Roses Are Red (Alex Cross 6)

AS I DROVE THERE, I was thinking, Don’t let this be happening. Not again! Please, God, don’t do this to her. You can’t do this. You wouldn’t.

I parked near the school and dashed out of the car. Then I found myself running down the hall to Christine’s corner office. My heart pounded dully in my chest. My legs were unsure. I could hear the clicking of the word processor before I reached the door.

I peered inside.

I was relieved to see Christine there in her warm and fuzzy, thoroughly cluttered office. She was always intensely focused when she worked. Not wanting to startle her, I stood and watched for a moment. Then I knocked gently on the doorjamb.

“It’s me,” I said in a soft voice.

Christine stopped typing and turned. For just an instant, she looked at me like she used to. It melted me. She had on a pair of navy blue trousers and a tailored yellow silk blouse. She didn’t look as if she were going through a bad time, but I knew that she was.

“What are you doing here?” she finally asked. “I already heard it on CNN this morning,” she continued. “I saw the glorious murder scene at the market in London.” She shook her head, closed her eyes.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

Christine snapped out an answer. “I’m not all right! I’m a million miles from all right. This news doesn’t help. I can’t sleep nights. I have nightmares all the time. I can’t concentrate during the day. I imagine terrible things happening to little Alex. To Damon and Jannie and Nana, and to you. I can’t make it stop!”

Her words cut right through me. It was a terrible feeling not to be able to help. “I don’t think he’ll come back here,” I said.

Anger flashed in Christine’s eyes. “You don’t know that for sure.”

“Shafer considers himself beyond us. We aren’t that important in his fantasy world. His wife was. I’m surprised that he didn’t murder the kids, too.”

?

?You see, you’re surprised. Nobody knows for sure what these insane, pathetic maniacs will do! And now you’re involved with more of them: depraved men who murder innocent hostages for no reason. Because they can.”

I started to walk into the office — but she raised her hand. “Don’t. Please stay away from me.”

Christine then rose from her chair and walked past me toward the teacher’s washroom. She disappeared inside without looking back.

I knew she wouldn’t come out — not until she was sure I was gone. As I finally walked away, I was thinking that she hadn’t asked about Jannie.

Chapter 33

I STOPPED AT ST. ANTHONY’S HOSPITAL again before I went to work. Jannie was up and we had breakfast together. She told me that I was the best dad in the world, and I said she was the best daughter. Then I told her about the tumor and that she needed to have surgery. My little girl cried in my arms.

Nana arrived, and Jannie was taken away for more tests. There was nothing I could do at the hospital for several hours. I went off to meet with the FBI again. The job was always there. Christine had told me, Your work is chasing insane, pathetic maniacs. There didn’t seem to be any end in sight.

Special Agent in Charge Cavalierre arrived precisely at eleven for her briefing of the team at the Bureau’s field office on Fourth Street in Northwest. It looked to me as if half the Bureau were there, and it was an impressive sight, somewhat reassuring.

I was reminded that the bank-robbing crew demanded exactness. Maybe that was the reason Kyle Craig felt Agent Cavalierre was right for this case. He’d told me that she was exacting and precise, one of the most professional agents he’d seen in his years at the Bureau. My thoughts kept going back to the high-profile bank jobs and the murders. Why did they want publicity, even infamy? Were the robbers preconditioning other bank employees and corporations for future robberies? Scaring the shit out of everyone so there would be no resistance? Or did the murders have to do with revenge? It made sense that one or more of the killers might have worked at a bank. We were chasing that lead with everything we had.

I peered around the overcrowded crisis room inside the FBI field office. Several partitions on one wall had been allotted to write-ups and photos of suspects and witnesses. Unfortunately, none of the suspects were particularly hot. Not even lukewarm. The partitions were titled “Fat Man,” “Manager’s Wife,” “Husband’s Girlfriend,” “Mustache.”

Why didn’t we have a single good suspect? What should that be telling us? What were we all missing?

“Hi and good morning. I want to thank everyone in advance for giving up your weekend,” Agent Cavalierre said with just the right amount of irony and humor. She was wearing khakis and a light purple T-shirt. There was a tiny purple barrette in her hair. She looked confident and surprisingly relaxed.

“If you don’t come in on Saturday,” an agent with a droopy mustache spoke up from the back of the room, “don’t bother to come in on Sunday.”

“You ever notice how the wiseasses always sit in the back?” Cavalierre cracked, and then smiled convincingly. She was as cool as they come.

She held up a thick blue folder. “Everybody has a big bad file like this one, containing past cases that might relate. The Joseph Dougherty robberies through the Midwest in the eighties were similar in some ways. There’s also material on David Grandstaff, who masterminded the largest single bank robbery in American history. Of some interest, Grandstaff was caught by the Bureau. However, in our zealous efforts to take him down, questionable tactics were used. After a six-week trial, a jury deliberated for all of ten minutes, then let Grandstaff off. To this day, the three million from the Tucson First National Bank job hasn’t been recovered.”

There was a hand wave and a question from the front of the room. “Where is Mr. Grandstaff now?”

“Oh, he’s gone underground,” said Agent Cavalierre. “About six feet. He isn’t involved in these robberies, Agent Doud. But he may have helped inspire them. The same goes for Joseph Dougherty. Whoever did these jobs might be aware of their handiwork. As I’ve heard them say in the movies, ‘He’s a student of the game.’”