Creel came up behind me and used duct tape to bind my wrists and strap them tight to the back of my head. As he did, I said, “Captain, has Sunday told you what he did to his last accomplice?”

“Shut up,” Sunday said.

“He fed her to alligators,” I said.

“Sounds like a hell of an idea,” Creel said. “I’d love to do the same to Shirley, but a new life in Colombia will have to do.”

“How much time now, Captain?” Sunday asked, tossing him my pistol.

Creel caught it, said, “Seventy minutes.”

“Back to your controls, then. I’ll take it from here.”

“You want the hatch closed?”

“Please,” Sunday said, and when the door shut behind me, he took a long deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “Game over, Dr. Alex. I win.”

“The game’s not over, Mulch, and you will lose no matter what you do to me or my family,” I said. “The FBI is hunting for you now. So is every cop in the country. As we speak, your face is all over the news and the Internet. Not even the perfect criminal could get away. No matter what you do to us, you will be caught, and you will be judged and punished in the harshest manner. High-profile guy like you? Harvard PhD intellectual gone mad? Prosecutors absolutely love to see guys like you face justice and fry.”

In a voice rich with mirth and disdain, Sunday said, “Let them hunt me, Cross. Let them bring dogs and agents. I don’t care. I’ll relish showing them how quickly and permanently I can disappear. It’s all been arranged. A long time ago. I’m a planner.”

“And I used to be FBI. And I’m a cop. They won’t quit looking. Ever.”

“Tell it to Whitey Bulger,” he shot back. Then he licked his lips and smiled. “You fulfilled one of my fantasies, Cross. Did you know that?”

“What fantasy?” I asked, content to keep him talking.

“Shooting Atticus Jones in cold blood,” he said, his eyes dancing again. “How did it feel?”

“It felt like nothing because it never happened,” I said. “He’s dying but by no means dead.”

“Bullshit. I saw you take the shot.”

“You saw what a Hollywood A-list CGI specialist can do,” I said. “Friend of Jones’s daughter, Gloria, an NBC news producer.”

This seemed to upset Sunday a great deal, because he stood there fuming for almost a minute before he looked up with a cruel smile on his face.

“There’s still time,” Sunday said.

“For what?”

“Lessons,” he said. “In the meaninglessness of life.”

“Life is full of meaning.”

“I’m going to rid you of that ridiculous idea forever,” Sunday said, his cruel smile curling toward pleasure. “One by one, Cross, I am now going to kill your family in front of you. By the time I’m done, we’ll be out in the Gulf. I’ll make my escape to Mexico with the good Captain Creel in the Zodiac and leave you locked in here with the corpses, adrift. And I guarantee, in your last hours, you will come to see the world my way.”

CHAPTER

94

MY FEAR AND BEWILDERMENT must have shown, because Sunday began to crow, “That will break you, won’t it? That will be the proof!”

Jannie said, “Is he for real?”

“Oh, I am real, young lady,” Sunday said. “In the end, I’m the only real that will matter.”

I saw the mad conviction in his expression and was so shaken by the possibility of seeing my family murdered before me that I didn’t know what to say and almost didn’t catch the movement behind him.

Tags: James Patterson Alex Cross Mystery
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