Roses Are Red

door with all the shattering force of an NFL blocking fullback. The door locks blew right off. We were inside. Sampson and Powell were a step ahead of me. No shots had been fired yet.
    “Mom-mee!”
One of the small children screeched an alarm. I had an instant of fear about the families that had been hurt already because of the Mastermind. We didn’t need any blood to flow here.
    Armed and dangerous.
    Two kids were watching
South Park
on TV. Where was Mitchell Brand? And where was the kids’ mother, Theresa Lopez? Maybe they weren’t even home. Sometimes kids got left alone in apartments for days.
    The bedroom door in front of us was closed. Music was playing somewhere in the apartment. If Mitchell Brand was here tonight, he wasn’t too security conscious. That didn’t track very well for me. I didn’t like anything about this so far.
    I yanked open the bedroom door and peered inside. My heart was thundering. I was in a crouched shooting stance. A third small child was playing with a teddy bear on the floor. “Blue Bear,” she told me.
    “Blue Bear,” I whispered.
    I stepped back fast into the hallway. I saw Sampson kick another door open.
The apartment layout we’d been given was wrong! This was a two-bedroom apartment.
    Suddenly, Mitchell Brand came out into the hallway. He was dragging along Theresa Lopez. He had a .45-caliber handgun pressed up against her forehead. She was a pretty, light brown–skinned woman, shaking badly. Both Brand and Lopez were naked except for gold chains around his thick neck, wrist, and left ankle.
    “Put down the gun, Brand,” I shouted above the din in the apartment. “You’re not going anywhere. You can’t get out of here. You’re smart enough to know that.
Put down the gun.
”
    “Just get out of my way!” he shouted. “I’m smart enough to put a hole in your face first.”
    I stood my ground in front of Brand. Sampson and Rakeem Powell came up on either side. “The First Union Bank job in Falls Church. If you’re not involved, you’ve got no problem,” I said, lowering my voice some. “Put down the gun.”
    Brand yelled again. “I didn’t rob the First Union Bank! I was in New York City the whole week! I was at a weddin’, Theresa’s sister.
Somebody set me up. Somebody did this to me!
”
    Theresa Lopez was starting to sob uncontrollably. Her children were crying and calling out for their mother. Detectives and FBI agents held them back, kept them safe.
    “He was at my sister’s wedding!” Theresa Lopez screamed at me. Her eyes were pleading.
“He was at a wedding!”
    “Mommee! Mommee!” the kids cried.
    “Put the gun down, Brand. Get some clothes on. We need to talk to you. I
believe
you were at a wedding. I believe you and Theresa.
Put the gun down.
”
    I was aware that my shirt was soaked through to the skin. One of the children was still lurking behind Brand and Lopez. In the line of fire.
Oh, God, don’t make me shoot this man.
    Then, slowly, Mitchell Brand lowered his gun from the forehead of Theresa Lopez. He kissed the side of her head. “Sorry, baby,” he whispered.
    I was already thinking we’d made a mistake. I felt it in my gut. When he lowered his gun, I
knew
it. Maybe somebody had set up Mitchell Brand. We’d wasted a lot of time and resources to capture him. We had been distracted for days.
    I felt the cold breath of the Mastermind on the back of my neck.

Chapter 73
    I CAME HOME VERY LATE from the East Capitol Dwellings project. I wasn’t feeling too hot about a lot of things: working too much, Christine, the arrest that night of Mitchell Brand.
    I needed to wind down, so I played Gershwin and Cole Porter on the piano until I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. Then I climbed upstairs. I fell fast asleep as soon as my head collided with the pillow.
    I actually slept in the next morning. I finally joined Nana and Damon for breakfast around seven-thirty. This was a big day for the Cross family. I wouldn’t even be going in to work. I had better things to do.
    We left the house at eight-thirty. We were on our way to St. Anthony’s Hospital. Jannie was coming home.
    She was waiting on us. Jannie was all packed up and dressed in blue jeans and a “Concern for the Earth” T-shirt when we arrived at her room. Nana had brought her clothes the day before, but of course Jannie had told Nana exactly what to bring.
    “Let’s go, let’s go. I can’t wait to get home,” she giggled and motormouthed as soon as we