Jack & Jill (Alex Cross 3)

“Who is it?” The President looked up from the book he was reading to try and calm his nerves. The book was the massive Truman by David McCullough. The President nearly dropped the heavy tome when the door opened unexpectedly.

Thomas Byrnes smiled when he saw who was standing between the doorway and a large antique armoire.

“Oh, it’s you. I thought it might be Jill. I think she secretly likes me. Just a gut feeling I have,” he said and chuckled.

Sally Byrnes forced a smile. “Only me. I wanted to say goodnight. And to see if you were all right, Tom.”

The President looked fondly at his wife. They had been sleeping in separate bedrooms for the past few years. They’d had problems. But they were still close friends. He believed they still loved each other, and always would.

“You didn’t come to tuck me in?” he asked. “That’s a shame.”

“Of course I did. That, too. Tonight, you deserve a tuck-in.”

Her husband smiled in a way that reminded both of them of better times, much better times. He could be a charmer when he wanted to be. Sally Byrnes knew that all too well. Tom could also be a major heartbreaker. Sally knew that, too. It had been that way for most of their years together. The agony and the ecstasy, she called the relationship. In truth, though, to be fair, it had been more ecstasy than agony. They both believed that, and knew what they had was rare.

Thomas Byrnes lightly patted the edge of the bed, which was king-size with a partial canopy. Sally came and sat beside him. He reached for her hand, and she gave it to him willingly. She loved to hold hands with her Tom. She always had. She knew she still loved him in spite of past hurts and all their other troubles. She could forgive him for his affairs. She knew they meant nothing to him. She was secure in herself. Sally Byrnes also understood her husband better than anybody else. She knew how disturbed he was right now, how deeply frightened, and how vulnerable.

And she did love him, the whole complex package—the arrogance, the diffidence, the insecurities, the very large ego at times. She knew that he loved her and that they would always be best friends and soul mates.

“Tell you something weird,” he said as he pulled her closer, as he tenderly held his wife of twenty-six years.

“Tell me. I expect nothing less than full disclosure, Mr. King.” It was a phrase they had both laughed over in the London stage play The Madness of George III. The queen had called George III “Mr. King” in bed.

“I think it’s somebody we know. I had a talk about it with that homicide detective. He’s the only one who had the balls to come to me with the bad news. I think it could be somebody close to us, Sally. That makes it all the more horrible.”

Sally Byrnes tried not to show her fear. Her eyes traveled up and around the high-ceilinged bedroom. There was a chair rail halfway up the walls. Baby-blue-and-cream wallpaper rose above the rail. God, how she wished they could go home to Michigan. That’s what she really wanted more than anything, for her and Tom to go back home.

“Have you told that to Don Hamerman?”

“I’m telling you,” he whispered. “You, I can trust. You, I do trust.”

Sally kissed his forehead softly, then his cheek, and finally his lips. “You sure about that?”

“Hundred percent,” he whispered. “Although you have some good reasons to want to get me. Better reasons than most. Better than Jack and Jill, I’ll bet.”

“Hold me tight,” she said. “Don’t ever let go.”

“Hold me tight,” the President continued to whisper to his wife. “Don’t you ever let go. I could stay like this with you forever. And please, Sally, forgive me.”

It’s somebody close. It’s somebody very close to me. President Thomas Byrnes couldn’t turn off the disturbing thought as he held his wife. Somebody close.

“What would you like for Christmas, Tom? You know the press—they always want to know.”

President Byrnes thought for a moment.

“Peace. For this to be over.”

CHAPTER

83

IT WAS TIME to prove he was better than Jack and Jill. In his heart, he knew that he was. No contest. Jack and Jill were basically full of crap.

The Cross home stood in dark, shifting shadows on Fifth Street in Washington’s Southeast. It looked as if everyone inside had finally fallen asleep. We’ll soon see. We’ll just see about that, the killer thought to himself.

His name was Danny Boudreaux, if you really wanted to know the truth. He watched the streetlamp-lit scene from a clump of gum trees sprouting in an otherwise empty lot.

He was thinking about how much he hated Cross and his family. Alex Cross reminded him of his real father, who’d also been a cop devoted to his stupid job and who had left him and his mother because of it. Deserted them as if they were so much spit on the sidewalk. Then his mother had killed herself, and he’d wound up with foster parents.