I, Alex Cross (Alex Cross 16)

“Excuse me, Detective, but you can go to hell.”

My hand was cocked, but I caught myself. Willoughby flinched and took a step back.

“Get out of my office, unless you want me to have you thrown out.”

I waited until the full thirty seconds were up.

“I’ll see you on the news,” I said. “Trust me, you won’t be the one delivering it.”

Chapter 19

TWENTY MILES OF thick, old-growth Virginia forest separated Remy Williams’s cabin from pretty much everything else in the world. It was a pristine bit of wilderness with all the privacy he could ever want. A person could scream all night long out here and never be heard.

Not that there ever was much screaming or carrying on out here. Remy appreciated efficiency, and he was good at what he did.

Disposal.

The thing he didn’t like was surprises—like the bright headlights that raked back and forth over his cabin window just after darkness fell that night.

In a few seconds, he was out the back door with one of the three Remington 870 shotguns he kept around for exactly this reason—uninvited visitors. He hustled over to the side of the cabin and took up a position with a perfect view of the dark-colored sedan that was just coming to a stop out front.

He saw that the vehicle was a Pontiac, either black or dark blue.

Two men got out. “Anybody home?” one of them called. The voice was familiar, but Remy kept the Remington on his hip anyway.

“What are you doing out here?” he yelled to them. “Nobody called ahead.”

Their shadows turned toward him in the dark. “Relax, Remy. We found him.”

“Alive?”

“At the moment.”

Remy slowly came around to the porch and traded the shotgun for a battery-powered lantern, which he lit.

“What about the other one? The girl who run off?”

“Still working on it,” said the cocky one, the white guy. Remy didn’t know either of their names and didn’t want to. He knew the spic was the smart one, though, and the most dangerous. Silent but deadly all the way.

He walked to the back of the car and thumped on the trunk with his lantern.

“Pop it.”

Chapter 20

THE YOUNG PUNK inside was naked as a newborn, half-wrapped in a soiled bedsheet with a double dose of duct tape twisted across his mouth. As soon he laid eyes on Remy, he started scrambling around like there was somewhere inside that trunk he could go and hide.

“Why in hell’s he not wearing anything? What’s the point in that?”

“He was banging some girl when we found him.”

“And she’s—?”

“Been taken care of.”

“Awww, you should have brought her to me for safekeeping too.”

Remy turned back to the kid, who’d gone still again—except for the eyes. Those never stopped moving.