Cross the Line (Alex Cross 24)

“O’Donnell?”

“We need to get Lincoln and Parks to the hospital without getting shot.”

“I hear you,” she said. “Cavalry’s on its way. ETA four minutes.”

“I heard a lot of screaming inside. I’m thinking he’s got hostages.”

We heard shouting and automatic gunfire, and then the connection died.

“Shit!” Bree shouted.

She tried to redial, but her phone rang before she could.

“O’Donnell?” Bree said, and listened. “Where are you?”

Bree punched the speaker button, and out came the terrified voice of Michele Bui.

“I’m hiding inside a closet upstairs,” Thao Le’s girlfriend said, clearly on the verge of tears. “Thao and his friends have been snorting coke and meth for days, and they’re out of their minds and paranoid. He’s got them convinced they’re next.”

“Next for what?”

“Next to be killed,” she said. “They were so whacked, they thought the cops were those vigilantes killing meth cookers.”

“Who else is in the house with you?” Bree asked.

“I don’t know exactly,” she said. “I was upstairs sleeping, but I heard a few of the cutters and packagers come in and work through the night. After the shots, I heard screams and—”

“What?”

“Thao’s yelling for me,” she said. “I gotta go.”

The line went dead.

Chapter

40

Metro patrol cars were parked in V formations blocking the street at both ends of the road. Other officers were moving through the alleys to evacuate residents closest to the row house Le was in.

A pair of ambulances had already arrived. We left our squad car down

the street and got our first look at the situation through binoculars.

Halfway down the block on the east side, Officer Joshua Parks was on his side by the stoop to the row house, contorted in agony.

“We’re here, Parks, with more on the way,” Bree said over her radio.

“Good,” he said. “I’m getting one hell of a leg cramp lying on the cement like this.”

Bree couldn’t help but smile. “We’ll have that cramp looked into. Talk to me, O’Donnell.”

Detective O’Donnell was across the street from Parks on the sidewalk behind a white Ford Explorer. He was holding Lincoln, who looked weak.

“O’Donnell, talk to me,” Bree said again.

“Lincoln’s conscious, but hurting bad. What’s the plan?”

“Working on it,” Bree said.