Cross Justice (Alex Cross 23)

“Every cell, every fiber of my being. I promised my wife when she knew she was dying and had already seen Cat. I promised her I would move heaven and earth for our baby. And I have.”

I had been right. Guy Pedelini was a man of conscience and inner goodness. I could almost feel it pulsing out of him at that moment.

“But care like that costs a lot of money,” I said, pressing the issue.

“Whole lot,” he agreed. He scuffed his shoes, looked at the deck.

“More than your insurance will pay.”

“That too,” he said, and sniffed.

“So, what, Marvin Bell’s money makes up the difference?”

He paused as if disgusted with himself, said, “Almost.”

“What’s he pay you to do?” I asked.

The detective took a deep breath, went to the railing, and looked out over the lake, where the reflection of the three-quarter moon shimmered on the water.

“To look the other way?” I asked, following him. “When the trains come through Starksville with guys who use a three-finger salute riding on top of freight cars carrying loads of drugs bound for dealers up and down the line? Is that what you do to help Lassie, Tessa, and Cat?”

Pedelini had his back to me. His shoulders trembled slightly, and he started to pivot toward me. We were less than sixteen inches apart. The sheriff’s detective had turned nearly ninety degrees to his left and was facing the narrow cove and the shore road beyond it when the rifle shot rang out. I caught the muzzle flash from across the cove a split second before I heard the blast.

Pedelini spun around, sagged on the railing, and then rag-dolled to the deck.

Blood trickled from a head wound.

Chapter

86

I dove across the detective to shield him from a second shot, but it never came. All I heard was the screaming of Pedelini’s girls.

“Call 911!” I yelled at Tessa, who’d come to the screen door.

I didn’t wait to see if she complied, just turned to her father, whose eyes had rolled up in his head. He was breathing, though. And his pulse was strong.

I didn’t want to move him, but I turned his head slightly to look at the wound. The bullet had dug a nasty groove through the scalp and along the surface of his skull, like a wood-carving tool had worked it. But I couldn’t see anywhere the bullet had penetrated his cranium.

I heard a car start, wheels squealing. I stood, peered across the cove, and spotted the taillights of a car racing away on the shore road. The car swerved, and I saw an old couple dive out of the way.

The car lost control, hit something hard with a tremendous crash. The brake lights never came on.

I started to run. That was my shooter.

“Wait!” Tessa screamed after me.

“Your dad’s going to be all right!” I yelled, jumping off the porch and sprinting to the rental car.

I threw it in reverse, spit gravel onto the road, and jammed it in gear. I almost lost control going around the hairpin at the back of the cove and slowed at the curve near the spot from where the shooter must have fired. When my headlights came around, I could see an older couple standing, shaken, by the road. But there was no car beyond them.

I roared up to them and they looked frightened.

“I’m a police officer,” I said. “Where did that car go?”

The elderly man’s hand was trembling. “Up the road. A white Impala. Almost hit us.”

A white Impala. I drove away slow, trying not to spin up rocks that might hit the couple, my attention darting off the road to a stripped and gouged stump with bits of steel embedded in it. I figured he’d hit it hard head-on, which meant the radiator might have been damaged, or the front end.