Double Cross (Alex Cross 13)

He had a small Sony VAIO computer, and he could get on the Internet right from his car. A lot of interesting things had happened in the tech world while he’d been wasting away in ADX Florence. He’d missed out on it, thanks to Cross and a few others from the Bureau who had helped betray him.

Kyle booted up the Sony.

Then he typed, I’m in town. Kind of emotional for me. If you don’t have a prior commitment, remember our meeting on Saturday night. I do believe we can be great together. X marks the spot.

He didn’t bother to add, It’s you versus me now. Kyle thought that should be obvious to DCAK.

“We’ll have to see, though. We’ll just have to see.”

Chapter 104

THE WORST IS YET TO COME! Kyle remembered the catchphrase from a long time ago, from before he was captured by Alex Cross. He had just murdered a most disrespectful crime reporter from the Washington Post and the arrogant fucker’s wife as well. He had planned to outdo the great minds of his time—Gary Soneji; Geoffrey Shafer; Casanova, whom he had worked with as a coauthor, so to speak. Most of all, most important to him, Kyle planned to top himself—to grow, to evolve, to achieve greatness in his field, to follow his dream.

Suddenly, he remembered something else, something very painful from the time of his arrest. Alex Cross had knocked out his two front teeth! That’s how he had looked when he was finally captured. In photographs that appeared in newspapers and magazines all over the world. On every single TV broadcast.

The Mastermind!

Toothless.

Like some kind of bloody fool.

Like a street person, a derelict.

And that woman! She had mocked him publicly too. Said to his face that he would never see the sun again. Boasted and bragged about it in front of all kinds of witnesses. She had even written a turgid book that the equally uninspired Washington Post had hailed as a “masterpiece on criminal justice.”

So this dreary redbrick Colonial was where Judge Nina Wolff lived in the City of Fairfax. The wages of sanctimony weren’t worth so much, were they?

Kyle began to walk toward the house—and as he did, he took out a small canister. He started to shake it furiously. He was furious, and he had every damn right to be. Judge Nina Wolff had taken four years of his life.

No doubt about it anymore—it was his time now.

DCAK was yesterday’s news.

Starting.

Right.

Now.

He was the man again.

Just him.

He aimed the canister and wrote his message.

Chapter 105

MONNIE DONNELLEY, a research analyst and a good friend out at Quantico, was the one who called me—probably because Monnie knew I was close to Judge Nina Wolff. The two of us had worked together at the time of Kyle Craig’s trial. Then I had helped with her book. Nina was the doting mother of three teenage girls; her husband, George, was sweet-natured but also funny enough to do stand-up comedy. George was the perfect match for the sober-looking judge.

And now—this outrage, this abomination at their home. Of course, I knew who Nina Wolff’s killer had to be, though I almost wanted to be wrong. I figured there was a slim possibility it could have been DCAK rather than Kyle Craig who had killed the judge, but that was a stretch of the imagination.

I arrived out in the City of Fairfax at two in the morning. I found dozens of cars and vans and trucks, most with garish lights revolving on the tops of their roofs. The suburban neighborhood was up too—every house I passed, just about every window was glowing brilliantly, like fearful, vigilant eyes.

So sad—a neighborhood like this. Peaceful and pretty. People just trying to live their lives with some kind of harmony and dignity. Was that too much to ask? Apparently it was.

I climbed out of the R350 at the end of a cul-de-sac, and I started to walk. Then I began to jog, probably because I needed to run. Maybe I even wanted to run away—in some saner part of my brain—but I was moving toward the Wolff house, just like I always did, drawn to danger, to chaos, to death and disaster.

Suddenly I stopped. A chill knifed through me. I hadn’t even gotten to the house, but I had the first awful image. It was right before my eyes.