Roses Are Red

promised.”
    “Hooray! Hooray!” Jannie shouted, and did one of her impromptu dances. “I love little A. J.”
    “That’s real good,” Damon said, and beamed approval. “I’m glad he’s coming home.”
    I was, too, and I wondered how a single moment could be so joyful but also so sad. The Boy was coming to live with us, but Christine was gone. It was official now; I had told Nana Mama and the kids. I hadn’t felt so empty and alone for a long time.

Chapter 91
    THE MORE DANGEROUS IT WAS, THE BETTER THE THRILL.
The Mastermind already knew the truth in that maxim, and this was dangerous indeed. The money was nice, but the money wasn’t enough. It was the danger that got his adrenaline flowing and turned him on.
    FBI agent James Walsh lived alone in a small rented ranch house out in Alexandria. The house was as plain and unassuming as Agent Walsh himself. It suited his personality perfectly. It was such an “honest” and “forthcoming” abode.
    The Mastermind had little trouble getting into the house. Police officers could be incredibly sloppy about security systems in their own homes. Walsh was lax, or maybe he was just arrogant.
    He wanted to get in and out quickly, but the Mastermind didn’t want to be careless.
The floorboards creaked.
He already knew that — he’d been inside the house before.
    The floorboards continued to make distressing noises as he got closer and closer to James Walsh’s bedroom.
    The more dangerous, the better The more outrageous, the greater the thrill.
    That was how it always worked for him.
    He slowly, silently pushed open the bedroom door and he started to enter, when — “Don’t move,” Walsh said from the semidarkness of the room.
    He could just barely see the FBI agent across the bedroom. Walsh had positioned himself behind the bed. He had a shotgun in his hands. Walsh kept the gun under his bed, never slept without it there.
    “You can see the gun, mister. It’s aimed right at your goddamn chest. I won’t miss you, I promise.”
    “So I see,” the Mastermind said, and chuckled softly. “Checkmate, huh? You caught the Mastermind. How clever of you.”
    Still smiling, he started to walk forward toward Walsh.
    The more dangerous, the better.
    “Don’t! Stop!” Walsh suddenly yelled at him. “Stop or I’ll shoot! STOP!”
    “Yes, as you
promised,
” the Mastermind said.
    He didn’t stop, didn’t slow down a step, kept coming — inexorably.
    Then he heard Agent Walsh pull the trigger. The single action that was supposed to cause his death, stop his world, solve the crime spree.
But nothing happened.
    “Awhh, and you promised, Agent Walsh.”
    He put his own handgun against the FBI agent’s forehead. With his free hand, he brushed across Walsh’s crew-cut head.
    “I’m the Mastermind; you’re not. You’ve been dying to catch me, but I’ve caught you. I
emptied
your shotgun. I’m going to catch all of you. One by one. Agents Walsh, Doud, Cavalierre. Maybe even Detective Alex Cross. You’re all going to die.”

Chapter 92
    I ARRIVED AT JAMES WALSH’S HOME in Virginia around midnight on Sunday. Several of the neighbors were circulating nervously out on the street. I heard an elderly woman mutter and sigh, “Such a nice man. What a shame, what a waste. He was an FBI agent, you know.”
    I
knew.
I took a deep breath and then I plunged inside the modest house where Walsh had lived and died. The Bureau was there in large numbers and so were the local police. Because an agent had died, the Violent Crime Unit had been called in from Quantico.
    I spotted Agent Mike Doud and I hurried over to him. Doud looked ashen and maybe close to losing it.
    “I’m sorry,” I said to him. He and Walsh had been close friends. Doud lived nearby in the Virginia suburbs.
    “Oh, Jesus. Jimmy never said a word to me. I was his best friend, for God’s sake.”
    I nodded. “What do you know so far? What happened?”
    Doud pointed toward the bedroom. “Jimmy’s in there. I guess he killed himself, Alex. He left a note. Hard to believe.”
    I crossed the sparsely decorated living room. I knew from talking to him that Walsh had been divorced a couple of years ago. He had a sixteen-year-old son in prep school and another at Holy Cross, where Walsh had gone himself.
    James Walsh was waiting for me in the bathroom connected to the bedroom. He was curled up on the off-white tile floor, which was flooded with a lot of his blood. I could see what was left of the back of