“What’s cooking?”
“Chicken roasted in Nana’s special herb rub. Go on, wash up. Bree texted she’ll be home any minute.”
I was about to head up the stairs when Bree came through the front door. There was strain everywhere about her, and she dropped her gaze and hesitated before coming into my arms.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” Bree said. “It must have been awful.”
“Sobering,” I said. “Thirty-one times. I had no idea.”
Bree lifted her head to look me in the eyes with cold curiosity. “And the nine dead and the eight wounded?”
“I remember each and every one of them,” I said. “You can’t forget things like that. Ever. Even when they were righteous shoots.”
She studied me, her eyes welling with tears, then hugged me tight.
“Jesus,” she said hoarsely. “They want to tear you apart.”
“They better pull hard,” I said, and I kissed her head.
CHAPTER
50
GRETCHEN LINDEL LAY curled up on her filthy mattress, scratching her head, staring at the plywood walls that imprisoned her, and wondering if her torture would ever end.
Coated in grime, her nightgown in tatters, Gretchen reeked, and her feet were cut and swollen. Her hair was tangled with burrs, leaves, and twigs. She couldn’t pick them out, no matter how hard she tried, and she hadn’t tried in days, at least since the last time they’d come for her.
How long had that been? Five days ago? Six?
She couldn’t tell, and in the end it didn’t matter.
I’m here until I’m not, Gretchen thought. It’s like I’m not even me already.
How bad can the last step be?
The big man in black, the one wearing the tinted paintball visor and carrying the knife, had come for her four times since her kidnapping. Each time it had been dusk when he’d untied her blindfold and she’d found herself in the woods.
There were two or three others there, all dressed similarly, all laughing at her when the big one said, “Run, now. Give yourself a chance, and give the boys a show.”
Gretchen played competitive volleyball, and she ran hard the first time, took off, not caring about the stones and sticks that jabbed her bare feet. She’d gotten ahead of them and thought she’d lost them.
Before it turned dark.
Then they were all suddenly around her, yelling in the woods, taunting and calling, “Where are you, blondie? Where are you, uptown girl?”
They had to have been wearing night-vision goggles or something like that, because they’d caught her every time, and every time they’d taken her right to the point where she believed with every cell that they were going to kill her, slit her throat and watch her bleed out, all on-camera, all to their delight.
The first three times they’d hunted her, Gretchen had survived by focusing on her friends and her parents and on how desperately she wanted to see them all again, especially her dad. She shared a special relationship with him, a real friendship as well as respect and love.
It would kill him, she’d thought when she’d wanted to give up and ask them to end it. It would kill him, and I can’t do that to him. To either of them.
The fourth time they’d hunted Gretchen, the last time they’d hunted her, had been different. They’d barely let her run before catching her. They’d dragged her to a building in the woods. The big one had torn off her panties while the others held her down. They’d—
She’d gone to a far-off place in her mind then, where there was no hurt, no feelings at all, as if she’d already found death. That feeling of passing, of being already gone from her body, had stayed with her even after they were done, even after they’d thrown her back in her plywood box, even after days without eating.
Someone threw the door’s dead bolts.
Gretchen cringed and tried to keep staring at the plywood wall.
“You don’t eat, you don’t deserve to play the game,” the strange electronic voice said. “You don’t eat, drink, keep your strength up, you don’t deserve to live.”
“I don’t want to live like this.”
“We kind of thought that.”
She looked at the big guy in black wearing the GoPro camera and the paintball visor and saw something that cut through her feelings of nothingness, made her retreat.
He wasn’t carrying that knife he’d brought the first four times they’d played the game.
This time he carried a coil of rope tied at one end into a hangman’s noose.
CHAPTER
51
JUDGE LARCH GAVELED the court to order at precisely eight a.m. She took care of several administrative issues before reminding Norman Nixon he was still under oath when he returned to the witness stand.
“Ms. Marley,” Larch said. “Your cross-examination, please.”
Anita patted me on the thigh, got up, and said, “Mr. Nixon, of the nine fatal shooting incidents you looked at involving my client, how many were judged wrongful police conduct?”
He shifted uncomfortably. “None. It’s a—”
“So you’re saying that in each of these cases, Alex Cross was investigated and found to have taken prudent action in accord with police and FBI protocol?”
“I don’t know about prudent when you end up with a dead suspect.”
“Objection,” Anita said.
“Sustained,” Judge Larch said. “But rephrase, Ms. Marley.”
Anita seemed taken aback for a moment. Then she said, “Was Dr. Cross found to be in compliance with police and FBI protocols in each of those nine shootings?”
Nixon acted like he had something stuck in his teeth but eventually said, “He was.”
“All nine?”
“All nine.”
“And in the cases of wounding?”
“Yes, but—”
“A simple yes will do, Mr. Nixon. Since you have had a chance to look at Dr. Cross’s record in such detail, would it be fair to say that the criminals involved were dangerous people? Violent people?”
“Doesn’t mean they had to die by a police bullet,” Nixon said.
“It’s a yes-or-no question.”
“Yes, they were dangerous.”
“Killers?”
“Often.”
“Bombers?”
“Their crimes are not the issue here.”
“They most certainly are the issue,” Anita said. “Dr. Cross has a reputation for going after the worst criminals, taking on the biggest cases, isn’t that so?”
“He’s well regarded as an investigator.”
“Did Dr. Cross put himself in personal danger to solve the cases you looked at?”
“Every cop in America is in danger every day.”
“Point taken,” Anita said. “But in light of the kinds of cases Dr. Cross worked for the FBI and DC Metro, wasn’t he bound to come into contact with more violent suspects than the average cop?”
Nixon paused and then said, “Probably a higher incidence of contact with that sort of criminal, but I can’t tell you what that is statistically.”
“A higher incidence of contact will do,” Anita said, and she smiled at the jury as she went back to the defense table. She put on reading glasses and scanned her notes for a moment.
When she was done, she pivoted and looked at the witness. “Just to summarize, Mr. Nixon, in each of the nine fatal cases you looked at, Dr. Cross, because of his job, came into close contact with a hardened criminal, correct?”
He thought about that and then said, “Correct.”
“And violence ensued,” she said.
“Violence ensued and someone died by Cross’s hand.”
Anita removed her glasses and cocked her head at him. “In those nine fatal incidents, Mr. Nixon, how many times did Alex Cross shoot first?”
He cleared his throat. “It’s more telling to look at escalation, Ms. Marley.”
“How many times did Dr. Cross shoot first?”
Nixon looked ready to argue but then said, “Zero.”
“Zero?” she said, looking at the jury. “And how many times did Alex Cross shoot first in any of the wounding incidents?”
“Zero.”