Cross Justice (Alex Cross 23)

“Seven days,” Strong said.

“I wish I had come forward straightaway,” Sharon Lawrence said, oozing pain and sincerity. “If I had, maybe that boy would be alive, you know? But I’d seen what Coach Tate was really like, and I was scared for my own life.”

Chapter

43

That evening, dinner at our house was somber and subdued. We were all there except for Naomi, who was working on her cross-examination, and Patty Converse, who’d been so upset by the testimony that she’d gone home alone.

Aunt Hattie looked equally crushed. She sat quietly with Uncle Cliff and Ethel Fox, who was exhausted from a day spent planning her daughter’s funeral but who had insisted on coming over to give her friend moral support.

Aunt Hattie needed it. The Raleigh stations were reporting on Sharon Lawrence’s testimony against her son, focusing as much on her story as on her panties from the day of the alleged rape. Lawrence claimed she hadn’t washed them because she’d been debating whether or not to turn Stefan in.

Naomi had objected to having the panties introduced as evidence, calling them “tai

nted, at best,” but Varney overruled her after Strong informed the court that a state DNA analyst would testify that dried semen and vaginal fluids found on the underwear belonged to my cousin and Sharon Lawrence.

Things looked bleak for the home team.

“Dad?” Ali asked when I went in to tuck him in for bed. “Can we go fishing sometime while we’re here?”

“Fishing?” I said, flashing on vague recollections of fishing with my father and my uncle Cliff when I was very young.

Ali nodded. “I’ve been watching those shows on the Outdoor Channel. And I met a kid today named Tommy. He says he goes up to Stark Lake fishing with his father. He says it’s fun. Lots of fish.”

“Well,” I said. “I don’t know a thing about fishing, but if that’s what you want to do, we’ll figure it out.”

Ali brightened. “Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow could be tough,” I admitted. “But let me find out what we’d need and where we’d go.”

“You could ask Tom’s father,” he said, yawning.

“If I see Tom’s father, I’ll do that,” I said, and I tucked the sheets up around his chin. “Love you, buddy. Have a good sleep.”

“Love you too, Dad,” he said. His eyes were already closed.

When I left the bedroom, Aunt Hattie looked at me and said, “Can you take Cliff over to the house? I’ll be right along.”

“Oh, sure,” I said. “Ready, Uncle Cliff?”

My uncle said nothing, just stared off into space. Bree held the door open for me, and I wheeled him down the short ramp to the sidewalk.

“Need help?” Bree asked.

“I got it,” I said. “Be back soon.”

Bree blew me a kiss and went inside. I rolled him to the street, saying, “You still like to fish, Uncle Cliff?”

It was like a lightbulb going on. My uncle went from confused to lucid in two seconds flat. “Love to fish,” he said.

“I heard it’s good up to the lake,” I said.

“Early mornings,” Uncle Cliff said, nodding. “You want to be by the stream inlet on the west shore. Not far from my cabin. You know it?”

“I seem to remember it,” I said. “Where else is the fishing good besides the lake?”

“Those big pools below the gorge are always good for trout early and late.”