Kill Alex Cross (Alex Cross 18)

“Do you mind if I come in?” I asked.

“Oh — yeah. Of course,” he said, like it hadn’t occurred to him. “I was just ruining a pot of coffee. You want some?”

“No thanks. I’ll try to be quick here.”

He thumbed over his shoulder as I came in. “Let me just switch off the machine. Make yourself comfortable.”

I hung back and looked around as he headed toward the kitchen.

“Must be a real drag working on the weekend,” he called back. “That’s the one thing about my job. At least I’ve got a nice regular schedule.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, fingering through his mail. It was out on an end table, mostly bills, mostly unopened. A dusty collection of salt and pepper shakers sat in a curio cabinet on the wall. “Speaking of schedules, do you keep records of the custodial staff’s time at the school?” I asked.

O’Shea didn’t answer. An announcer on the TV hooted out his approval for a double play that had just gone down. And I knew right then that something was wrong.

“George?”

When I got to the kitchen, it was empty. No George anywhere. The back door was wide open, and I could see O’Shea out on the lawn, scrambling over his chain-link fence toward the street.

The son of a bitch was making a run for it.

THERE IS NOTHING that pisses me off like a footrace I don’t want. When I ran out of George O’Shea’s house a half second later, I think I bent his screen door right off the frame.

O’Shea was a big guy. The kids at Branaff called him Hagrid behind his back. But he was a lot faster than he looked. By the time I was out on the street sprinting after him, he was halfway up the block. Clearly he had a good reason to run.

“Don’t do this, George!”

A guy raking his leaves had already taken out his phone when I passed. “Call the police!” I yelled at him. I noticed he took my picture first.

Two kids on the sidewalk screamed at me and pedaled their Big Wheels like crazy, trying to keep up.

The top of the block ended in a cul-de-sac. O’Shea cut between two of the houses and kept going.

When I caught sight of him again, he was trying to scale a tall cedar fence in somebody’s backyard. He had to jump a couple times before he got a grip on the top of it and started pulling himself up.

Then the plank in his hand cracked. He slipped back down a few feet — and that’s when I caught up with him.

I got hold of his ankle before he could muscle all the way over, and I pulled him right off the top of the fence.

That brought him down fast — but he took me down with him, too.

And he wasn’t done yet.

My cuffs were out, just as O’Shea popped up onto one knee and elbowed me hard under the chin. My head snapped back. I tasted blood. In fact, it was probably the blood that helped me add a little speed and leverage to the right hook I gave him in return. That was enough to knock him back on his ass again.

This time I took out my Glock.

“Roll over, facedown! Hands on your head!” I told him.

He seemed half out of his mind. Even now, he started up at me again, but only until he saw the gun a few inches from his face.

“Don’t, George. Please — don’t,” I said.

It was like all the fight drained out of him at once. Even his face dropped, and he just melted back down to the ground.

When I put the cuffs on him, he started to cry.

“What have I done?” he kept saying over and over. “Oh God, what have I done?”