Cross Justice (Alex Cross 23)

“I don’t know, it seemed appropriate,” she said, smiling.

“What do you have in mind?” I said, snuggling up to her.

“None of that,” she protested good-naturedly.

“Busted Buster.”

Bree tickled me, laughed. “No, I just wanted you to get a few things straight for me.”

“Such as?”

“Family-tree stuff. Did Nana Mama come from Starksville?”

I nodded. “She grew up here. And the Hopes, her family, they go way back. Nana Mama’s grandmother was a slave somewhere in the area.”

“Okay, so she met her husband here?”

“Reggie Cross. My grandfather was in the merchant marines. They got married young and had my dad. You’d have to ask Nana, but because of all the time he spent at sea, it wasn’t a very good marriage. She divorced Reggie when my dad was seven or eight and took him up to Washington. She worked to put herself through Howard University to become a teacher, but the time required cost her with her son. When he was fifteen, he rebelled and came back down to Starksville to live with my grandfather.”

“Reggie.”

“Correct,” I said, looking up at the spinning ceiling fan. “I can’t imagine there was much supervision, which led to a lot of my dad’s excesses. I think it kills Nana Mama that she never had a good relationship with her son after that. When he died, I think in some ways she was looking to make things right by taking care of me and my brothers.”

“She did a fine job,” Bree said.

“I like to think so. Any other genealogical mysteries I can help with?”

“Just one. Who’s Pinkie?”

I smiled. “Pinkie Parks. Aunt Connie’s only son. He lives in Florida and works on offshore oil rigs. Evidently makes a lot of money doing it too.”

“That’s his real name? Pinkie?”

“No, Brock. Brock Jr.,” I said. “Pinkie’s just his nickname.”

“Why Pinkie?”

“He lost his right one to a car door when he was a kid.”

Bree got up on her elbow, stared at me. “So they nicknamed him Pinkie?”

I laughed. “I knew you were going to say that. It’s just how small towns work. I remember there was a guy named Barry, a friend of my dad’s, who ran the wrong way at some big football game, so everyone called him Bonehead.”

“Bonehead Barry?” She snorted.

“Isn’t that awful?”

“What’d they call you?”

“Alex.”

“Too boring for a small-town nickname?” she said.

“That’s me,” I said, climbing out of bed. “Boring Alex Cross.”

“That’ll be the day.”

Pausing in the bathroom doorway, I said, “Thanks, I think.”