I, Alex Cross

Suiter."
    "The lawyer?"
    "Presumably. Who else would it be? Guy’s got more money than God."
    Carl Villanovich put the camera down and rubbed his eyes vigorously. It had been three straight nights of surveillance in the woods of Blacksmith Farms, and he was stone-cold sick of the duty.
    He unfolded a tripod from his pack and mounted the camera to give himself a break. The image played on a laptop next to him as he zoomed out for a long shot of the house exterior.
    The place was huge, limestone from the look of it, with three-story columns in front. It had probably been a plantation house at one point. There was a converted barn in the back and several other outbuildings, all of them dark tonight.
    "Here comes another one."
    His partner, Tommy Skuba, fired off several shots with a high-speed digital SLR as a wine red Jaguar coupe came rushing out of the woods. Villanovich went in tight on the Jag’s license number when it swung around the oval loop in front of the house.
    "Got that?" he asked.
    "Got it," came the voice on his headset. Command center was seventy-five miles away in Washington, watching everything in real time.
    There was no valet out front. The new arrival parked himself and rang the bell. Almost instantly, a tall, gorgeous black woman in a shimmery dress answered the door, smiling, and let him right in.
    "Skuba, stay on the windows."
    "I know, I know. Doin’ my best to make Steven Spielberg proud. Jaguar must be a regular."
    Villanovich rubbed both hands up and down his face, trying to stay sharp. "Any chance of calling this early tonight? We’ve already got more than we need here, don’t we?"
    "Negative," command came back right away. "We want you there for departures."
    Another round of shots from Skuba’s camera pulled Villanovich’s attention back to the house. The Jag’s driver had just passed a window on the stairs, walking with a girl on his arm. Tall and black, but not the woman from the front door.
    "Jesus Christ." Skuba lowered the camera and muted his headset. "Did you see the rack on her? I don’t mind saying, I’m a little jealous out here. And, uh, horny."
    "Don’t be. Quantico’s on the case now," Villanovich told him, still watching the empty window. "When this place goes down, they’re all going down with it."

Chapter 31

    BEFORE NANA WAS allowed to come home, I had to meet with Dr. Englefield one more time. In the confines of her office on the first floor at St. Anthony’s, the doctor was considerably more relaxed and easygoing and human.
    "We’ve unloaded the fluid in your grandmother’s chest and gotten her blood pressure back to a baseline level, but that’s only a start. She, and you, are going to have to be vigilant. Regina won’t admit it, but she’s over ninety years old. This is a serious problem."
    "I understand," I said. "And so does my grandmother — believe it or not."
    Nana was already on a whole new regimen of medications — ACE inhibitors, diuretics, and a hydralazine-nitrate combination that had been shown especially effective with African American patients for some reason. There was also a new no-salt diet to think about, and daily weight monitoring to make sure she wasn’t retaining excess fluid.
    "It’s a lot to get used to all at once," Dr. Englefield said, offering a rare half smile. "Lack of compliance is a major contributor to cardiac arrest for someone in her position, and family support is crucial. It’s critical."
    "Believe me, we’ll do whatever it takes," I told her. Even Jannie had been researching congestive heart failure online.
    "I’d also recommend bringing in a home care provider any time you and your wife are out of the house." Englefield had met Bree only once in passing; I didn’t bother to correct her. "Of course, that might be a tough sell with your grandmother. I suspect it will be."
    I grinned for the first time. "I see you’ve been getting to know each other. And yes, we’ve already started looking into it."
    The doctor smiled too — for about a tenth of a second. "Regina was lucky to have someone on hand when she collapsed the other day. You’d be wise to make sure she’s just as lucky if — or when — it happens again."
    It wasn’t hard to see why Nana had dubbed this one "Dr. Sunshine." But if she was trying to scare me, it was definitely working.

Chapter 32

    THE DOCTOR AND I went upstairs to see Nana together. There was safety in numbers after all. Wasn’t that right?
    "Mrs. Cross," Dr. Englefield