“No, I thought of that,” Ava said. “They came in the way I went out: across the roof of your addition.”
“Like I said, smart girl,” Sampson added.
“Plan on leaving the same way?”
“As a matter of fact,” Mahoney said, and tossed me a disposable cell phone. “Use that when you need to talk, and for God’s sake, keep it on you.”
I caught the phone and swung my legs off the bed, feeling a rush of agony at the back of my head. “I’m probably going to need stitches.”
“Ava will take you to the ER once we’re gone,” Sampson said.
I looked at her. “You’re staying?”
“Can’t leave you alone with a nasty concussion, can I?” Ava said.
I smiled, said, “I suppose not.” Then I looked at my best friend, said, “When you get the chance, tell Captain Quintus to have an arrest warrant drawn up for Everett Prough, a homeless guy cum pimp and ice dealer who hangs around that abandoned factory where we found the burned Jane Doe, who now has a name: Elise…”
I glanced at Ava, who said, “Littlefield.”
“Elise Littlefield,” Sampson said, and wrote it down. “Okay.”
We shook hands, and then Ava and I waited several minutes for Mahoney and Sampson to get down off the roof of the addition and leave by the back gate.
I hugged Ava, said, “Thank you.”
Ava was stiff at first but then softened, said, “No, thank you, Alex. I should have come to you and Bree sooner. But I was ashamed of what I’d become after everything you’d done for me.”
“Water under the bridge,” I said, and let her go. “Right now, we’ve got other things to think about.”
Ava made a show of helping me down the stairs, and I acted the shattered, injured, and demoralized victim while we intentionally made a tour of the dining and television room, looking for my jacket.
A good part of me wanted to grab up one of the cameras, look into the lens, and tell Preston Elliot I was coming for him. But I kept my cool and went with Ava out onto the front porch.
The air was clean after the previous night’s thunderstorms, and you could still smell the scent of Easter hams cooking somewhere on the block. I thought of how this holiday should have been celebrated with the ones I love all around me. It filled me with rage.
Looking at the night sky and the glittering stars, I vowed to Nana Mama, Bree, Damon, Jannie, and Ali that I would not rest until I’d found them all and brought them home.
Then I crossed my heart and followed Ava down onto the sidewalk.
Author’s Note
A university lecture takes place at the beginning of Cross My Heart. The topic is the nature of the perfect crime, and it’s given by a man who we know to be keenly concerned with such things. Professor Marcus Sunday contends that to achieve perfection as a criminal, one must believe that “life is meaningless, absurd, without absolute value.”
Most of us have had at least some taste of tragedy in our lives. Loved ones lost, disappointments in our careers, dashed dreams. And we know how such circumstances can put us in a dark place. This is uncomfortable to experience firsthand—or even secondhand in a novel we’ve chosen to read.
I ask that you understand that I wrote the ending this way because I am trying to be true to Alex, and to you, and to myself.
I believe that to be true to life—and to art—one has to accept tragedy as part of it and, from there, allow for the human spirit—be it Alex’s, mine, yours—to pull us through.
All that is to say, there will indeed be another Alex Cross novel after this one. Thank you for reading, and don’t give up on Alex—or his family—just yet. Things are about to get very interesting.
Faithfully,
James Patterson
Private L.A.’s biggest case. Was Hollywood’s most famous celebrity couple kidnapped? Or murdered?
For an excerpt, please turn the page.