Alex Cross, Run (Alex Cross 20)

I told her about Ron Guidice, too. Not just what he’d done, but what had happened to me on that last day—and also what might have happened if things had turned out differently. I don’t know that I’ve ever been so consumed by my own hatred of someone before, and it scared me.

“I tell myself it was different this time,” I said. “It was personal. Having Ava involved changed everything, and I got in over my head. That’s not even accounting for the two other major cases I had going.”

“Well, yes,” Adele said. “It was different. You had this girl living in your home, and very possibly lining up to become a legal part of your family. She would have been your daughter.”

I nodded, not really sure I could talk about that part without breaking up.

“But Alex,” Adele said. She leaned over and put a hand on my wrist. “It’s always different with you. There’s always a reason why you end up pushing yourself—and why you land back in those very dark places.”

It was true. In fact, I didn’t even know what to say to that. So Adele went on. I can always count on her to show me both sides of any coin.

“You know what else is true?” she said. “There are evil people out there in the world. Someone has to do the work that you do, and we’re all very lucky that you do it so well.

“But that doesn’t mean you can’t care too much sometimes, Alex. I think you do. And that’s when I worry about you—about what this might be doing to . . . well, to your soul.”

“You worry about me?” I said, grinning. “Adele, I’m touched.”

She knew I was trying to sidestep something and didn’t take the bait. Instead, she kept pushing.

“Maybe we should stop asking why you are this way, and start focusing on what, if anything, you want to do about it,” she said.

I looked at her, a little sheepish. “I want to keep showing up here until I’m so sick of hearing myself talk that I finally make a change. A real one.”

Adele sat back and looked at me like I’d just won the spelling bee.

“That’s a pretty good answer. For a start.”

“What about you?” I said. “If you were a betting woman, would you say I was going to be seeing you for the rest of my life? Coming in here, and asking the same damn questions, over and over?”

“My God, I hope not. You’re twenty years younger than me.”

Adele’s always good for a well-timed laugh. She gets me, in that way.

“You know what I mean,” I said. “When are we going to figure this one out, Adele?”

“If you keep coming in to see me?” she said. “Then . . . eventually.”

“Eventually? That’s your answer?”

“And I’m sticking to it,” she said.

In fact, she was probably right. We would get there one of these days. We’d figure it out.

Unless, of course, we didn’t. Nobody knows better than me that eventually is an idea, not a given. There’s no guarantee I’m going to eventually make it to anything, including breakfast tomorrow. But by the same token, I have to allow for the possibility.

Otherwise, I’ve got nothing. And that’s not me.

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Mercifully, Joe and the baby were both sleeping. In the same room. In the same bed. At the same time. It was unbelievable, but true.

I filled Martha’s bowl with yummy kibble and brought in the morning paper from the hall.

The headline read, FAYE FARMER DEAD AT 27.