Cross My Heart (Alex Cross 21)

“It’s the best I can do.”

“You’ll be able to claim a task force is on the case,” I said. “Thanks.”

“Close this, Cross,” Quintus said.

“Fast as we can, Captain,” I assured him.

Sampson and I made a list of what we wanted the other detectives to run down, including the location of Trent

on Wiggs, the massage parlor owner, and Cam Nguyen, who was now officially a missing person. Just after two that afternoon, we got good news: a Virginia judge had given us a warrant to search the Mad Man’s home in McLean. On the way there we stopped for a meeting with the Mad Man’s agent and business manager at the Willard Hotel.

“Maybe these guys will give us someone who wanted Francones dead,” I said before we entered the lobby.

“Maybe,” Sampson said. “Unless it was just random, some crazy fucker, and the Mad Man just got unlucky.”

“In which case, every victim was the target, and our shooter is a psychotic,” I said. “But until we determine that, we need to focus on Francones.”

“Best way to keep the heat off us,” Sampson agreed as we went in.

We found Alan Snyder, the Mad Man’s agent, and J. Barrett Timmons, his business manager, waiting for us in the lobby, a grand, elegant space. Snyder, a short, intense man who was constantly checking his phone, suggested we have coffee in the restaurant.

But Timmons, a puckered sort in his fifties, shook his head.

“I’d rather we did this privately,” he said. “The press has been hounding me nonstop. They’re not above trying to eavesdrop in a public restaurant.”

Sampson spoke with the head of security, an old friend, and within ten minutes we were locked inside an unused office with a full pot of coffee and a plate of pastries.

“I wish to say that I’m pleased you two are on the case,” said Snyder, the agent. “We’ve heard of you, Dr. Cross. And you, Detective Sampson.”

“Flattering,” I said. “Tell me why Mad Man would be in a place like the Superior Spa, and why he would be the primary target of a mass murderer.”

Timmons frowned and shook his head as if he still could not believe the circumstances of his client’s death.

“I can’t square it any way I look at it,” Snyder said. “The Pete Francones I represented the last fifteen years is not the person who died in that massage parlor. And the primary target? No, I can’t believe that. What could possibly be the motive?”

“Money problems?”

“Hardly,” Snyder snorted. “He had plenty. Thirty million.”

“Death beneficiary?” I asked.

Timmons’s eyes crinkled up. “Two nephews, his sister’s sons, are provided for in well-endowed trusts. Otherwise, all money is to be divided among the various charities Mad Man tirelessly championed.”

I figured it was time to drop the bomb. “Tell us about his cocaine use.”

“You’ve lost your mind if you think Pete Francones used drugs of any kind,” Snyder snapped at me without hesitation. “He was the cleanest guy I knew. Had his head on straight. That high? It was life, Detective.”

Francones’s manager nodded softly, but there was something in his posture that made me say, “That your assessment, Mr. Timmons?”

Timmons hesitated, cleared his throat, and said, “I have no personal knowledge of drug use.”

“I hear a ‘but’ coming,” Sampson said.

Timmons struggled until I said, “You didn’t hear it from us, but Mad Man died with three grams of high-grade blow in his pocket, and a gram at least up his nose. According to our medical examiner, the condition of his upper respiratory tract indicates he was a chronic user. And the size of his heart said he wasn’t going to last long because of the coke use.”

The agent looked stunned, bewildered by all this, but the manager sat forward, cupped his face in his hand. “For Christ’s sake. It’s one of those things you choose to look away from.”

“Tell us,” Sampson said.