James Patterson - Cross Justice

“I miss you, Alex,” she said softly.

“I miss you too,” I said. “And thanks.”

“For?”

“Sticking your neck out for family.”

“I’m Alex Cross’s wife,” she said teasingly. “What else would I do?”

“Very funny,” I said, grinning. “I love you, Bree.”

“I love you too, Alex,” she said. “Have a good night’s sleep.”

“You too,” I said, and clicked off.

It was nearly eleven by then and I’d been up since five. I should have been turning off the light, trying to get back to sleep. But I felt like I’d had a cup of espresso, jittery, wanting something to do. My focus finally fixed on that stack of three binders that held a copy of the murder book covering the investigations of the socialites and the maid.

Had I missed something on my first trip through them?

Figuring I’d be better off seeking the answer to that question instead of lying awake in the darkness wondering what this Reverend Maya might tell me about my father, I opened the first binder and started to read the records all over again.

Sometime after midnight, exhaustion overtook me, and I slipped off into darkness and dreams that were a mishmash of things I’d seen in Starksville and Palm Beach: Sydney Fox lying dead on her doorstep; the sugarcane burning, throwing smoke and bugs into the sky; Rashawn Turnbull’s body in the crime scene photos; and a dark-hooded and cloaked man standing with his back to me on a street in Belle Glade.

He raised his gloved right hand and held three fingers high.

Starksville, North Carolina

Dear, sweet Lizzie, her grandfather thought as he dipped an oar into the calm water. Still dressed in her white nightgown and robe, his precious little girl knelt on the floor of the rowboat, forward of the bow seat, her arms flung over the gunnel, and her sleepy eyes trained on lily pads that glistened in the rising sun.

He pulled gently and rotated the oar handle with finesse, causing the flat-bottom skiff to spin in a slow circle across those lily pads. Lizzie held on tight to the sides of the boat and giggled before she let out a “Whee!”

“I told you it was fun,” he said.

“Is that really how you catch them, Grandfather? The fairies?” Lizzie asked as she pushed aside the ringlets of blond hair that fell across her innocent, ever-so-blue eyes.

The old man fell in love all over again and said, “I have it on the highest authority that a fine way to catch fairy princesses is to wait for a nice warm dawn when they will be out sunning on lily pads. You spin over them, confuse them, and then snatch them up.”

Lizzie turned wide-eyed. “But why?”

“Because if you catch a fairy princess, she must grant you three wishes.”

“Three?” the little girl said in wonder, gazing at the water and the lily pads drifting by. “What’s her name? What will I call her?”

“The princess?” He thought fast, said, “Guinevere.”

“Princess Guinevere,” she said, liking that. She lifted her head and looked back at him with a smile that broke away into fear and confusion.

“Who are they, Grandfather?” Lizzie asked.

He realized she was looking beyond him, back to shore. He looked over his shoulder and saw three men coming over the knoll from the house and down the lawn toward the water.

“Who are those men?” she asked again, agitated.

“Friends, Lizzie,” he replied as he turned the boat toward the dock. “Old friends. No one to worry about.”

“But what about Princess Guinevere?” she complained.

“She’ll be here tomorrow,” he said.

He pulled up to the dock and tossed a line to Starksville’s chief of police, Randy Sherman. Then he handed his granddaughter up to Stark County sheriff Nathan Bean and climbed onto the dock after her.

“Lizzie, run on up to the house, get you some breakfast,” he said.

Lizzie kissed her grandfather and ran barefoot up the lawn, adding in a few precious twirls to enchant him.

“Love that little girl,” he said, then he looked to the third man on the dock. “How’re the kidney stones treating you, Judge?”

“Shitty,” Erasmus Varney said with a pinched expression. “But I’ll survive.”

“Glad to hear that,” he said, “because survival is why I brought you all here this morning.”

Chief Sherman and Sheriff Bean studied the old man. Varney was trying, but the judge looked as if he wanted to pace against the pain.

“Been a good life for all of you, yes?” Lizzie’s grandfather asked.

The three men nodded without hesitation.

“Then it’s important to you that our good life goes on, yes?”

They nodded their heads vigorously.

“Good to hear,” he said, then sobered. “I have begun to fear that the survival of our good life is threatened.”

“By who?” Judge Varney asked.

“This Alex Cross and his family. All of them. His wife. His niece the attorney. His aunts and uncles and cousins too.”

“What do you want us to do?” Chief Sherman said.

“I have made arrangements through a third party to bring in a lace maker that can never be traced to any of us,” he said. “She is to be given every opportunity to succeed as she’s passing through Starksville.”

“She?” Sheriff Bean said. “Correct.”

“She been through town before?” Chief Sherman asked.

“Once.”

“When is her trip scheduled?” Sheriff Bean asked.

“She’s arriving today. Problems with any of that?”

Judge Varney said, “It has to be done delicately with someone like Cross. He has a reputation. Friends in high places.”

“We’re aware of that delicacy, Erasmus,” Lizzie’s grandfather said. “That’s why I’ve called in a lace maker. She’ll sew everything together so their deaths look like tragic twists of fate.”

Palm Beach, Florida

“Such a tragic way to die, Maggie,” Coco cooed. “But really, it’s acceptable now in our social strata, isn’t it? Or at least, it’s not the shame it once was.”

Dressed in a pair of Stéphanie Coudert white linen pants, a pale tan jersey, and ballet slippers, Jeffrey Mize sat wigless at the foot of the bed. He was lost in his alter ego, Coco, analyzing the fetal position of Maggie’s body, noting how the sheets were tucked perfectly under her chin, as if the poor dear had sought out a cozy spot in which to expire.

The spent bottle of Patrón on the night table helped the overdose tableau. So did the empty vials that had once held the deceased’s notoriously abused prescriptions for pain, anxiety, and sleep.

One cocktail was all it took, Coco thought with satisfaction as he got up off the bed. Maggie never knew what hit her. Not like Lisa Martin, who’d gone all Frankenstein’s bride, bug-eyed and shrieking when the radio hit the bathwater. And very unlike Ruth Abrams, who’d fought the noose with surprising strength.

Coco paused in front of Maggie’s mirror and admired the new clothes, the makeup, indeed the whole new look, before turning to the red box. He opened it, lifted out the wig. Copper-blond and shoulder-length, the hair fell easily about his shoulders.

A few adjustments and there was the effect he was going for: Faye Dunaway in The Thomas Crown Affair, the casual look, not the one in the chess scenes with Steve McQueen where Faye was sheer elegance and glamour.

At least, that’s how Mother had always described this wig. Casual yet intriguing, sporty and strong. A woman who was a match for McQueen.

Coco laughed because he’d seen the movie and Mother was dead-on. Putting on tortoiseshell sunglasses to complete the Dunaway effect, he felt adventurous and naughty and very sexy when he pouted in the mirror. Coco left the mirror at last, took the canvas bag, and sauntered out of the bedroom and through the library. He paused where a portrait hung.