Hope to Die (Alex Cross 22)

“You’re a machine.”

“Why?” she said.

“You drove all night, and now you turn around and drive back?”

“Oh, believe me, I will crash in a big way when I get home to my bed. Right now, I’m just like a homing pigeon.”

“I appreciate it. I appreciate everything that you’ve done for me. You’re a fine detective. And you’ve done your dad proud.”

She looked over at me, embarrassed.

“What?” I said. “You didn’t think I knew who your father was?”

Aaliyah shrugged, said, “I try not to broadcast it.”

“Must be hard to live in the shadow of a legend.”

“Sometimes,” she said, and then she seemed eager to change the subject. “I wonder if we’ll get a match on Mepps.”

I’d contacted John Sampson and Ned Mahoney before we left the Kraft School, and was buoyed at first by the DNA tests, which had come in at last, confirming that neither body in the morgue belonged to a member of my immediate family. Then I’d had to come to grips with the fact that two innocent people had died simply because they looked like my wife and son. In its own way, that knowledge was one more torture Sunday was inflicting on me.

Pushing that pain aside, I had gotten Sampson and Mahoney up to speed on all that had happened to me in the prior two days, and then I’d forwarded the JPEG of Damon and Karla Mepps at the coffee shop. Ned had promised to run the image through facial-recognition software that would search through a broad cross section of state and federal databases, including criminal records, driver’s licenses, and passports.

The problem was that that could take even longer than the DNA testing. In the movies, someone feeds a picture to a computer, makes a few keystrokes, and out pops a name. In fact, facial recognition is a laborious process based on complex algorithms that tax even the fastest of computers.

“Mahoney said the search might take hours,” I told Aaliyah. “Or it could grind on a few days before the system finds a match or admits defeat.”

“Like it did with that picture of Mulch from the fake ID?” she asked.

I nodded. “Either he’s not in any of the databases or he altered his face for that picture.”

She put on the blinker and took the Ramapo exit off Interstate 87. My cell phone rang. I checked it and saw it was Gloria Jones calling.

“This is Alex Cross,” I said.

After a loud sigh of relief, the television news producer said in a lower, more conspiratorial tone, “Let me get Ava and find somewhere we can talk. Call you back in two minutes.”

“Okay,” I said, wondering what was up.

Aaliyah pulled into a gas station, headed in to use the restroom. I filled the tank. It wasn’t until after the detective had returned with a Diet Coke and a bag of Kettle Chips and we’d gotten back on the highway, this time with me behind the wheel, that my cell rang again.

Aaliyah said, “Take 287 South. It’s quicker to DC.”

I nodded, answered the cell, put it on speaker, and set it up on the dash so Aaliyah could hear.

“Ava?” I said.

“I’m here, Alex,” she replied. “You won’t believe what we found!”

“I had very little to do with it,” Gloria Jones said. “This was all Ava.”

“Well, I’m in a car with Detective Aaliyah of DC Metro Homicide,” I said. “We’d both like to hear whatever you’ve got, but Ava, I have something wonderful to tell you.”

“Yes?”

“It’s complicated, but we believe Damon and Bree are alive.”

She gasped. “But—”