By the end of the day, I knew a lot more than I had when I walked in that morning. But I was still frustrated. I wanted to help. Instead, all I could do was pace around the outside of it all, just waiting to get back in.

And so far, there was no sign of that changing anytime soon.

CHAPTER

71

ANOTHER ADVANTAGE TO WORKING THE SO-CALLED RUBBER GUN SQUAD WAS the hours. I went in at eight and signed out at five. There’s only so much office work you can do.

For the first time in a while, I beat Bree home, and even better, sat down to dinner with the family. If there’s one thing I could change about my life, it might just be all those dinners I miss.

After the ice cream was eaten and the dishes were washed, I was helping Jannie with some algebra, when Sampson came up onto the back porch.

“Knock knock,” he said, coming in. We were all feeling pretty down about Ava, but Sampson’s family. He’s welcome anytime.

“How are you holding up, Nana?” he said, giving her a hug in her chair.

“I’m just fine,” she said, but I think she’d been on the same page of Madeleine Albright’s new book for the last half hour. “You want some ice cream, dear?”

“Actually, I was hoping to grab Alex and Bree for a minute,” he said, thumbing over his shoulder. “Maybe outside?” He leaned down to kiss Jannie on the cheek as we headed out to the picnic table in the yard.

“What’s up?” I asked, once John had closed the back door behind him.

Sampson settled his bear-size frame across from us and clasped his hands on the table. It took him a second to figure out what he wanted to say, or at least, how he wanted to start.

“Let me give you a hypothetical,” he said. “Suppose there’s some guy pressing charges against someone else—charges he knows are false. And say this guy’s gone to some lengths to set that person up, and make life difficult. Maybe he even breaks the law to get it done, but no one can prove it.”

“Okay,” I said. We were obviously talking about Guidice—but also not talking about Guidice. I knew enough to keep my mouth shut and follow John’s lead for the moment. “Go on.”

“I’m thinking that sort of guy might have a few skeletons in his closet,” Sampson said. “The kind that don’t show up on a regular background check.”

I noticed Bree was sitting very still, not saying a word.

“What kind of skeletons?” I said.

Sampson leaned back and shrugged. “Drug habit? Bad debt? I don’t know, maybe he’s sleeping with his best friend’s wife. But just for the sake of argument, let’s say someone else finds out about it. Someone like me, for instance. That kind of information might be used to make a person reconsider these charges he’s pressing. And maybe that makes life a little easier for the other guy. Him, and his family.”

“Jesus, John,” I said. If I weren’t so on the rack about all this, the pretense might have almost seemed funny. “I couldn’t ask you to do something like that—”

“If we were even talking about it,” John said. “Which we’re not. But just for the record, Alex, you have asked me to do that kind of thing before. More than once.”

“Yeah, when I’m in on it,” I said. “This is different.”

Finally, Bree spoke up. Her voice was low, and I got the impression she’d been expecting this.

“My two cents?” she said. “I don’t think John would have come over here if he didn’t want to.”

“That’s true,” Sampson told me.

I believed him, but it was also true that Sampson would do anything for us. The same way I’d do anything for him. That’s not always a good thing. This was John’s career we were talking about.

“I don’t know, Sampson,” I said.

“But I do,” Bree told me. “There’s a lot at stake here, Alex, and you’re right in the middle of it. Let me call this one. Please.”

When I looked into her eyes, I saw something else. There was something she wasn’t saying—and I finally got the whole picture. Unless I was very much mistaken, this wasn’t just John’s idea. Bree had asked him to come over tonight.

I still felt conflicted about it all, b

Tags: James Patterson Alex Cross Mystery
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