Cross

of hers. Then my sweet girl’s eyes closed for the last time, and she was gone forever from me. Even while I was standing there holding on to her for dear life.

Chapter 16
    MARIA SIMPSON CROSS DIED in my arms—which was something I told almost no one, except Sampson and Nana Mama.
    I didn’t want to talk about our last few moments together; I didn’t want anyone’s pity, or their prying. I didn’t want to satisfy some people’s need for petty gossip, the latest dramatic story to whisper in hushed tones. All through the murder investigation over the next several months, I never discussed what had happened in front of St. Anthony’s. That was between Maria and me. Sampson and I talked to hundreds of people, but nobody gave us a lead on her killer. The trail went cold fast and stayed that way. We checked out the crazy mob killer but discovered he’d been on a flight back to New York the previous night—apparently he left town shortly after he left my kitchen. The FBI helped us there because a cop’s wife had been shot. The killer wasn’t the Butcher.
    At two o’clock the morning after she died, I was inside our apartment, still wearing my holster and gun, pacing the living room with a screaming Janelle in my arms. I couldn’t get the idea out of my head that our baby girl was crying for her mother, who had died that night just outside St. Anthony’s, where Jannie had been born six months before.
    Suddenly tears were rolling from my eyes, and I felt overwhelmed by what had happened, both the reality and the unreality of it. I couldn’t deal with any of this, but especially the baby girl I was holding, and whom I couldn’t get to stop crying.
    “It’s all right, baby. It’s all right,” I whispered to my poor girl, who was being tortured by the insidious croup and who probably wanted to be in her mother’s arms rather than mine. “It’s all right, Jannie, it’s all right,” I repeated, though I knew it was a lie. I was thinking,
It’s not all right! Your mama is gone. You’ll never see her anymore. Neither will I.
Dear, sweet Maria, who had never hurt another person that I could remember and whom I loved more than my own life. She had been taken away from us so suddenly and for no reason anyone—not even God—could ever explain to me.
    Oh, Maria,
I spoke to her as I walked back and forth carrying our baby,
how could this have happened? How can I do what I have to do from now on? How can I do it without you? I’m not feeling sorry for myself. I’m just crazed right now. I’ll get it together. I’ll get it together, I promise. Just not tonight.
    I knew she wouldn’t answer me, but it was strangely comforting to imagine that Maria could talk back, that maybe she could hear me at least. I kept hearing her voice, the exact sound of it and the words.
You’ll be fine, Alex, because you love our kids so much.
    “Oh, Jannie, you poor baby. I do love you,” I whispered against the top of our baby’s damp, overheated head.
    And then I saw Nana Mama.

Chapter 17
    MY GRANDMOTHER WAS STANDING in the doorway of the hall leading to the apartment’s two small bedrooms. Arms folded, she’d been watching me all this time. Had I been talking to myself? Talking out loud? I had no idea what I’d been doing.
    “I woke you, didn’t I?” I said in a whisper that was hardly necessary given the crying baby.
    Nana was calm, and she seemed in control of herself. She’d stayed at the apartment to help with the kids in the morning, but now she was up, and that was my fault, and little Jannie’s.
    “I was awake,” she said. “I was up thinking that you and the kids have to come back to my house on Fifth Street. It’s a big enough house, Alex. Plenty big. That’s the best way for this to work from now on.”
    “For
what
to work?” I asked, a little confused by what she was saying, especially as Jannie was wailing loudly in my other ear.
    Nana’s back arched. “You need me to help you with these children, Alex. It’s as obvious as the nose on your face. I accept that. I want to do it, and I will.”
    “Nana,” I said. “We’ll be fine. We’ll do this ourselves. Just give me a little time to get my bearings.”
    Nana ignored me as she continued to bring me in on her thinking. “I’m here for you, Alex, and I’m here for the babies. That’s the way it has to be now. I don’t want any more back talk on it. So just stop, please.”
    She walked toward me then and put her thin arms around me,