Criss Cross (Alex Cross) - James Patterson Page 0,58

three-foot concrete posts were anchored in the ground every fifteen feet or so; lengths of heavy chain were slung between them.

A decapitated head sat atop each of the six nearest posts, eyes open, blankly gaping at us. Blood seeped from the necks and dribbled down the posts, looking like the tentacles of red jellyfish.

Bree said, “We’re going to need an army in here.”

She tugged her radio from its holster and went back into the abandoned building. I could hear her barking orders, summoning crime scene personnel, as Sampson and I crossed the lot toward the severed heads.

“Equal-opportunity killer,” Sampson said, and I understood.

The six victims were an African-American male, an Asian male, a Hispanic male, a Hispanic female, a Caucasian female, and a Caucasian male.

The Hispanic male and the Caucasian female appeared to be in their late thirties, early forties, and the rest looked to be in their twenties.

Noting the deep gray pallor of the Caucasian male, I put a gloved hand on his cheek and found the skin near ice-cold to the touch.

“The heads were frozen,” I said. “That’s why we’re seeing the blood leaking.”

“Pretty bold to move six frozen heads in the middle of the night. What kind of person does that?”

“The Meat Man would have,” I said, feeling toyed with again. “Freezing heads was Tanner Oates’s post-homicide fetish.”

“Oates is dead. You saw him die.”

“I saw Mikey Edgerton die too,” I said. “And Kyle Craig.”

Before Sampson could reply, I heard a dull thudding sound somewhere behind me, and then a huge explosion ripped through the abandoned print shop and blew out the plywood over the windows. The blast knocked me off balance and had my ears ringing, so it took me a moment to remember who had just gone into the building.

“Bree!” I roared and ran straight at the back door.

CHAPTER 65

OFTEN, WHEN I CLOSE my eyes, I can see myself sprinting toward the gray smoke and flame billowing from the blown-out windows, the rear door, and the loading dock.

My training screamed at me to stay out of the building, to wait for the firefighters. But I recalled the interior of the print shop—concrete floors. Steel posts. Trash. No wood. Little fuel. I leaped up the stairs, pulled my jacket over my head, and bulled my way into the chemical smoke and the heat.

“Bree!” I shouted. “Bree!”

My ears still rang from the blast. Fire blazed on mounds of trash to my right. The flames breathed slow and surreal.

“Bree!”

The heat got too intense, forcing me to my left; I was barely able to see. I stuffed the fabric of my jacket into my mouth and sucked cleaner air through it. Then I went down on my hands and knees to get beneath the heat and the rising smoke.

Visibility was better from that position. I could see the base of the steel posts like trees in fog as I crawled forward, pausing every few feet to scream, “Bree!”

No answer. I kept looking from side to side for a human shape.

And then I spotted one through the smoke, hard to my left, a woman lying on her side with her back to me. I crawled to her, fearing the worst.

When I reached her and turned her on her back, I saw it was one of the patrol officers. She’d been burned but was breathing.

I grabbed her by the collar, got to my feet, and started dragging her out.

The front entrance appeared, the sun shining through the smoke like a halo, and I stumbled toward it, coughing and hacking. When I got the patrolwoman outside, other officers ran to help me. My eyes felt singed. My vision was worse than blurry. I heard sirens coming.

“Chief Stone!” I shouted, feeling panic sweep toward hysteria. “Where is she?”

“Alex!”

I spun around, the despair of losing her disappearing at the sound of her voice as she came running across the street. It didn’t matter that my throat and eyes burned when she grabbed me.

“Oh my God,” she said as we hugged tight. “I was down the street and—”

“I thought you were inside,” I said. “I thought I’d lost you.”

“No, baby,” Bree said fiercely. “You’re never losing me. You hear?”

“I need to flush my eyes, get some oxygen. That smoke. It’s chemical.”

She was all business then. She turned to the people standing outside of their houses looking at us. “Who has a garden hose?”

A woman yelled that she did, and Bree was soon running cold water up into my eyes. Sampson had come around the long way