Gretchen said nothing, just stared through him as if he didn’t matter anymore, as if nothing mattered anymore.
Be like Dad, she thought as he went to work on her ankle manacle.
For God’s sake, be like Dad.
CHAPTER
70
HAD THAT BEEN Gretchen Lindel’s father driving the Pathfinder?
I kept trying to convince myself I was wrong, but each time I closed my eyes, I saw Alden Lind
el clearly. But why? And how?
When Annie Cassidy called to set up the appointment, she’d said that Father Fiore had referred her, hadn’t she? Well, now that I thought about it, she hadn’t actually used his name. She’d said she’d gotten my number from “a mutual friend, a priest with challenging problems.”
And Lindel? He’d contacted me directly. No reference that I remembered.
What were the odds of two people who knew each other coming to my office and never mentioning it to me?
I thought about Gretchen Lindel’s mother, Eliza, and how distraught she’d been in the days after her daughter’s kidnapping. Was Annie Cassidy the reason she and her husband separated? Had she used fake names for her lovers? Was Alden Lindel actually Carlos?
I went inside, told my grandmother I was going out, and got the car keys.
By the time I drove into a residential neighborhood west of the Cabin John Parkway, it was pitch-dark and the rain had stopped. I found the address I was looking for and parked the car across the street from a brick-faced Colonial with a big flower bed gone dormant, a crushed-gravel driveway, and a bronze Volvo station wagon. Lights gleamed in the narrow windows that flanked the front door.
I climbed out, smelled wet leaves, and started toward the house, wondering about the reception I’d get, a lone man at night unannounced. My cell phone buzzed. I ignored it, climbed the stoop, and rang the bell.
A dog started barking. A small Jack Russell terrier was soon bouncing and barking an alarm on the other side of the lower right window.
“Tinker!” a woman said. “Get back, girl!”
The dog kept barking and then yelped in protest when the woman grabbed her and held her in her arms. She peered blearily out the window at me. Despite the exhaustion and despair that seemed to hang off her like rags, I recognized her.
“Mrs. Lindel?” I said. “Eliza?”
The terrier in her arms showed her teeth.
She said, “If you’re a reporter, please go away, you’re not helping the situation. No one’s helping the situation here.”
“I’m not a reporter,” I said. “My name is Alex Cross. I’m a … my son Ali goes to school at Latin with Gretchen.”
Eliza studied me a long moment before opening the door. The dog growled like a little demon.
“Hush, now,” Eliza said, and the dog stilled but kept a close eye on me.
The missing girl’s mother was in her mid-thirties but looked older in baggy sweatpants, Birkenstock sandals, and a George Mason University tee. Her hair was in disarray and graying at the roots. Her eyes were bloodshot, rheumy.
“Alex Cross,” she said. “You’re that cop on trial for murder.”
“Innocent as charged.”
“I read you’ve killed eleven people.”
“In the course of duty I have, that’s true.”
“I also read you’ve found kidnapped girls before.”