“Correct. And while you’re at it, would you amend the quotes you attributed to me? They’re not right.”
“You tell me how you want them to read,” Sunday said. “And I deeply apologize if I misquoted you.”
There was a silence before Cross said, “Apology accepted.”
“Good. Where are you, Dr. Cross? DC?”
“Omaha. You?”
“Memphis, for a reading. Last week was Philly, and after this I’m headed to Austin,” Sunday said. “Say, would you agree to do an interview when this is all over?”
Cross hesitated, then said, “Sure, with a tape recorder running, maybe,” and hung up.
Ignoring the dig, Sunday grinned, buzzing on the adrenaline his conversation with the detective had triggered and the satisfaction he got knowing that even if Cross had learned of Thierry Mulch’s past, he had no clue where to find Mr. Mulch now. Sunday clearly had the upper hand and was still two, maybe even three steps ahead.
Laughing and gleefully pounding his fist on the steering wheel, Sunday put the gas pedal to the floor and shot forward through the night.
CHAPTER
64
I HUNG UP THE phone with Marcus Sunday feeling like I’d hit yet another dead end. Why had I called him? If the FBI and police had never heard of Thierry Mulch in connection with the Monahan and Daley murders, why should I expect Sunday to have come across his name?
Because you are grasping at straws, Alex.
As soon as I had that thought, I got angry with myself. Damn right I was grasping at straws. My family had been gone for ten days. For ten days, Mulch had been playing me like I was a puppet, and he was a cruel puppeteer. I would grasp at any straw, string, or thought if it might help me find Bree, Nana Mama, Damon, Jannie, and Ali.
It was nearing midnight, however, and I realized there was nothing else I could do, no other straws I could reach for. I put my phone on Do Not Disturb and fell into a deep sleep.
I surfaced groggily shortly after three a.m. and then tried to force myself back to that deep, dark respite from reality. Instead, I was cast into dreams where I saw Mulch as that red-bearded guy who’d gone to Ali’s school slipping alongside the Daleys’ house in a snowstorm carrying the knife that would kill the mother who had abandoned him. Mulch was inside then, a Grinch creeping past a glowing Christmas tree. He climbed the staircase, pushed open the first bedroom door. There were forms lying beneath the covers of a queen-size bed.
When Mulch eased back the blankets, I saw that woman who now lived in the Daleys’ house. Beside her, my son Ali, not her son, was curled up in a fetal position. Mulch put the blade to Ali’s neck and pulled backward sharply. Blood misted the air.
I screamed and spun in my dream, raced down the hallway to the next bedroom. But Mulch was somehow already there, and he was done with Damon and Jannie. The hallway got longer as I ran on, trying to protect Bree.
Mulch came out her door before I got there, and he smiled at the blood dripping off the knife before beckoning me to follow him to the last bedroom door.
When I got there, he was standing by my grandmother, who looked exactly as she had the day she came to get me when I was ten: that loving but no-nonsense expression, her teacher’s crisp posture, the blue dress she’d worn with a matching hat and handbag, and the white church gloves.
As if unaware of Mulch raising the blade toward her throat, Nana Mama looked at me and said softly, “Alex, are you ready for a new life?”
“No,” I said.
“No?” my grandmother chided gently. “Then your thinking is wrong, young man. That’s the difference between folks when it comes down to it. Their thinking defines them. So I’ll ask you again, are you ready for a new way of thinking?”
“No!” I screamed as the knife cut into her with a sound like thumping. “No!”
The thumping became pounding in my brain so loud I thought my skull would split before I jolted awake, sweaty, and looked around the hotel room wildly. It was almost five a.m.
The pounding startled me that time. Someone was knocking on my door.
“Hold on!” I shouted, struggling to my feet and realizing I’d slept in my clothes. God only knew what I smelled like.
At the door I peered through the peephole and saw Tess Aaliyah moving like Jannie had as a girl when she had to pee, rocking from one agitated foot to another, her face screwed up in concentration.
My stomach did a flip, and I bowed my head, prayed, “Dear God, please give me the strength to handle whatever it is she has to tell me.”
Then I opened the door.