Double Cross (Alex Cross 13)

This was the kind of bureaucratic logjam I associated with my time at the FBI, not Metro. Things sure had changed since I’d been away. Or maybe it was just me who had changed.

I sighed out loud, looked around the stage. “What else do we have?”

Chapter 29

I TOOK MY WORK HOME that terrible night, and this wasn’t even my case. Yet.

It was two in the morning, and I already had the makings of a revised profile spread out on the kitchen table in front of me. I couldn’t get the Audience Killer, as we now thought of him, out of my head. Or Kyle Craig, for that matter. What the hell did he want with me? Why was he making contact now?

When the light under Nana’s door came on, I flipped the pages over so she wouldn’t see them. As if a bunch of upside-down paper wouldn’t look suspicious to her, or could fool the old night owl in the slightest.

“You hungry?” was the first thing she said. It had been a long time since she’d asked what I was doing up in the middle of the night.

A few minutes later, she had a couple of grilled apple-and-cheddar sandwiches going on the stove—half for her and one and a half for me. I cracked a beer and poured a small amount into a juice glass for her.

“What’s on those pages there that you don’t want me to see?” she asked, her back still to me. “Could it be your last will and testament?”

“That supposed to be funny?”

“Not at all, sonnyboy, not funny in the least. Just sad, very sad.”

She put down our plates and sat across from me at the kitchen table. Just like it’d been for years.

“I don’t think you’re going to like what I have to say,” I told her.

“And that’s stopped you when?”

“I’ve been in private practice for a while. It’s been good for me—the change. I like it most days.”

Nana bowed her head and clucked a couple of times. “Oh, Alex. I’m not going to like this one bit. Maybe I should go back to my room and sleep.”

“But,” I said, then corrected myself. “And something’s missing for me.”

“Mm-hm. I’ll bet. Getting shot at, and missed. Getting shot at, and hit.”

I didn’t know what she could have done to make this easier, but she sure wasn’t trying.

“I left law enforcement for some good reasons.”

“Yes, you did, Alex. They’re all sleeping upstairs.”

“Nana, I’ve never been someone who works for a paycheck. My work, for better or worse, is part of me. And part of me is missing lately. That’s just the way it is.”

“I can’t say I haven’t noticed. But I’ll tell you something else. There’s a lot of other things missing around here these days. Things like phone calls in the middle of the night. Things like wondering when you’ll be home again—if you’ll be home again.”

We went back and forth like that for a while. The thing that surprised me was that the longer it went on, the stronger I felt about what I needed to do.

Finally I pushed back from the table and wiped my hands on a paper napkin.

“You know what, Nana? I love you dearly. I’ve tried keeping the peace. I’ve tried doing things your way, and whether or not it shows, it’s not working. I’m going to live my life the way I have to.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, what does that even mean?” she asked as she threw her hands into the air.

I stood up. My heart was racing. “Whatever it means, I’ll let you know when it’s done. I’m sorry, but that’s as much as I can give you right now. Good night.” I gathered the papers, turned, and walked away from her.

Her laughter stopped me. It was just a soft chortle at first—the kind of feather that can knock you over, though. I turned back again, and something in my expression sent her into a full cackling belly laugh.

“What?” I finally had to ask.