I, Alex Cross (Alex Cross 16)

“Nana, I need for you to get serious about this recovery. Slow down a few miles an hour here and let this happen. You must. So be smart.” The latter was something that Nana had been saying to me since I was ten years old. Be smart.

It was totally quiet in the room except for the sound of her leaning back against the pillow. When I opened my eyes, there were tears on her cheeks. “That’s it, then? This is where I die?”

I pulled up a chair and sat down next to the bed. Later, I’d sleep in that same chair. “Nobody’s dying in here tonight,” I said.

Part Two

FIRE WITH FIRE

Chapter 28

TONY NICHOLSON WAS already anxious enough, crazed actually, and now he was running late, thanks to an overturned tractor-trailer on the way out of the city. By the time he reached Blacksmith Farms, it was just after 9:30 and his important guests were due in less than half an hour. Including a very special guest.

He stayed in his car and buzzed.

“Yes?” a woman’s voice answered. Cultured. British. His assistant, Mary Claire.

“It’s me, M.C.”

“Good evening, Mr. Nicholson. You’re a bit late.” No shit, Sherlock, Nicholson thought but didn’t say out loud.

The gate swung open and closed again behind his Cayman S as he pulled in.

The long driveway cut across nearly a mile of open field, then through a swath of forest, mostly hickory and oak, before coming out in view of the main house. Nicholson parked his Cayman in the old carriage barn and came in through the patio French doors.

“I’m here, I’m here. Sorry.”

His hostess for the evening, a Trinidadian beauty by the name of Esther, was arranging leather guest folios on a Chippendale table in the foyer.

“Any issues for me?” he asked. “Any unanticipated problems for tonight?”

“None, Mr. Nicholson. Everything is perfect.” Esther had a wonderfully serene manner that Nicholson loved. It slowed him down right away. “The Bollinger is iced, we have the Flor de Farach coronas in the humidors, the girls are all beautiful and properly briefed, and you have”—she pulled a watch out of her pocket; there were no clocks in the house—“at least twenty minutes before our first guests are scheduled to arrive. They called ahead. They are right on time. They sound very… enthusiastic.”

“Right, then. Excellent job. You know where to find me if you need me.”

Nicholson made a quick pass through the first floor before heading upstairs. The foyer and lounges on this level evoked an English gentlem

en’s club more than anything, with their mahogany paneling, brass fixtures on the bars, and lots of ridiculously expensive antiques. It looked like the kind of place his father could have only dreamed of joining, given England’s obscene class system. Nicholson was a working-class Brighton boy by birth, but he’d left all of that dreary shit behind long ago. Here, he was king. Or at least a crown prince.

He took the main stairs up to the second floor, where several of the girls were already dressed and waiting for the first rush of guests, the “early buggers.”

Stunningly beautiful girls, elegant and sexy, they sat chatting on the low sofas in the mezzanine, which also had comfortable floor cushions all around and layers of soft drapes that could be pulled for more or less privacy, depending on the desires of the party.

“Evening, ladies,” he said, looking them over with an expert eye. “Yes, yes, very nice. You’re gorgeous. Perfect, all of you, in every way.”

“Thank you, Tony,” one of them said a little louder than the rest. This was Katherine, of course, whose gray-blue eyes always lingered over his Nordic features a little longer than the others’. She would have loved to have a go at the boss, and for all the wrong reasons, he understood. Like replacing his wife in his life.

Nicholson leaned down to whisper in her ear, fingering the hem of her white lace mini as he did. “A different dress, though, I think, Kat. Can’t have the whores looking like whores, now, can we?”

He watched the beautiful girl struggle to keep the brilliant smile on her face—as if he’d just said something charming and sweet. Without another word, she got up and left the room. “I have to use the little girls’ room,” she whispered.

Once he’d been satisfied that everything else was in superb working order, Nicholson continued up to his locked office on the third floor. This was the one area of the house he kept off limits to both the guests and the help.

Inside, he poured a glass of seven-hundred-dollar-a-bottle Bollinger—a gift to himself from the client’s stock— and sat down. It had been a hectic day; now he could finally relax.

Well, not really relax, but at least there was the Bollinger.

Two large flat-screen monitors dominated the desk in front of him. He powered up the system and typed in a long password.