Merry Christmas, Alex Cross (Alex Cross 19)

McGoey smiled and said, “The plan worked. You’re a smart guy.”

“What if it hadn’t worked?” I asked. “What would you be saying then?”

“I’d be saying, ‘You’re the dumbass who got himself shot on Christmas morning.’”

The three of us took a last look at the living room. I doubted there was much that hadn’t been cracked, smashed, broken, or torn.

“God,” said McGoey. “Looks like there was one helluva party here.”

“Oh, there was,” I said. “One helluva party.” I shook my head. I felt like I should smile. But I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.

I looked at my watch. It was nearly eight thirty a.m. I took out my phone and tapped in Bree’s name.

“Hey,” I said. “Save me some sweet bacon. I’m coming home.”

CHAPTER

43

SNOW IN WASHINGTON, DC, IS ALWAYS A DISASTER. FOUR INCHES CAN SNARL traffic inside the Beltway. Eight inches will most definitely spawn a nightmare of accidents and near gridlock. True paralysis, however, arrives when the snow depth exceeds fourteen inches, a rare event.

Between ten o’clock on Christmas Eve and ten the following evening, nearly twenty-three inches of snow would blanket the city. It shut down the airport. It shut down the Metro and the bus system. Few cars moved that entire Christmas Day.

At around nine on that Christmas morning, there was only fourteen inches of snow to deal with, but I still couldn’t get my car to move. I had to have a Metro patrol unit bring me home. The officer and I had to get out twice to push the stuck cruiser from a drift over on Constitution Avenue. I’d given Nu back his extra boots, and my shoes got soaked and my toes were numb when I reached our home on Fifth Street.

Needless to say, when my family heard the front door open, almost everybody rushed over to kiss me and hug me and wish me merry Christmas. I held Bree tight, said, “This is the best present I could ever get.”

But Nana remained seated in her chair, her little throne.

“My, my,” she finally said. “Is that my grandson over there? Must be a real special occasion that’s got him visiting. Oh, I guess it’s Christmas.”

I walked to her chair and lifted her up. We stood with our arms around each other, and I never would have imagined a woman that size could have so much strength. She nearly squeezed the air right out of me.

“I just made you some sweet bacon,” she said.

“Sweet bacon and a nap sounds just about perfect,” I said.

CHAPTER

44

EVEN NANA MAMA DECIDED THAT SPENDING CHRISTMAS EVE CONVINCING A crazy man not to kill his family was enough of a reason for me to be excused from attending eleven o’clock mass.

Bree tucked me in and I slept like a dead man for four hours, up until I heard Damon cheering downstairs. He’d become a big hockey fan at prep school and was watching a television broadcast of a game being played at a rink set up inside Fenway Park.

I came downstairs groggily, smelled turkey roasting, and looked at the television. “Snowing in Boston too.”

“It’s snowing everywhere,” Jannie said. “They say it won’t stop here until, like, tonight. Kind of a waste, if you ask me.”

“Why’s that?”

“If it was like two weeks from now, they’d call off school.”

“The reporters say you saved a guy’s life last night,” Damon said.

“Maybe two guys’ lives,” I replied.

“That’s pretty cool.”