Cross the Line (Alex Cross 24)

“Terry Howard,” Vivian said with spite in her voice. “He threatened Tom on multiple occasions.”

“Cross is working that angle,” Muller said.

“Good. Good. I was afraid it might be…well, you know.”

“Are you planning a memorial?” Bree asked.

Vivian seemed more confused than ever; she looked down and whispered, “Is that something I’m supposed to do? I don’t know if Tommy would even want me to be involved.”

Muller said, “I suppose you make that decision by first taking a moment to honor the good times you had with Tommy, figure out what they meant to you. If Tommy’s love during those years was enough, you do it, you see him buried. And if those years of love weren’t enough, you don’t.”

“If you decide not to do anything, I’ll take care of the arrangements,” Bree said.

McGrath’s widow looked around as if in a daze, her chin trembling, and then said, “No, Kurt’s right. Honoring our love and burying the husband Tommy was is the least I can do

.”

The dam burst, and she wept. “It’s the only thing I can do for him now.”

Chapter

8

Edita Kravic’s apartment in Columbia Heights looked like it had been decorated right out of the Sundance Catalog—high-end furniture, nicely framed prints on the wall—and given the place’s location, the rent had to be two, maybe three thousand a month.

That was strange, I thought, because law students were usually starving. Edita evidently did quite well with the whole Level 2 Certified Coach thing.

The kitchen was stocked with culinary gadgetry, and there were fine wines chilling in the fridge along with gourmet cheeses and spreads. Nice crystal in the cabinets, but no photographs anywhere in the living area, nothing that suggested Edita Kravic’s private life, nothing that could tell us more about her.

The apartment had three bedrooms. The smallest one had been turned into an office. There was a business phone with several lines and an open laptop on the desk.

“I’ll look here,” I said.

“I’ll take the bedrooms,” Sampson said.

Just as in the living area, there was nothing personal on the shelves or the walls. Just a basic desk, a backless chair, and two wooden filing cabinets. I tugged on the drawers of one and found them locked. The top drawer of the other slid open, revealing standard office supplies.

The next drawer down was full of files. I looked through them, found out that she owned a late-model Audi A5 and that she vacationed in the Caymans—a lot, as in three times in the prior year. But there was nothing that gave me a clear idea of how she’d paid for it all.

I was thinking she’d have to have an income of over a hundred grand to live like this. Did Level 2 Certified Coaches make that kind of money? If so, maybe I was in the wrong business.

I thought about breaking the lock on the first cabinet but decided to take a look at the computer first. To my surprise, when I ran my finger across the touchpad, the screen lit right up and showed me the desktop. Several different applications were running.

One was Edita’s law school e-mail account. I sat down and scanned through the e-mails, seeing nothing from Tom McGrath. Most of the messages were to and from professors and classmates. One classmate, JohnnyBoy5, had sent six e-mails to her in the eighteen hours preceding her murder.

Really? read one sent around ten thirty the previous night. Standing me up again? This was your meet, remember?

I did a search of her entire in-box, looking for all e-mails from JohnnyBoy5. There were more than a hundred, going back eighteen months. I rearranged them so they were in chronological order and read a tale of growing obsession.

JohnnyBoy5 had evidently been smitten by Edita Kravic from the get-go, and he was not shy about saying so. Though she seemed to flirt with him at times, for the most part, she did nothing to encourage him.

For the first year, she’d managed to keep JohnnyBoy5 at bay. But after that, his tone became irate, and then depressed.

I don’t know what’s come over me, JohnnyBoy5 had written back in March. I’m terrified that I won’t see you again, Edita. I know it’s irrational, but there it is. I can’t shake this dark, dark feeling that I’m going to lose you somehow, that something bad is going to happen to you, that you’re never going to see the real me, and that you’ll never understand how much I truly care about you.

Edita wrote back, This is no good, Johnny. Go away or I get a restraining order. A third-year told me how to do it.

For three weeks after that, there was no contact between Ms. Kravic and JohnnyBoy5. Then he e-mailed her again.