Roses Are Red (Alex Cross 6)

“I’ve been here less than eight months. I took over for Dr. Francis, who transferred to another vets hospital in Florida. The money just isn’t available for these places. It’s a national disgrace, and nobody seems to care. Sixty Minutes and Dateline should do stories every week on veterans hospitals — until somebody does something about them. Alex, I don’t know what to tell you about your killer.”

“You don’t believe he’s here, do you?” I asked.

Marcuse shook his head. “If he is, he really is a mastermind. If he’s here, he’s got everybody fooled.”

Chapter 103

I SEE YOU, DR. CROSS. I see you, but you don’t have a clue who I am. I could walk up and touch you.

I’m a lot smarter than you — and also a lot smarter than you think I am. It’s a simple fact. It’s also verifiable. There have been batteries of intelligence tests. Lots and lots of the finest psychological tests. Have you seen my test scores? Were you impressed?

I was sitting exactly one chair away from you in the recreation room the other morning. I studied your face. My eyes rolled over your well-exercised body. I was thinking that maybe I was wrong — and that you weren’t really Alex Cross. We were so close I could have jumped up and grabbed you by the throat. Would that have surprised you?

I’ll admit, your being here certainly surprised me. I’ve seen your picture — you’re well known — and then there you were. You made all of my paranoid dreams and fantasies come true.

Why are you here, Dr. Cross? Why, exactly? How the hell could you have found me? Are you that good?

That’s the question I ask myself over and over, the litany playing inside my head.

Why is Alex Cross here? How good is he?

I’m going to work on a surprise for you now. I’m making a special plan in your honor.

I’m watching you walk away up the hallway, careful not to jangle your keys, and as I’m watching, I’m making a new plan.

You’re part of it now.

Be extremely careful, Dr. Cross.

You’re much more vulnerable than you think. You have no idea.

You know what? I am going to walk up and touch you.

Gotcha.

Chapter 104

“THE HOSPITAL seems like a dead end, Betsey. I’ve looked at everybody — doctors, nurses, patients. I don’t know that Sampson or I should go back to Hazelwood after this week. Maybe we got suckered in there by Brian Macdougall. Maybe the Mastermind is playing with us. Do we know anything more about Walsh or Doud?”

She shook her head. I could see the hurt and disappointment in her eyes. “Doud is still missing. There’s nothing. He’s disappeared.”

I was sitting in her office and we had our feet propped up on her desk. We were drinking iced tea from bottles. Hanging out, commiserating. Betsey could be a good listener when she wanted, or needed, to be.

“Tell me what you know so far,” she said. “Just let me hear it. I want it to roll over my brain.”

“We haven’t been able to find anything to connect any patient or any staff member at the hospital to MetroHartford or the previous bank robberies. No patient seems capable of the crimes. Even the doctors there aren’t terribly impressive. Maybe Marcuse is — but I think he’s a good guy. A half dozen of your agents have picked apart everything at Hazelwood. Nothing, Betsey. I’ll look over the files again this weekend.”

“But you think we’ve lost him?”

“It’s the same old thing — no suspects. The Mastermind seems to disappear off the face of the earth when he wants to.”

She rubbed her eyes with her fists, then she looked at me again. “The Justice Department is heavily invested in Brian Macdougall’s story. They have to keep looking at Hazelwood. Then they’ll check every other veterans hospital in the country. That means I’ll have to keep looking. But you think Macdougall and his thugs were wrong?”

“Maybe wrong, maybe tricked. Or maybe Macdougall made up the whole story. Macdougall will probably get what he wanted out of this — Camp Fed. As I said, I’ll look over the files again. I’m not giving up.”

Betsey continued to look out over the cityscape. “So you’re planning to work all weekend? That’s a shame. You look like you need a break,” she said.

I sipped my tea and watched her. “You have something in mind?”