Jack & Jill (Alex Cross 3)

Wait, wait, hold on, Danny Boudreaux suddenly got something clear. A flash. This self-righteous Kunta Kinte dude has to be her husband, right? Of course he was.

“Yes? Can I help you with something?” George Johnson asked the strange-looking and disheveled young man on the porch. He didn’t know the paper-delivery boy in the neighborhood, but maybe this was he. For some strange reason, the white boy reminded him of a disturbing movie called Kids that he’d watched with Christine. The boy looked as if he had some trouble in his life right now.

In Danny Boudreaux’s humble opinion, the black guy seemed real unfriendly and uppity as hell. Especially for the nobody husband of some nobody schoolteacher. That pissed him off even more. Made him see about twelve different shades of red. Put him over the edge.

He felt one of the worst rages coming on. Hurricane Daniel was about to strike in Mitchellville.

“Noooooo!” he nearly yelled at the man. “You can’t even help yourself. You sure as shit can’t help me!”

Danny Boudreaux suddenly yanked out his semiautomatic. George Johnson looked at the gun in disbelief. He stepped back quickly from the door. He threw up both his arms in self-defense.

Without any hesitation, Boudreaux fired twice. “Take that, you silly black rabbit!” he yelled, letting the voices come as they may. The two bullets hit George Johnson in the chest.

He flew back through the open door as if he’d been struck with a sledgehammer. He bounced once off the cream marble floor.

The cat was DOA for sure. Blood was surging from the two holes in his chest.

The Sojourner Truth School killer then walked right into the teacher’s house. He stepped over the fallen body as if it were worth nothing. He was feeling nothing.

“I’ll just go ahead in, thanks,” he said to the dead man on the floor. “You’ve been most helpful.”

Christine Johnson had risen from the couch in the living room when she heard the shots. He had forgotten how goddamn tall she was. Danny Boudreaux could see her from the front hallway. She could see him and her husband’s body as well.

She didn’t look so almighty-in-charge anymore. He had knocked her ass down a peg real quick. She deserved it, too. She’d hurt his feelings the first time they met. She probably didn’t even remember the incident.

“Remember me?” he called to her. “Remember hassling me, bitch? At the Truth School? You remember me, don’t you?”

“Oh, my God. Oh, George. Oh, God, George,” she moaned the words. A dry sob was shaking her body. She looked as

if she might collapse. He saw that fucking Jack and Jill was on the tube. Goddammit. They were always trying to one-up him. Even here, even now!

Danny Boudreaux could tell that the schoolteacher wanted to run real bad. There was nowhere to go, though. Not unless she went right through the picture window and out onto her lawn. She had her hand up to her mouth. Her hand looked as if it were stuck there with Velcro. Probably in shock.

Lady, who isn’t these days?

“Don’t yell anymore,” he warned her in a high-pitched scream of his own. “Don’t scream again or I’ll shoot you, too. I can and I will. I’ll shoot you dead as the doorman.”

He closed in on her now. He kept the Smith & Wesson pointed out in front of him. He wanted her to see that he was very comfortable with the weapon, very expert with firearms—which he was, thanks to the Teddy Roosevelt School.

His hand was shaking some, but so what? He wouldn’t miss her at this distance.

“Hi, there, Mrs. Johnson,” he said and gave her his best spooky-guy grin. “I’m the one who killed Shanelle Green and Vernon Wheatley. Everybody’s been looking all over for me. Well, I guess you found me,” he told her. “Congratulations, babe. Nice work.”

Danny Boudreaux was crying now, and he couldn’t remember why he was so sad. All he knew for sure was that he was furiously angry. With everybody. Everybody had fucked up real bad this time. This was about the worst so far.

No happy, happy. No joy, joy.

“I’m the Truth School killer,” he repeated. “You believe that? You got it? It’s a true tale. Tale of heartbreak and woe. Don’t you even remember me? Am I that forgettable? I sure remember you.

CHAPTER

96

I RUSHED BACK to the Washington, D.C., area that night about eleven o’clock. The Sojourner Truth School killer was rampaging. I had predicted he was going to go off, but being right held no rewards for me. Stopping the explosion might.

Maybe it was no accident that he was blowing the same night as Jack and Jill. He wanted to be better than them, didn’t he? He wanted to be important, famous, in the brightest spotlight. He couldn’t bear being Nobody.

I tried to put my mind somewhere else for the short time I was on the military jet. I was feeling so low, I could have jumped off a dime. I scanned the late papers, which carried front-page stories about President Byrnes and the shooting in New York. The President was in extremely critical condition at New York University Hospital on East Thirty-third Street in Manhattan. Jack and Jill were both reported dead. Doctors at University Hospital didn’t know if the President would survive the night.