I, Alex Cross

at his expense.
    These guys obviously weren’t Family. They were too "white" for that, even the dark one. "What the hell are you? CIA or something?"
    "Worse for you, John. We’re
former
DEA. Less paperwork, if you know what I mean."
    Johnny was pretty sure he did. They weren’t going to write up what had happened to poor Liz or Lisl. What — like she’d tried to pull a gun on them from her pussy?
    The white guy crossed the floor in a couple of fast steps and kicked him a swift one in the groin. "That doesn’t mean we like wasting our time running after pathetic garbage like you, though. Let’s go. Get your pants on."
    "I… can’t. Where are we going?" Johnny was doubled over, with his hands on his crotch, only wishing he could hurl. It felt like his stomach had turned inside out. "Just… shoot me and get it over with."
    "Yeah, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? Join your little girlfriend in the everlasting. Afraid it’s not going to be that easy, my friend."
    The two guys leaned over and started wrapping him in the motel bedsheet. They pulled the corners up all around, tied them tight. Johnny couldn’t even take his hands off his meat to do anything. Then they dragged him out the door like he was a bag of dirty laundry.
    That’s when he would have started screaming, if he’d had the air for it, because Johnny Tucci had just figured out where they were going, and what was going to happen next.

Chapter 16

    WHEN CAROLINE’S MOTHER pulled the black Chevy Suburban into the parking area at Rock Creek Cemetery, it was the first time I’d seen her in over twenty years. We’d spoken on the phone about funeral arrangements, but now that it was here, I didn’t know what to expect or really what to say to her.
    I opened the car door myself. "Michelle, hi."
    She looked the same to me, still pretty, with the same long wild hair, shot through with gray now, half-tamed in a braid twisting down her back.
    It was her eyes that were different. They’d always been so alive. I could see she’d been crying, but they were dry now. Dry, red around the rims, and so very tired.
    "I forgot how much you looked like him," she said.
    She meant Blake; he and I had always been unmistakably brothers, at least physically, especially in the face. Blake was buried here at Rock Creek too.
    I held out my arm and was a little surprised that she took it. We started walking toward St. Paul’s, with the rest of the family not far behind.
    "Michelle, I want you to know that I’m handling Caroline’s case myself. If there’s anything you need from me —"
    "There’s not, Alex."
    It came out quickly, a simple statement of fact. When she spoke again, her voice started to shake. "I’m going to lay my baby to rest…" She stopped to take a steadying breath. "And then I’m going to go back home to Providence. That’s as much as I can handle right now."
    "You don’t have to go through this alone. You can come stay at the house. Nana and I would like that. I know it’s been a long time —"
    "A long time since you turned your back on your brother."
    So there it was. Twenty years of misunderstanding coming out, just like that.
    Blake’s addiction had done a lot of the talking for him near the end. He’d cut me out when I got aggressive about rehab, but that was obviously not what he told Michelle, who was using heroin at the time too, even while she was pregnant with Caroline.
    "It was actually the other way around," I said to her as gently as I could.
    For the first time, her voice rose. "I can’t, Alex! I can’t go back to that house, so don’t ask me to."
    "Of course you can."
    We both turned around. It was Nana who’d spoken. Bree, Jannie, and Ali were there too, coming up on either side of Nana, her honor guard, her protectors.
    Then she walked right up to Michelle and put her arms around her.
    "We lost sight of you and Caroline a long time ago, and now we’ve lost her for good. But you are
still
a part of our family. You always will be."
    Nana stepped back and put a hand on Jannie’s shoulder. "Janelle, Ali, this is your aunt Michelle."
    "I’m very sorry for your loss," Jannie said.
    Nana went on. "Whatever happened before today, or whatever happens tomorrow, doesn’t mean a thing right now." Her voice was filling with emotion, and I could hear shades of the southern Baptist heritage coming through. "We’re here to remember Caroline with all the love we have in our hearts. When those good-byes are over, then we’ll