Cross (Alex Cross 12)

I put on

some Sam Cooke, starting with a popular favorite, “You Send Me.” Then I pored over old DC police files from the time of Maria’s murder—hundreds of pages.

I was looking for unsolved rape cases from back then, particularly ones that had occurred in Southeast or nearby. I worked intently and listened to the music, and was surprised when I looked at my watch and saw that it was ten past three. Some interesting things had surfaced in the files from the serial case I’d remembered was going on around the same time Maria died.

In fact, the rapes had started a few weeks before Maria was shot and ended just after the murder. They never started up again. Which meant what—that the rapist might have been a visitor to Washington?

Even more interesting to me, there were no IDs of the rapist from any of the victimized women. They had received medical attention but refused to talk to the police about what had happened to them. It didn’t substantiate anything, but it kept me flipping through more pages.

I went over several more transcripts and still found no IDs from the victims.

Could it be a coincidence? I doubted it. I kept reading.

Then I was stopped cold by a page in the police notes. A name and more information jumped out at me.

Maria Cross.

Social worker at Potomac Gardens.

A Detective Alvin Hightower, whom I had vaguely known back then—I was pretty sure he was dead now—had written a workup on the rape of a college girl from George Washington University. The attack took place inside a bar on M Street.

As I continued to read, I was having a hard time breathing. I was remembering a conversation that I’d had with Maria a couple of days before she died. It was about a case she was working on, about a girl who’d been raped.

According to the detective’s report, the coed had given some kind of description of the rapist to a social worker—Maria Cross. He was a white male, a little over six foot, possibly from New York. When he had finished with the girl he had taken a little bow.

My fingers shaking, I turned the page and checked the date of the initial report. And there it was—the day before Maria was murdered.

And the rapist?

The Butcher. The mob killer we’d been tracking. I remembered his rooftop bow, his unexplainable visit to my house.

The Butcher.

I would bet my life on it.

Part Four

DRAGON SLAYER

Chapter 84

NANA PICKED UP THE PHONE in the kitchen, where the family had gathered to fix supper that night. We all had a task for the meal, from peeling potatoes to making a Caesar salad and setting the table with the good silver. I tensed whenever the phone rang though. Now what? Had Sampson found something on the Butcher?

Nana spoke into the receiver. “Hello, sweetheart, how are you? How are you feeling? Oh, that’s good, that’s so good to hear. Let me get him. Alex is right here chopping vegetables like he works at Benihana. Oh, yeah, he’s doing pretty good. He’ll be lots better when he hears your voice.”

I knew it had to be Kayla, so I took the call out in the living room. Even as I did, I wondered when we had evolved into a family with telephones in just about every room, not to mention the cell phones that Damon and Jannie carried to school these days.

“So, how are you, sweetheart?” I picked up and tried to imitate Nana’s dulcet tones. “I’ve got it. You can hang up in the kitchen,” I added for the peanut gallery listening in, cackling and giggling out there.

“Hi, Kayla! Bye, Kayla!” chorused the kids.

“Bye, Kayla,” added Nana. “We love you. Get better real soon.”

She and I heard a click, and then Kayla said, “I’m doing just fine. The patient is doing beautifully. Almost healed and ready to kick some butt again.”

I smiled and felt the warmth flow through me just hearing her voice, even long distance like this. “Well, it’s good to listen to your butt-kicking voice again.”

“Yours too, Alex. And the kids and Nana. I’m sorry I didn’t call last week. My father has been under the weather, but he’s coming around now too. And you know me. I’ve been doing some pro bono work in the neighborhood. I just hate to get paid, you know.”