Alex Cross, Run (Alex Cross 20)

“I didn’t want to let you know until I was sure this would work,” Creem told Bergman, “but I’ve got a surprise for you.”

“What do you mean? What kind of surprise?” Bergman asked.

“Joshua, do you remember Fort Lauderdale?”

There was a long pause on the line before he responded.

“Of course,” he said quietly.

“Spring break, 1988.”

“I said I remembered,” Bergman snapped, but then softened again. “We were just a couple of fetuses then.”

“I know it’s been a while,” Creem said. “But I’ve given this a lot of thought, and I’m not ready to just go quietly into the night. Are you?”

“God no,” Bergman said. “But you were the one who—”

“I know what I said. That was a long time ago. This is now.”

Creem heard his friend take a long, slow breath.

“Jesus, Elijah,” he said. “Really?”

He sounded scared, but more than that he sounded excited. Despite the mousy tendencies, Bergman also had a wonderfully twisted streak. He’d always been more excited by the murders than Creem.

For Creem, they’d been cathartic as much as anything else. A means to an end. And this time around, he had a whole new agenda.

“So . . . this is really happening?” Bergman said.

“It is for me,” Creem told him.

“When?”

“Right now. I’m waiting for her to come outside as we speak.”

“And, can I listen?”

“Of course,” Creem said. “Why do you think I called? But no more talking. Here she comes now.”

FOUR

CREEM POSITIONED HIMSELF ACROSS THE STREET FROM DOWN DOG YOGA AS the seven forty-five evening class let out. Among the first to emerge onto Potomac Street was Darcy Vickers, a tall, well-proportioned blonde.

He couldn’t take credit for the tall or blond part, but as for the well-proportioned elements, those were all thanks to him. Darcy’s ample bust, the perfectly symmetrical arch of her brows and lips, and the nicely tapered thighs represented some of Dr. Creem’s best work.

Not that Darcy Vickers had ever expressed the first drop of gratitude. As far as she was concerned, the world was populated with her lackeys. She was a typical specimen, really—a K Street lobbyist with a steroidal sense of entitlement and a desperate need to stay beautiful for as long as possible.

All of it so very familiar. So close to home, really.

He waited outside Dean & Deluca while she ran in for whatever it was women like her deigned to eat these days. He watched while she held up the line at the register, talking obliviously away on her cell phone. Then he crossed the street again, to follow her down the quaintly cobblestoned alley toward the garage where Darcy’s Bimmer was parked.

/> There was no need to keep too much distance. He was just some geezer in a windbreaker and orthopedic shoes—all but invisible to the Darcy Vickerses of the world. By the time they reached the deserted third level of the garage, he’d closed the gap between them to less than twenty feet.

Darcy pressed a clicker in her hand, and the Bimmer’s trunk popped open with a soft click. That’s when he made his move.

“Excuse me—Miranda?” he said, half timidly.

“Sorry, no,” Darcy said, dropping her grocery bag and purple yoga mat into the trunk without even a glance.