Jack & Jill (Alex Cross 3)

He was almost definitely suffering a withdrawal from his prescription drugs. Danny Boudreaux had the whole package of symptoms: aggression, depression, psychosis, hyperactivity, behavioral deterioration.

A thirteen-year-old, stone-cold killer. How do I get the gun away from him?

Christine Johnson was standing in the darkened living room behind him. She didn’t move. She looked very distant in the background and small, in spite of her height. She looked frightened, sad, tired.

To the right was an exquisitely carved fireplace that looked as if it had been scavenged from some big-city brownstone. I hadn’t seen much of the living room before. I studied it closely now. I was looking for some kind of weapon. Anything to help us.

George Johnson lay on the off-white marble floor in the foyer. Christine or the boy had placed a red plaid blanket over the body. The slain lawyer looked as if he’d lain down to take a nap.

“Christine, are you okay?” I called across the room. She started to speak, then stopped herself.

“She’s fine, man. She’s mighty fine pudding. She’s all right,” Boudreaux snapped at me. He slurred his words, so that they sounded like “cheese alriii.” “She’s a-okay, all right. I’m the one who’s losing it here. This is about me.”

“I can understand how tired you are, Danny,” I said to him. I suspected that he would be experiencing dizziness, impaired concentration, cottonmouth.

“Yeah. You got that right. What else do you have to say for yourself? Any more nuggets of wisdom about my delusional behavior?”

Wham! He suddenly kicked shut the front door behind us. More impulsive behavior. I had definitely joined the party. He was still very careful to keep his distance—he kept the semiautomatic always pointed at me.

“I can shoot this son of a bitch real well,” he said, just in case I’d missed the point before. It reinforced my notion of his extreme paranoia, his agitation and nervousness.

He was overly concerned about how I viewed him, how competent I judged him to be. He had me confused with his real father. The policeman father who had deserted him and his mother. I’d just learned about the connection on the ride over, but it made sense. It tracked perfectly, actually.

I reminded myself that this nervous, skinny, pathetic boy was a murderer. It wasn’t hard for me to hate such a fiend. Still, there was also something tragically sad about the boy. There was something so lonely and freakish about Daniel Boudreaux.

“I believe that you can shoot extremely well,” I told him quietly. I knew it was what he wanted to hear.

I believe you.

I believe you are a stone-cold killer. I believe you are a young monster, and probably unredeemable.

How do I get your gun?

I believe I may have to kill you before you kill me or Christine Johnson.

CHAPTER

100

I LOOKED at the words HAPPY, HAPPY. JOY, JOY. I knew exactly where the saying on his sweatshirt came from.

Nickelodeon. Children’s TV. Damon and Jannie loved it. In a way, so did I. Nickelodeon was about families, and it probably infuriated Danny Boudreaux.

He grinned at me! He had such a fiendish, madhouse look.

Then he spoke quietly, as I just had. He expertly mimicked my concern for him. His instincts were sharp and cruel. It scared me again. It also made me want to rush him and punch his lights out.

“You don’t have to whisper. Nobody’s sleeping in here. Well, nobody except George the Doorman.”

He laughed, reveling in his crazy, creepy inappropriateness. Here was the real psychopathic deal. Danny was a thrill killer in the flesh, even at thirteen.

“Are you all right?” I asked Christine again.

“No. Not really,” she whispered.

“Shut the hell up!” Boudreaux yelled at both of us. He pointed his gun at Christine, then back at me. “When I say something, I mean it.”

I realized I wasn’t going to get the gun away from the boy. I had to try something else. He looked close to the breaking point, way too close.