Cross Justice (Alex Cross 23)

“Dad, what causes someone to age one way and someone else another?” she asked.

“Lots of things,” I said. “Genetics, certainly. And your diet. And whether you’re active, physically and mentally.”

“Nana is,” Jannie said. “She’s always reading or doing something to help out, and she takes all those long walks.”

“Probably why she’ll live to a hundred,” I said.

“You think?”

“I’m betting on her,” I said, pulling the last heavy bag out of the trunk.

“Then I am too,” Jannie said, and she followed me through the screen door onto the porch. “Dad?”

“Yeah?” I said, stopping to look back at her.

“I’m sorry for being such a bitch on the ride down,” she said.

“You weren’t a bitch. Just a little testy.”

She laughed. “You’re kind.”

“I try,” I said.

“What’s it like? You know, coming back here after so long?”

I set the suitcase down and looked through the porch screen at the fireflies and the lit windows of my aunts’ homes, and I sniffed at some sweet smell in the air.

“In some ways it seems remarkably unchanged, as if I left yesterday,” I said. “And in others, it’s like there’s a whole other life here now, and my memories don’t apply at all, like they happened to someone else.”

Chapter

9

Despite the drone of the ceiling fan over our bed, I stirred every hour or so as trains rumbled through Starksville. Shortly after dawn, I woke for good to the sound of blue jays scolding in the pine trees behind the bungalow.

Lying there by Bree, listening to those shrill calls, I flashed hard on myself when I was very young, no more than four or five. I’d been lying in bed, blankets over my head but awake, while my brothers were sleeping. I remembered the window had been open, and there were birds chattering. I also remembered being scared by the birds, as if their calling was what had made me want to hide beneath those covers.

That sense lingered with me even after Bree rolled over, threw her arm across my chest, and groaned. “Time is it?”

“Almost seven.”

“We’ve got to get earplugs.”

“That’s high on my list too. Still disappointed not to be in Jamaica?”

“A whole lot,” she said, her eyes still closed. “But I like your aunts, and I like you more than a whole lot. And I think it’ll do Jannie and Ali some good to be in a small town for a while.”

“Damon gets some of that at his school,” I said.

She nodded. “I can see that.”

My older boy, Damon, had taken a job as a junior counselor at an annual summer basketball camp at Kraft, the prep school in the Berkshires he attends. That same camp had led him to the school and gotten him a scholarship. Damon giving back to the program had been ample reason for him to miss this trip, but I hoped he was going to come down for a weekend visit at least.

“Shower time,” I said, throwing back the sheets.

“Hold on there, buster,” Bree said.

“Buster?”