Criss Cross (Alex Cross) - James Patterson Page 0,84
“SAC Mahoney.”
Mahoney raised the handheld to his lips. “Come back.”
“No one here. Place is virtually empty. Looks like they just applied some kind of textured plaster to the walls and the heat’s jacked up like a sauna.”
“To dry the plaster,” Abrahamsen said, grimacing as he looked at me. “Dr. Cross, I adore your son. I think he’s one of the more remarkable boys I’ve ever met. I will swear on a stack of Bibles, I don’t have Ali. I haven’t seen him in more than ten days.”
My cell phone dinged in my pocket, and I reached for it with my gut sinking again. I looked at the Wickr message, then back at Abrahamsen, wanting to sit down and cry.
“I believe you, Captain,” I said. “I apologize. I should have suspected M would try to use you to get to me.”
CHAPTER 95
SOMEONE SHOOK MY SHOULDER, and I came groggily awake into a splitting headache. I opened my eyes, and saw I was in my attic office chair, head down on the Edgerton files, an empty pint bottle of Jack Daniel’s beside me.
Bree was crouched next to me, looking concerned.
“Why didn’t you use the bed?”
I gazed at her stupidly and then remembered. “I thought I’d find something up here, and then I realized I couldn’t control this. M. Any of it. So I put my forehead on my fists, and I prayed for him. I must have fallen asleep.”
“I imagine you did, with that much whiskey in you.”
“For the first time in my life, I felt so afraid, I needed to black out.”
“Oh, baby,” she said, throwing her arms around me.
We hugged in silence for many minutes, and in the love I felt from her and gave to her, I began to come more alert.
When we broke apart, Bree kissed me and then gave me a disgusted look. “Your breath could stop a train, and you look even worse.”
“Thanks.”
“Anytime. Sampson said he sent you a Wickr message?”
I nodded and gestured to a piece of paper on the desk where I’d written it down because I’d forgotten to take a screenshot of it. But the words were indelible in my mind:
Have you noticed I’m always three steps ahead of you? Your son now suffers the sins of his father. Soon the rest of the family will be like him and Granny, gasping and clawing for air.
Bree read it.
As she did, my hungover mind keyed on the words now suffers, unable to control the things my imagination threw at me. Then the sins of his father.
What were my supposed sins? What had I done to M to make him come after me like this for so many years? I couldn’t …
“I think we need to get Nana Mama and Jannie out of here,” Bree said.
I looked at her dumbly.
“He said that the rest of the family would be gasping and clawing for air, Alex,” she said. “We have to get them somewhere safe.”
I didn’t reply, just read the last sentence again. Soon the rest of the family will be like him and Granny, gasping and clawing for air.
Something there bothered me, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
“Alex,” Bree said again.
And then I got what was bothering me, and held up my hand, seeing all the implications of that last sentence. I cleared my throat. “I agree. I’ll call Ned, ask him if you, Jannie, and Nana Mama can use his beach house. It’ll be safe. You can work from there.”
“What about you?”
“I want to stay close to home.”
Bree gazed at me, puzzled, but said, “Okay, I’ll get them packing.”
CHAPTER 96
ON THE SEVENTH EVENING AFTER Ali’s kidnapping, I trudged up the stairs to my front porch, feeling lost, heartbroken, and dreading the loneliness inside.
My head was splitting again. At the front door, I was shaking so bad I had to put down the heavy brown paper bag I was carrying and use both hands to get the key in the lock. The door opened and swung inward.
I picked up the bag, but then I stood there, unable to take the first step inside.
The past few nights I’d been unable to detach from the case. I’d gotten so worked up and was so sleep-deprived, I’d had terrible visions of what M might be doing to Ali.
The nightmares had been so real, I’d screamed out several times and then cried myself back to sleep. I didn’t know if I could face another night in my empty home and considered taking the car right then