Jack & Jill (Alex Cross 3)

George Pittman wandered up beside Sampson and me while we w

ere talking. The chief of detectives was the last person I wanted to see then, absolutely the last. I still suspected he was the one who had “volunteered” me to the White House. I swallowed any anger I was feeling; swallowed my pride, too.

“FBI has sharpshooters in place,” Pittman informed us. “Trouble is, the powers won’t let us use them. The little bastard’s been out in the open a couple of times.”

I stayed even and calm with Pittman. He still had a gun to my head. We both knew it. “Trouble is, the killer is thirteen years old. He’s probably suicidal,” I said. I was making an educated guess, but I was almost certain it was the right one. He had cornered himself in the Johnson house, then started screaming come and get me.

Pittman’s face became a dark scowl. His face was tinged with red down to his bull neck. “He thinks the five murders he’s committed are funny. Little fucker told the negotiator that already. He laughs about the murders. He’s asking for you specifically. Now how do you feel about the sharpshooters?” Pittman came back at me before he walked away.

Sampson shook his head. “Don’t even think about going in there to play games with Dennis the Menace,” he said.

“I need to understand him better. I have to talk to him to do that,” I muttered and looked at the Johnson house. There were plenty of lights on downstairs. None up on the second floor.

“You understand him too goddamn much already, though you’d deny it. You understand so much about the crazies, you’re going over the edge yourself. You hear me? You understand that?”

I did understand. I had a fair idea of my own strengths and weaknesses. Most of the time, anyway. Maybe not on a night like this one, though.

A voice on a megaphone interrupted us. The Sojourner Truth School killer had decided to speak.

“Hey! Hey, out there! Hey, you dumb bastards! Did you forget something? Remember me?”

I got to hear Danny Boudreaux for the first time. He sounded like a boy. Nasal, high-pitched, ordinary as hell. Thirteen years old.

“You sons of bitches are screwing with my head, aren’t you?” he screeched. “I’ll answer my own question. Yeah, you are! You’re fucking with the wrong falcon.”

Paul Losi blew once on his bullhorn. “Hold on. That’s really not the case, Danny. You’ve been in control all the way so far. You know that, Danny. Let’s be fair about this.”

“Bullshit!” Danny Boudreaux answered back angrily. “That’s so much bullshit, it makes me sick to the gills just to hear it. You make me sick, Losi. You also make me super pissed-off, you know that, Losi?”

“Tell me what the problem is.” The negotiator maintained a cool head under fire. “Talk to me, Danny. I want to talk to you. I know you might not believe that, but I do.”

“I know you do, asshole. It’s your job to keep me on the line. Trouble is, you cheated, you lied, you said you loved me. You lied! So now you’re off my team. Not one more word from you, or I’ll murder Mrs. Johnson. It’ll be your fault.

“I’ll kill her now. I swear to God, I will. Even though she was nice enough to make me a fried egg sandwich before. BANG!… BANG!… SHE’S DEAD!”

The police were everywhere outside the Johnson house. They began to lower their dark Plexiglas face masks. Riot shields were slowly raised. The forces were getting ready to rush the house. If they did, Christine Johnson would very likely die.

“What is your problem?” the negotiator cautiously asked the boy. “Talk to me. We’ll work it out, Danny. We can come to a solution that works for you. What’s the problem?”

For a while it was eerily quiet on the front lawn and on the street. I could hear the wind rush through willow and evergreen trees.

Then Danny Boudreaux screamed out.

“What’s my problem? What’s my problem? You’re such a phony asshole is part of my problem…. The other part is that the man is here. Alex Cross is here, and you didn’t tell me. I had to find out on the TV news!

“You have exactly thirty seconds, Detective Cross. Make that twenty-nine. Twenty-eight. I can’t wait to meet you, sucker. I can’t wait for this. Twenty-seven. Twenty-six. Twenty-five…”

The Sojourner Truth School killer was calling the shots. A thirteen-year-old boy. A command performance.

CHAPTER

98

“THIS IS ALEX CROSS,” I called out to the teenage murderer. I was standing on the outer edge of the Johnsons’ frostbitten lawn. I didn’t need a megaphone for Danny Boudreaux to hear me. Your detective is here. Everything is going just the way you want it to go.

“This is Detective Cross,” I called out again. “You’re right, I’m here. I just arrived, though. I came because you asked for me. We’re taking this seriously. Nobody’s messing around with you. Nobody would do that.”

Not yet, anyway. Give me half a chance, though, and I’ll mess with you good. I remembered poor little Shanelle Green. I remembered seven-year-old Vernon Wheatley. I thought about Christine Johnson trapped inside with the young killer who had shot her husband before her eyes. I wanted the chance to mess with Daniel Boudreaux.