“No,” Sunday said. “Nothing you hate about your life?”
Cross’s son shrugged, said, “No. Not really.”
“Well, then,” Sunday said. “Maybe you aren’t the best example, Ali. Great life you’ve got, great crime-fighting mom and dad and all. But remember, life can change like that.” He snapped his finger. “You understand that, don’t you, Ali?”
The boy looked confused at first but then nodded. “Like someone in your family becoming a zombie or something?”
The kids around Cross’s son laughed nervously.
But the writer thought about that and found the idea pleasing. “Yes,” he said, patting the boy on the shoulder. “Exactly like that.”
Chapter
51
I got home before Bree that night, heard voices around the back of the house first, and saw that Nana Mama was out there inspecting the day’s work. The contractors had cut out the kitchen wall and covered the gaping hole with plastic sheeting. They’d started to frame up the addition as well.
“The wall was there when I went over to the school and gone when Ali came back an hour later,” my grandmother said, shaking her head in wonder.
“They said it will go fast now,” I replied, putting my arm around her tiny shoulders. “Before you know it, we’ll have a whole new house.”
She frowned. “I don’t want a whole new house.”
“You know what I meant.”
“I guess. Let’s go on in now, and I’ll get you dinner.”
“Kids already eat?” I asked as we walked out front.
“Nope, Ali’s waiting on you. He’s in there watching some cockamamie show about a dysfunctional family that makes duck calls.”
“Jannie?”
“Still at track practice.”
We came around the corner of the house and spotted Bree trudging up the walk past the Dumpster, looking as spent as I’ve ever seen her.
“Someone looks like they need a little love,” Nana Mama murmured. “I’ll get dinner on the table.”
I nodded and went to my wife. We hugged and I rubbed her back for a while and put my nose in her hair, the scent reminding me I had so many good people in my life. “Want to tell me about it?”
“Beer first,” she said, collapsing into a chair on the porch.
I went and got us both cold Brimstone beers from the fridge in the garage. I sipped mine, waiting until she unwound enough to tell me about a depressing visit to the Branson family late that afternoon.
“I went out there to tell them things would be okay,” Bree said. “I knew it wasn’t true.”
“How’s that?”
My wife shrugged. “Been a week since that woman took Joss.”
“Hope you’re not giving up on her, or the Lancaster kid, or Ava.”
Her eyes flashed. “Not a chance on any of them.”
“That’s my lady,” I said, and then told her about the letter from Thierry Mulch and the massage parlor killings in Albuquerque and Tampa. “Mulch was right. Because of Mad Man’s involvement, I never looked for other mass murders at massage parlors.”
Bree thought for several long moments. “You know, I haven’t looked to see if there’ve been baby kidnappings like these in other cities, either.”