Alex Cross, Run (Alex Cross 20)

She’s a cop, all right. She knows how to shake off the stress and take charge of a situation when she has to. That included the eggs she’d already started whisking in a bowl.

“What are you doing?” I said. “Don’t worry about that.”

“You need a decent meal, after the night you just had,” Bree said. “What did they give you this morning, a doughnut? And I’m guessing you didn’t eat that, either.”

“She’s right.” Nana patted my hand. “Go get cleaned up, and come back down here ready to eat.”

“Yeah.” Bree’s whisk was going about a hundred angry miles a minute by now. “And ready to fight,” she said.

CHAPTER

64

“COME IN, COME IN. PLEASE.”

Juliet Freeman isn’t the kind of person you might tag as an attorney if you saw her walking down the street. She’s almost as short as Nana, is fairly big around the middle, and she doesn’t exactly dress to impress when she’s not in court.

Likewise, the inside of her Pennsylvania Avenue law office feels more like it’s part of somebody’s home. I liked that she kept a laundry basket of toys in the corner for her clients’ kids, and that the books on her shelves covered everything from constitutional history to Green Eggs and Ham.

Juliet doesn’t just know family law—she understands family, and what it takes to keep one together. As far as I’m concerned, she’s impressive in all the right ways.

I got right to it, even as we were sitting down.

“I have three questions,” I told her. “How do we get Ava back? What do we do in the meantime? And how does all of this play with the other charges I have hanging over my head?”

Juliet poured tea from an old ornate samovar on her sideboard as she answered. “In a way, that’s really just one big question,” she said. “But a complicated one. I assume you want me to be blunt.”

“Of course,” Nana Mama said, accepting a cup. “I’m an old lady, Juliet. I don’t have time for a lot of false hopes.”

“Okay, then. The fact that Ava’s been using drugs, combined with these charges against Alex, makes this an uphill battle. And even without that, you still don’t have any superior rights to her, or any foster child.”

“No, but we have a relationship with her,” Nana Mama said. “That has to be worth something, for a girl who has nobody else in the world. Ava’s part of our family now.”

Juliet nodded, but only to acknowledge what Nana said, not to agree with her.

“Legally speaking, she’s not. If they end up placing her with another family, and it sticks, then that’s it. She won’t be coming back to you.”

That news settled heavily over all of us. Bree squeezed my hand in the silence. “What do you suggest?” I asked.

“You need to make it clear to your social worker that whatever drugs Ava has been using, she hasn’t been getting them from you,” Juliet said.

“I’ve been over that with her already,” Bree said.

“She needs to hear it from Ava. If you can make that conversation happen, it’s a good first step.”

I wasn’t so sure. “Couldn’t that be taken as some kind of tacit admission about my own drug use?” I said.

“One thing at a time,” Juliet told me. “First and foremost, address Ava’s situation, and then your own charges. When’s your court date?”

“A week from today.”

She went to her desk and scribbled a note. “See what you can do. In the meantime, I understand you’ve got a restraining order against you?”

“Yes, but I was set up,” I told her. “I can’t prove anything—not yet. I’ll countersue, if I have to. Whatever it takes.”

Juliet leaned forward and caught my eye over the top of her red-framed glasses. “Alex, listen to me. If you’ve ever had a reason to stay above board, this is it. Whatever you do, don’t start bending the rules, or God forbid, breaking the law to expose this guy.” She knew me, maybe a little too well. It was good advice. Still, somewhere in the back of my mind, I was resolved to keeping my options open.

That fact that Ron Guidice had injected me with the same class of drugs Ava had been taking was no coincidence. That much I knew. I had no idea how he’d found out about her—maybe by bribing someone for lab results, or chatting up the cop who had dropped her off at our house that day. In any case, it wasn’t the first time he’d dug up confidential information. Maybe Guidice was more of a reporter than I’d given him credit for.