Cross (Alex Cross 12)

“I do. Took out a Chinese drug dealer. Your wife, Maria, was also murdered right around that time. Mr. Sullivan is now a suspect in this case.”

“This same Michael ‘the Butcher’ Sullivan is also a suspect in a series of rapes in Georgetown, and at least one murder connected to the rapes. Was Sullivan the man you had cornered in Blues Alley?” I asked the Mafia hitters.

Not a word came from either of them. Nothing at all. Real tough guys.

Sampson finally stood up, rubbing his chin. “So I guess we don’t need Digger and Blade anymore. Well, what should we do with them? Wait, I have an idea. You’ll like this one, Alex,” Sampson said, and chuckled to himself.

He motioned for the Mafia soldiers to get up. “We’re finished here. You can come with me, gentlemen.”

“Where?” Lanugello finally broke his silence. “You ain’t charged us yet.”

“Let’s go. Got a surprise for you.” Sampson walked in front of the two of them, and I walked behind. They didn’t seem to like having me at the rear. Maybe they thought I might still be harboring a grudge about what had happened to Maria. Well, maybe I was.

Sampson signaled a guard at the end of the hall, and he used his keys to open a cell door. The holding area was already filled with several prisoners awaiting arraignment. All but one of them was black. John led the way inside.

“You’ll be staying here. If you change your mind and want to talk to us,” Sampson said to the Mafia guys, “give a holler. That is if Dr. Cross and I are still in the building. If not, we’ll check in on you in the morning. If that’s the case, have a nice night.”

Sampson tapped his shield a few times against the bars of the holding pen. “These two men are suspects in a series of rapes,” he announced to the other prisoners. “Rapes of black women in Southeast. Be careful, though, these are tough guys. From New York.”

We left, and the lockup guard slammed the cell door behind us.

Chapter 89

FOUR O’CLOCK ON A COLD, rainy morning, and his two younger boys were crying their eyes out in the backseat of the car. So was Caitlin up in front. Sullivan blamed Junior Maggione and La Cosa Nostra for everything, the huge, ugly mess that was happening now. Somehow, Maggione was going to pay for this, and he looked forward to the day of retribution.

So did his scalpel and his butcher’s saw.

At two thirty in the morning he had piled his family into the car and snuck away from a house six miles outside Wheeling, West Virginia. It was their second move in as many weeks, but he had no choice in the matter. He’d promised the boys they would return to Maryland one day, but he knew that wasn’t true. They wouldn’t ever go back to Maryland. Sullivan already had an offer on the house there. He needed the cash for their escape plan.

So now he and the family were running for their lives. As they left their “Wild West Virginny Home,” as he called it, he had a feeling that the mob would find them again—that they could be right around the next bend in the road.

But he rounded the next curve, and the curve after that, and made it out of town safe and sound and in one piece. Soon they were singing Rolling Stones and ZZ Top tunes, including about a twenty-minute version of “Legs,” until his wife put her foot down about the nonstop high-testosterone noise. They stopped at Denny’s for breakfast, at Micky D’s for a second bathroom break, and by three in the afternoon, they were somewhere they had never been before.

Hopefully, Sullivan had left no trail to be followed by a crew of mob killers. No bread crumbs like in “Hansel and Gretel.” The good thing was, neither he nor his family had ever been in this area before. It was virgin territory, with no roots or connections.

He pulled into the driveway of a shingle-style Victorian house with a steep roof, a couple of turrets, even a stained-glass window.

“I love this house!” Sullivan crowed, and he was all fake smiles and hyperenthusiasm. “Welcome to Florida, kiddos,” he said.

“Very funny, Dad. Not,” said Mike Jr. from the backseat, where all three boys were looking grim and depressed.

They were in Florida, Massachusetts, and Caitlin and the kids groaned at another of his dumb jokes. Florida was a small community of less than a thousand, situated high in the Berkshires. It had stunning mountain views, if nothing else. And there were no Mafia hit men waiting in the driveway. What more could they ask for?

“Just perfect. What could be better than this?” Sullivan kept telling the kids as they started to unpack again.

So why was Caitlin crying as he showed her their new living room with the sweeping views of big bad Mt. Greylock and the river? Why was he lying to her when he said, “Everything is going to be all right, my queen, light of my life”?

Maybe because he knew it wasn’t true, and probably, so did she. He and his family were going to be murdered one day, maybe in this very house.

Unless he did something dramatic to stop it. And fast. But what could that be? How could he stop the Mafia from coming after him?

How could you kill the mob?

Chapter 90

TWO NIGHTS LATER, the Butcher was on the move again. Just him. One man.

He had a plan now and was traveling south to New York City. He was uptight and nervous but singing along with Springsteen, Dylan, the Band, Pink Floyd. Nothing but Oldies and Greaties for the four-hour ride south. He didn’t particularly want to leave Caitlin and the boys at the house in Massachusetts, but he figured they’d probably be safe there for now. If not, he had done the best he could for them. Better than his father ever did for him, or for his mother and brothers.