Cross Justice (Alex Cross 23)

“Dad?” Jannie said as we stood up and got ready to leave. “Can you make sure I can still go down to Duke to train for the four-hundred on Saturday?”

“Meet you at the car,” I said.

I went over to Coach Greene, asked her. She hesitated.

“She’s innocent until proven guilty, Coach.”

“You’re right and I’m sorry, Dr. Cross,” she said. “In all my years coaching, I’ve never had anything like this happen. Unless those tests say different, Jannie can come run with us on Saturday and any other day she wants.”

I turned to leave, started toward the tunnel beneath the stands.

But Marvin Bell and his adopted son, Finn Davis, blocked the way.

“For such a big-time cop, you don’t listen so well,” Marvin Bell said.

“Yeah?” I said. “What did I miss?”

“Your niece brought up my name in court today,” Bell said.

“Your niece was testifying in court today,” I said.

“That’s bullshit,” said Finn Davis.

“It’s bullshit that she was testifying or that she’s Mr. Bell’s niece?”

Bell smiled sourly. “I warned you about besmirching my name in court.”

“Besmirching?”

“Slandering, whatever you want to call it,” Bell said.

“It’s only slander or besmirching if it’s not true,” I said.

Davis said, “Listen, Detective Asshole. That poor girl was raped by that sick fuck Stefan Tate. It took guts for her to go on that stand and face her rapist.”

“No argument there,” I said.

“Then quit trying to tear her down,” Bell said. “You go on and think anything you want about me, but you leave Sharon out of it. She is a victim in all of this, and I won’t have her made into a punching bag.”

“And I won’t have someone try to frame my daughter in retaliation.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Someone just put a vial of white powder in her gym bag,” I said. “That’s a sheriff’s detective out there investigating. I figure Sharon for the job.”

“Horseshit,” Bell said.

I took a step, got right in their faces, said, “No, gentlemen, horseshit is you trying to kill me and strong-arm my family. You’re on notice. I am officially declaring war on the two of you.”

Chapter

53

Bree didn’t say much on the ride home after we’d taken Jannie to the sheriff’s office, where she’d provided blood and urine for analysis. I asked for and received samples from the same specimens, a precaution.

When we got home and went inside, I put the samples in a brown bag in the fridge. Jannie started telling Nana Mama about everything that had happened. Ali lay on the couch, watching another episode of Uncharted with Jim Shockey.

“Where is he now?” I asked. Shockey had traded his cowboy hat for a bandanna and was wading in murky water in a jungle.