Cross My Heart (Alex Cross 21)

“Alex, you really know how to handle my wife,” Sampson said when he called back about twenty minutes later.

“Really?” I said.

“No,” he replied.

“Got the file up?”

“Right here.”

Brefka’s report noted that the street camera closest to the massage parlor had been on the blink and caused most of the corruption in the data files. But street cameras to the north and south of the Superior Spa showed a few things he thought we’d want to see. He gave a URL to click on.

I did. My screen jumped, and a video began to buffer and display snatches of CCT footage along with a running time stamp.

At 5:45 the night of the killings and soon after Blossom Mai saw her, Cam Nguyen walked by a camera two blocks south of the Superior Spa, wearing a yellow Windbreaker, sweatpants, and running shoes. She carried a Prince tennis bag and was heading toward the massage parlor.

At 6:40 p.m. a businessman in his fifties passed in front of a camera a block east of the massage parlor, heading toward the spa.

At 7:02, a street camera three blocks north picked up a figure walking south. Of better-than-average height and build, the figure carried a backpack and wore baggy jeans, Nike basketball shoes, and a Redskins sweatshirt with the hood up, shielding his face but not his hands. He was Caucasian.

At 7:06, the businessman rushed past that same camera. He had a contented smile on his face.

Thirty-two minutes later, at 7:38, the figure in the Redskins sweatshirt passed a camera two blocks south of the Superior Spa. Head down, hood up, you never saw the face. But you could see Cam Nguyen clearly. She wore the same tennis outfit from earlier in the evening and walked very close to the guy in the Redskins hoodie.

“There’s our killer and kidnapper,” I said.

“Redskins sweatshirt?” Sampson said. “We’re not dealing with a psychotically disgruntled fan, are we?”

“How would he know Mad Man was in the Superior Spa?” I asked. “No, this was about Cam and the hookers. Francones just got in the way.”

“Where is Mad Man?” Sampson replied. “He’s not on the tape at all.”

I thought about that, said, “He got there by taxi? Stopped right out front where the camera was on the blink?”

“Possible.”

“I say we get a still shot of Mr. Redskins and Cam Nguyen out to the media. See if anyone recognizes her or the shooter’s hoodie and backpack.”

“I have a better idea,” I replied, rewinding the file and stopping it a few seconds later. “We’ll put out video of the guy in the suit. You can see his face clearest, coming and going.”

“Okay, but why th

at guy?”

“The Redskins fan passes the camera at seven oh two, heading south on the way to the massage parlor, and the businessman comes back the other way at seven oh six, leaving the massage parlor,” I said. “Unless I’m terribly mistaken, sometime in those four minutes this happy and lucky customer of the Superior Spa came face to face with our suspect.”

Chapter

54

The following evening around eight, Abigail Barnes whipped an almost-empty bottle of Chianti Classico past me and Sampson. The bottle missed her intended target—a sandy-haired fifty-something guy in an Armani suit—and shattered the face of an antique mariner’s clock that hung on the living room wall. Wine spattered across the tan rug.

“You pig, Harry!” Abigail Barnes raged. “You goddamned pig! Do you know what this will do to me?”

Harry Barnes gaped at his wife, turned pissed off, and shouted, “That was Grandmother’s clock, Abby! What the fuck is—? Who the hell are these—?”

Abigail Barnes went ballistic. With a crazed look, she shot across the living room of their million-dollar home in Chevy Chase, screeching like a banshee, her ruby-red fingernails leading, as if she intended to scratch her husband’s eyes out.

She was wearing a ruby-colored sweat suit emblazoned with the logo of the Chevy Chase Country Club. Sampson grabbed her by the nape of the jacket and stopped her before she could attack. She jerked to a halt, struggled.