Double Cross (Alex Cross 13)

The victim had apparently been killed near the base of the five-story-high movie screen. That seemed odd to me, but it was the advance word we’d gotten from Gil Cook, and no one else was questioning it so far. I probably shouldn’t have either. Not yet.

The poor woman’s body lay faceup now. Her hands had been tied behind her back, and even from a distance, I could see silver duct tape wrapped across her mouth. Just like at the Riverwalk. I also spotted a wedding band on her hand.

As I got closer, I saw that the tape was stained dark over her lips where blood had been unable to escape. Probably after internal injuries. Mrs. Courlevais’s white dress was discolored and looked rusty brown all over. She’d obviously been stabbed . . . repeatedly.

Next to the mutilated body was an oversize canvas rucksack. There were metal grommets around the top. The sack was laced with a thick cord, presumably for tying it closed.

Another present from DCAK? Another clue for us to follow nowhere?

More bloodstains and several perforations showed me what I already knew instinctively, that the victim had been stabbed inside the sack. The vicious killer had left Abby Courlevais in there, either dead or dying. The EMTs had taken her out in hopes of reviving her, but it was obviously too late.

When I lifted the empty bag to look for markings, I found U.S. POSTAL SERVICE and a long string of numbers stenciled on the side in faded black letters.

So was this the latest calling card? Had to be. But what was it supposed to mean? What was DCAK saying to us this time? And was this murder committed by him or possibly his copycat?

Witness accounts had already described a blue uniform and cap on the killer. Maybe that was DCAK’s version of an in-joke—he’d “gone postal” on us. He had also left us “holding the bag.”

I walked to the far side of the floor, near the entrance the killer had used to come in. From here, I tried to imagine the events as Detective Cook had described them. The killer had needed to catch Mrs. Courlevais unaware—long enough to bind her hands and mouth—and to get the cloth bag over her head. A mat of dried blood in her hair indicated some kind of blunt trauma but probably not enough to knock her out. Conscious would be better, anyway. More effective for DCAK’s purposes, for the theater of it.

And, in fact, witnesses had seen the bag moving when he’d dragged it into the theater.

I walked back to the woman’s body again and looked around at the empty auditorium. This audience was closer to him than any of the others had been, so he’d needed to work quickly. No time for lengthy speeches or the usual sickening grandstanding. He hadn’t been able to make a full star turn tonight. So what had been so attractive about this particular location, this audience, this French woman?

The impact seemed to have been mostly visual. He’d shouted, “Special delivery!” and then got right to it—half a dozen vicious swings with a blade large enough to be seen from the theater’s back row.

I looked down at Mrs. Courlevais, then back at the empty sack next to her.

Suddenly, another angle occurred to me. What else might be tucked inside there? Was there something else in the mail sack?

I worked the bag open, dreading what I might find. Finally my hand touched a flat piece of plastic. Something was definitely there. What?

>

I pulled the object out. What the hell? It was a postal worker’s ID. A second photo had been pasted over the original. The name was changed too. It said Stanley Chasen.

The image on the ID was a match to the preliminary description we’d gotten: elderly white man, possibly in his seventies, silver hair, bulbous nose, horn-rimmed glasses. Heavyset and tall.

“Who’s Stanley Chasen?” Sampson asked.

“Probably nobody,” I said. Then it hit me. I knew what he was doing—I was thinking like him, and not liking the feeling. “It’s a figment of this sick bastard’s imagination. He’s creating characters, then he’s playing them, one at a time. And all the characters inside his head are killers.”

And . . . what? He wants us to catch them all?

Chapter 73

I DIDN’T GET TO LEAVE the National Air and Space Museum until five in the morning, and we weren’t even finished with our workday yet. Bree and I sent Sampson home to his wife and little one, and then we drove back up to Baltimore—where there was still a mess of paperwork to finish up and a situation to try to make some sense out of, if we possibly could.

On the drive, we talked about the woman who had been DCAK’s accomplice at the Best Western—the driver of the blue sports car. Had he hired her just for the night? Or had she been in on the murder spree all along? No way to tell yet, but the scenario led to lots of speculation on the ride up I-95, some of it connecting to Kyle Craig and his escape from ADX Florence.

When we finally got back to the Best Western, Bree and I hugged for a minute in the car, but that was about all we did—a hug and a kiss. Then we were needed inside. It was too early to call my house, so I waited until later—well into the morning, as it turned out. When I finally called, I got the answering machine.

I decided to keep my message light, the exact opposite of what I was feeling. “Hey, chickens, it’s Dad. Listen, I’m working through the morning, but I’ll be home later this afternoon. Promise. Seems like a good night for a movie. That is, if I can convince anyone to join me.” And if I can stay awake.

Bree took her tired eyes off some paperwork and smiled over at me. “You must be pretty exhausted too. You’re a real good dad, Alex.”

“Trying. I’m a guilty dad for sure.”

“No,” Bree repeated. “You’re a good dad. Trust me on that. I had a bad one.”