Jack & Jill (Alex Cross 3)

President Edward Mahoney delivered a statement at nine. Jack and Jill had wanted Edward Mahoney to be president, I couldn’t help thinking as I watched him address hundreds of millions of people around the world. Maybe he was involved with the shooting; maybe not. But someone had wanted him to be president instead of Thomas Byrnes, and Byrnes had distrusted Mahoney.

All I knew about Mahoney was that he and two Cuban partners had made a fortune in the cable business. Mahoney had then become a popular governor of Florida. I remembered that there had been a lot of money behind his campaign. Look for the money.

I watched the dramatic three-ring TV circus along with Nana and the kids. Damon and Janelle knew too much to be excluded from the big picture now. From their perspective, their daddy was a hero. I was someone to be proud of, and maybe even listen to and obey every now and again. But probably not.

Jannie and Rosie the cat cuddled with me on the couch as we watched the nonstop parade of news features on the assassination and the subsequent capture of the real Jack and Jill. Everytime I appeared in a film sequence, Jannie ga

ve me a kiss on the cheek. “You approve of your pop?” I asked her after one of her best, loudest smackers.

“Yes, very much so,” Jannie told me. “I love seeing you on TV. So does Rosie. You’re handsome, and you talk real nice. You’re my hee-ro.”

“What do you have to say, Damon?” I checked on his royal majesty’s reaction to the strange goings-on.

Damon grinned ear-to-ear. He couldn’t help himself. “Pretty good,” he admitted. “I feel good inside.”

“I hear you,” I said to my young cub. “You want to give me a hug?”

He did, so I knew Damon was happy with me for the moment. That was important to me.

“Mater familias?” I asked for Nana’s opinion last. She was propped up in her favorite armchair. She hugged herself tightly as she watched the traumatic news coverage with rapt attention and a snide commentary.

“Not familias enough lately,” Nana offered a quick complaint. “Well, mostly I agree with Jannie and Damon. I don’t see why the white Secret Service man is taking most of the credit, though. Seems to me that the President got shot on his watch.”

“Maybe he got shot on all of our watches,” I said to her.

Nana shrugged her deceptively frail-looking shoulders. “At any rate, as always, I am proud of you, Alex. Has nothing to do with the heroics, though. I’m proud of you because of you.”

“Thank you,” I told Nana. “Nobody can say anything nicer. Not to anybody.”

“I know that,” Nana got the last word in; then she finally grinned. “Why do you think I said it?”

I hadn’t been home much during the past four weeks, and we were all hungry for one another’s company. We were starved, in fact. I couldn’t walk anywhere in the house without one of the kids firmly attached to an arm or leg.

Even Rosie the cat got into the act. She was definitely family now, and we were all glad she’d somehow found her way to our house.

I didn’t mind any of it. Not one minute of the attention. I was starved myself. I had a quick regret that my wife, Maria, wasn’t around to enjoy the special moment, but the rest was okay. Pretty good, actually. Our life was going to get back to normal again now. I vowed it would happen this time.

The next morning I was up to take Damon over to the Sojourner Truth School. The place was already bouncing back nicely. Innocence has a short memory. I stopped by Christine Johnson’s office, but she wasn’t back at work yet.

Nobody knew when she would return to the school, but they all missed her like a cure for the flu. So did I, so did I. There was something special about her. I hoped she was going to be all right.

I got home at quarter to nine that morning. The house on Fifth Street was incredibly quiet and peaceful. Kind of nice, actually. I put on Billie Holiday: The Legacy 1933–1958. One of my all-time favorites.

The phone rang about nine. The damn infernal phone.

It was Jay Grayer. I couldn’t imagine why he would be calling me at home. I almost didn’t want to hear the reason for his call.

“Alex, you have to come out to Lorton Prison,” he said in an urgent-sounding voice. “Please come, right now.”

CHAPTER

112

I BROKE every posted speed limit traveling out to the federal prison in Virginia. My head was spinning, threatening to come right off, to smash through the car windshield. As a homicide detective, you need to think that you’re strong and that you can take just about anything that’s dished out, but sooner or later you find out you really can’t. Nobody can.

I had been to Lorton Prison a few times before. The kidnapper and mass killer Gary Soneji had been kept in maximum security there once upon a time.

I arrived about ten in the morning. It was a crisp, blue-skied morning. A few reporters were in the parking lot and on the side lawns when I arrived.