down the rear terminal, and there were traffic cops in orange vests everywhere, pointing people to where they needed to go. One more colossal headache, but at least it wasn’t mine.
    I pulled around back and walked up from street level to the cavernous main deck of the parking garage. Sampson was waiting for me with a large coffee in each hand.
    “I’m hating this one, sugar. Hating it real bad,” he said, handing over my morning fuel.
    We walked toward the back, where I could see a row of big brown Dumpsters against the wall on the H Street side. Only