Target: Alex Cross (Alex Cross #26) - James Patterson Page 0,16
murders connected. Meantime, I want his prints run. Anything else? Itinerary? Phone? Computer?”
Parks shook her head. “Nothing beyond the wallet and the IDs, Chief.”
“Killer took them. Clothes?”
“An overnight suitcase. A down parka, hat, gloves.”
“How’d he get here? Where’s his car?”
“No idea yet.”
“Nothing that said ‘shooter’ in that overnight bag?”
“No bullets or rifle components, if that’s what you mean,” Parks said.
Bree’s phone rang. Dispatch.
Bree sighed and answered. “This better be good. I’m running on fumes.”
“Chief, we’ve had officers under fire, a high-speed chase on Blair Road, and now an armed standoff in Takoma, multiple weapons involved,” the dispatcher said.
Bree started toward the door fast, barking questions at the dispatcher. She was told that it started when a Metro patrol unit had pulled over a Cadillac Escalade with California plates for failure to make a full stop at a blinking light. There were three males in the car. The officer ran the plates and found them registered to Fernando Romero of Oakland.
The name had rung bells.
“What kind of bells?” Bree demanded, leaving the apartment crime scene.
“Romero’s a big gangbanger with ties to the Mexican drug cartels. He’s got a long history of violence and three felony warrants out for his arrest, including one for threatening bodily harm to a U.S. senator two weeks ago.”
“Betsy Walker?” Bree said, running now.
“That’s affirmative.”
CHAPTER
17
WE WAITED OUTSIDE the Verizon Center until Damon emerged as happy as I’d ever seen him. And not just because he’d played an integral part in the upset of the NCAA season. He had his arm around a very pretty young Asian woman.
“This is my girlfriend, Song Li,” he said. “She’s from Hong Kong and goes to Davidson, a transfer like me.”
Girlfriend, I thought. That’s a first for Damon.
“Song Li,” Nana said, walking up and taking her hand. “What a beautiful name.”
Song smiled shyly and said in a soft British accent, “Thank you, Mrs. Hope. Damon has told me so much about you, I feel like I know you.”
“You can call me Nana or Nana Mama like everyone else, dear,” my grandmother said.
Jannie appeared suspicious until Song turned to her and said, “Are you the fabled Jannie?”
My daughter laughed. “Fabled?”
“Damon brags on you almost every day.”
“That’s not true,” Damon protested. “Well, maybe almost every other day.”
“Dr. Cross?” Song said. She shook my hand and bowed her head. “It is indeed an honor to meet you. My father will be most pleased.”
“It’s nice to meet you too, Song,” I said. “Your father?”
Damon said, “He’s a detective in Hong Kong. It’s how Song and I got to talking.”
Song smiled. “When I told my father who Damon’s father was, he got very excited. He has watched the tapes of your FBI seminars on profiling and homicide investigations. He says you are one of the best in the world.”
“I don’t know about that. But it’s very flattering and kind of him to say so.”
“I will tell him,” Song said. Beaming, she turned to Ali. “Damon says you are studying Chinese in school?”
Ali rattled off something in Chinese that made Song laugh and clap her hands. She replied to Ali, and he started laughing as well.
“Okay,” Nana said. “Fill the rest of us in?”
Song said, “Ali said it was nice to meet a daughter of Hong Kong.”
Ali grinned. “And she said it was nice to meet the brother of Mr. Basketball.”
“Mr. Basketball?” Damon said.
Song clapped again, laughed, and said, “He has a very good ear. How long have you been studying, Ali?”
“A year?” he said.
“That’s amazing!”
“Here’s the Uber car, Dad,” Jannie said.
Damon looked at me. “Can Song come with us? Stay at the house tonight?”
“Of course,” I said. “She fits right in.”
Damon grinned and put his arm around her again. “She does, doesn’t she?”
“C’mon, then,” Nana Mama said. “Get in, you two must be hungry.”
“Damon is always hungry,” Song said, shaking her head and looking awed enough that we all chuckled.
We climbed into the car and set off toward home.
Damon said, “Can Song sleep in your old attic office, Dad?”
I was slightly relieved to hear the plan. “That’s fine. You can blow up the mattress for her up there.”
On the ten-minute ride, Nana Mama gently interrogated Song, and we learned that she was born in Hong Kong, her mother worked in financial services, and her father had spent two years with Scotland Yard in London before returning home to head the detective and special investigations bureau for the Hong Kong police force.