Alex Cross, Run (Alex Cross 20)

Then, as the car took off from the curb, and before Guidice pulled out to follow, he hit Send.

UNFORTUNATE, AND INEVITABLE

Posted by RG at 5:28 p.m.

It seems that Detective Cross of the MPD has gone off the rails. Anyone who has been following this story might call the events of the last twenty-four hours unsurprising. I call it an unfortunate inevitability.

Before anything else, let me reiterate that I am making this information available as a matter of public record. I have no intention to sell, package, or profit from my own story beyond what you see in this space.

In a nutshell: Detective Cross beat the s**t out of me yesterday. This was not the first unprovoked confrontation I’ve had with the detective, but it was certainly the most violent. (Click here for an overview of Cross’s most recent lapses in judgment.)

From the moment I encountered him, outside the Georgetown Ripper’s most recent crime scene, I suspected that Detective Cross was altered in some way—either drunk, high, or both. When I asked him about it, he quickly grew angry and belligerent.

As I pressed the question, it sparked a reaction that surprised even me. After six years of reporting on police practices both in and out of the US, I’ve never experienced anything like this. I received one punch to the face, where I sustained a broken nose; one punch to the jaw; and one kick to the stomach while I was on the ground. Click here for pictures (warning—graphic content, not suitable for children). I will be using these images as evidence in my civil suit against Detective Cross, against whom I have already filed a restraining order.

The story doesn’t end there, either. Immediately following this incident, the detective was seen passing out, and was then taken away in an ambulance. (I know this because MPD attended to his medical needs before mine.) Given that I never hit him, or even touched him, I feel more certain than ever that he was, in fact, under the influence of some illicit substance.

The city seems to agree with me, too. Just this evening, the foster child in Detective Cross’s care was removed from his home. Hopefully, that child will now be living in a safer and healthier environment.

Lastly, for the record, I fully admit to using this platform for making an example of Detective Cross over the past several weeks. After what happened yesterday, I wonder if anyone could blame me. If even one corrupt police officer is taken off the streets as a result of my investigations, then this work (and yes, my recently sustained injuries) will have been worth it.

Comments? Thoughts? Share them here.

Part Three

DROP DEAD, GORGEOUS

CHAPTER

67

ELIJAH CREEM STOOD ON A DARK STRETCH OF PALM BEACH, ADMIRING HIS OWN house from a distance.

“You know, I’m actually going to miss this place?” he said to Bergman over the phone.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s just a house,” Bergman told him.

“Yeah, but it’s a nice goddamn house, and I paid for it. Not her.”

Even at night, and all closed up, the place fairly glowed from the pearlescent white finish on the sleek modern exterior. Miranda had insisted it be reclad that way when they bought it, to the tune of three hundred thousand dollars. It was a ridiculous bit of real estate vanity, but she’d been right in the end.

The bitch had good taste. There was no denying that.

She’d also made it clear through her mouthpiece of a lawyer that she was coming after the Palm Beach place in the divorce. Absent a thriving private practice, and the cash flow that went with it, Miranda was taking her revenge in real estate. Creem wouldn’t have expected anything less.

“Ah, well,” he said. “I guess I’ll have to make it up to myself somehow.”

“You’re wearing one of those crazy masks again, aren’t you?” Bergman asked. “I can hear it in your voice.”

They’d been talking for a full five minutes before Josh even noticed the slight aspiration that followed Creem’s consonants, as they tripped over his latex lips. That was a good sign. These masks were an outstanding bit of business.

Even if someone did take notice of him down here, what would they see?

An elderly white gentleman in a Members Only jacket. Not exactly a stellar lead, in a place like southern Florida.

This would be the last time Creem was using the old man prototype. Now that the DC police had gotten wise to the whole mask thing, they were running with it in the media—which was fine. All he had to do was change the template. Just be someone else the next time. Simple as that.

In the meantime, he realized, Josh was still talking.