Cross the Line (Alex Cross 24)

I shrugged, said, “I thought Tommy McGrath always drank Bud.”

“So it’s her bottle. They together?”

“Bree said McGrath and his wife were separated.”

“Divorce is always a possible motive in a murder,” Sampson said. “But this looks gangland to me.”

“Does it?” I asked. “This wasn’t the normal spray-a-hail-of-bullets-and-hope-you-hit-something killing. This was precision shooting. Five shots fired. Five hits.”

We looked over at the woman, who lay on her side at an awkward angle.

I noticed the fanny pack, put on gloves, and knelt down to open it.

Chapter

4

In addition to three hundred dollars in fifties, the fanny pack contained a student ID card from American University’s law school and a District of Columbia driver’s license, both in the name of Edita Kravic. She was three days shy of her thirty-second birthday and didn’t live far from the Whole Foods store.

I also found two business cards emblazoned with THE PHOENIX CLUB—THE NEW NORMAL, whatever that meant; according to the cards, Edita Kravic worked there as a Level 2 Certified Coach, whatever that meant. Below the club’s name was a Virginia phone number and an address in Vienna, near Wolf Trap.

I stood up, thinking, Who were you, Edita Kravic? And what were you to Chief of Detectives McGrath?

Sampson and I went inside the Whole Foods and found the shaken witnesses. Three of them said they’d seen the entire event.

Melanie Winters, a checkout clerk, said the victims had just been in the store, laughing and joking with each other. Winters said they’d seemed good together, Tom and Edita Kravic, like they had chemistry, although McGrath had complained in the checkout line about her not letting him buy beer.

I glanced at Sampson. “What did I say?”

As McGrath and Kravic left, the checker said, she started moving empty produce boxes by the front window. She was looking outside when a dark blue sedan rolled up with the windows down and bullets started flying. Winters dived to the floor and stayed there until the gunfire stopped and the car squealed away.

“How many people in the car?” Sampson said.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I just saw these flashes and heard the shots.”

“Where were the flashes?” I said. “Front seat or back or both?”

She winced. “I’m not sure.”

Lucas Phelps, a senior at Georgetown, had been outside, about half a block south of the store. Phelps had been listening to a podcast over his Beats headphones when the shooting started. The student thought it was part of the program he was listening to until he saw McGrath and Kravic fall.

“What kind of car?” Sampson said.

“I’m not good at that,” Phelps said. “A four-door car? Like, dark-colored?”

“How many people in the car?” I asked.

“Two, I think,” Phelps said. “From my angle, it was kind of hard to say.”

“You s

ee flashes from the shots?”

“Sure, now that you mention it.”

“Where were the flashes coming from? Front seat, back, or both?”

“Front,” he said. “I think. It all happened so fast.”