Roses Are Red (Alex Cross 6)

“Big, big differences between these jobs and the ones I worked on. Neither Dougherty nor Connor was violent by nature. Those guys were basically small-town, small-time criminal minds. ‘Old school,’ like those commercials you see on ESPN. Even the hostages spoke of them as ‘congenial’ and ‘pleasant.’ Connor always carefully explained that he didn’t want to steal anything in the hostages’ homes. Said he didn’t want to harm anyone. He and Dougherty both despised banks, and they despised insurance companies. That might be the hookup with your perps.”

Withers continued to reminisce and conjecture in a soft, sleepy Midwestern drawl. I sat back and thought about what he had said. Maybe somebody else out there despised banks and insurance companies, too. Or possibly they hated bankers and their families for some reason. Someone with a deep enough grudge could be behind the robberies and murders. It made some sense, as much as anything else we had.

After Sam Withers left the conference room we talked about other cases that might relate to this one. One in particular caught my attention. A major robbery had occurred outside Philadelphia in January. Two men had kidnapped a bank executive’s husband and infant son. They said they had a bomb and threatened to blow up their hostages unless the bank vault was opened.

“They kept in touch with walkie-talkies. Used police scanners, too. Kind of like the First Union job,” Betsey reported from her extensive notes. “It might be the same people who did the First Union.”

“Any violence in the job outside Philly?” I asked her.

She shook her head, and her shiny black hair flipped to one side. “No, none.”

With all the resources of the FBI and hundreds of local police departments, we were still nowhere on the robbery-murders. Something was very wrong with this picture. We still weren’t thinking like the killers.

Chapter 24

I GOT BACK TO ST. ANTHONY’S around four-thirty in the afternoon. Jannie wasn’t in her room, which surprised me. Nana and Damon were sitting and reading. Nana said she had been taken for tests ordered by her neurologist, Dr. Petito.

Jannie returned at quarter to five. She looked tired. She was so young to be going through this kind of ordeal. She and Damon had always been healthy, even as babies, which made this even more of a shock.

When Jannie rolled into the room in a wheelchair, Damon suddenly choked up. So did I.

“Give us a big bear hug, Daddy,” Jannie looked at us and said, “like you used to when we were little.”

The vivid image came flooding back to me. I remembered the feeling of holding them both in my arms when they were much smaller. I did what Jannie asked: I bear-hugged my two babies.

As the three of us embraced, Nana came back from a walk down the hall. She had someone tagging along.

Christine Johnson entered the room behind Nana. She wore a silver-gray blouse with dark blue skirt and matching shoes. She must have come to the hospital from school. She seemed a little distant to me, but at least she was there for Jannie.

I would ask Nana later who was taking care of Alex.

“Here’s everybody,” Christine said. She never made eye contact with me. “I wish I had my camera.”

“Oh, we’re always like this,” Jannie said to her. “This is just our family.”

We talked some, but mostly we listened to Jannie describe her long, scary day. She seemed so vulnerable suddenly, so small. She was brought dinner at five. Rather than complain about the bland hospital food, she compared it favorably to her favorite dishes prepared by Nana.

That got a laugh out of everybody except Nana, who pretended to be miffed. “Well, we can just order out from the hospital when you get home,” Nana said as she gave Jannie the evil eye. “Save me a lot of aggravation and work.”

“Oh, you like to work,” Jannie told Nana. “And you love aggravation.”

“Almost as much as you love to tease me,” Nana countered.

As Christine was getting up to leave, the nurse brought a phone from the nurses’ station. She announced that there was an important call for Detective Cross. I groaned and shook my head. Everybody stared at me as I took the phone.

“It’s okay, Daddy,” Jannie said.

Kyle Craig was on the line. He had bad news. “I’m on my way to the First Virginia branch in Rosslyn. They hit another bank, Alex.”

Nana shot poisoned darts at me with her eyes. Christine wouldn’t look at me. I felt guilty and ashamed, and I hadn’t done anything wrong.

“I have to go for an hour or so,” I finally said. “I’m sorry.”

Chapter 25

THE BANK ROBBERIES were coming too fast, one after the other, like dominoes tumbling. Whoever was behind them didn’t want to give us a chance to think, to catch a breath, or to organize ourselves.

Rosslyn was only about fifteen minutes from St. Anthony’s Hospital. I didn’t know what I would find there: the possible brutalities, the number of dead bodies.