Double Cross (Alex Cross 13)

I was just coming down the stairs of my building when my cell rang. I didn’t recognize the number. Now what?

I put the phone to my ear.

“I’m calling for Kyle Craig,” a male voice said. He was breaking up some but had my full attention. “He can’t come to the phone right now . . . because he’s in solitary confinement in Colorado. But he wanted you to know he’s thinking about you every day, and he has a surprise planned for you. A terrific surprise, right there in Washington, DC. Remember, Kyle is the man with the plan. Oh, and he also wants you to know that he hasn’t seen the sun in four years—and it’s made him stronger and better at what he does.”

The phone went dead in my hand.

Kyle Craig—Jesus, what next?

And what was that message supposed to mean? “He has a surprise planned for you.”

Chapter 19

I TRIED TO TELL MYSELF that I couldn’t spend a lot of time worrying about the homicidal maniacs I had already put away in jail. Not when some others were still walking free. Besides, nobody had ever come close to breaking out of ADX Florence. And this wasn’t the first time Craig had threatened me from his jail cell.

Also, I wasn’t on the Job anymore. Of course, I was going out with the head detective on a very big, very nasty case.

The Riverwalk homicide was already a media sensation. Everybody seemed to be talking about it. Even my patients had brought it up. The more hysterical news outlets spun some absurd theory every couple of hours. They were selling fear 24-7, doing a brisk business, and I had to admit I dealt with that particular commodity myself. Except that I tried to relieve the fear, as best I could, anyway; I had always attempted to stop the panic and make it go away by taking killers off the streets.

All the MPD theories about the killer seemed to be going nowhere, or at least Bree thought so. The facial image from the video had no match in the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Database. The voiceprint had been contracted out to the same agency that worked with the Bureau on Osama bin Laden’s recordings after 9/11. So far, no luck there either, but it was too soon to expect much.

Also, the killer hadn’t identified himself with any jihad or cell. And no one had stepped up with information about him after seeing—on repeated news broadcasts—still pictures made by spectators of the murder.

Bree shared every shred of information with the Feds, but she also continued her own investigation. That meant sixteen-hour days for her.

On Thursday evening, I stopped by her office, hoping to coax her out for a bite to eat. The MPD’s Violent Crimes Unit is fairly inconspicuous, located behind an ordinary-looking strip mall in Southeast. There’s more than enough parking, though, which some cops joke is the real reason everybody wants to work there. It just could be.

I found Bree’s cube empty. The computer was still on, with a yellow sticky note on the monitor that said Call Alex in Bree’s handwriting. I hadn’t heard from her, though—not all day. So what was she up to now?

“You looking for Bree?” The detective from the next cubicle gestured with his half-eaten sub. “Try the conference room. Down that hallway to your left. She’s been camping out in there.”

When I entered the room, Bree was sitting with her feet up and a remote in one hand, scratching her head with the other. The killer’s video was playing on the television. Open files, pages of notes, and crime-scene photos were spread out everywhere. And still, just seeing her there turned me on more than I cared to admit.

“Hey, you. What time is it?” she called when she spotted me hovering across the room.

I closed the door before kissing her hello a couple of times. “Dinnertime, break time. You hungry?”

“Starved, actually. Just watch this with me a few more times? I’m going cross-eyed in here by myself.”

I was happy to help out and then not terribly surprised when “a few more times” became dozens of viewings, and dinner at Kinkead’s turned into take-out empanadas from around the corner.

The grisly murder tape from the Riverwalk never got any easier to watch. Neither did hearing my name spoken on it. I compensated by lasering in on the killer. Maybe there was some nuance of his speech or behavior, something nobody had noticed yet. I knew this exercise wasn’t about giant leaps right now; it was about making small connections. Like Tess Olsen being a crime writer. Or maybe even the Hallmark greeting cards I’d noticed in the apartment. The killer’s need for an audience.

So it surprised us both a few minutes later when we found something important, something that might be huge.

Chapter 20

IT STARTED OUT as a barely discernible flash, something almost subliminal in the static just before the second half of the tape began. Bree and I had been staring so much at what the killer wanted us to see, we hadn’t really looked anywhere else.

“Hold it a second,” I said.

I picked up the remote and rewound the tape a bit, then froze it.

“There,” I said to Bree. “See it?”

It was almost nothing. More like the suggestion of an image, almost too fast for the human eye or even the slow-motion feature on the VCR. A ghost is what it was. A clue. Left there on purpose?

“This tape’s been used before,” I said.