James PATTERSON - Cross Fire

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You asked where this is going. Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust – the same place everything goes. Of course, some of us get there faster than others, isn’t that right? Your first wife, for example, but I can’t take credit for that one.”

And then he got his wish – I snapped, lost it.

“Listen to me, you piece of shit! Stay away from us. I swear to God, if you ever–”

“If I what?” he fired back just as forcefully. “Hurt your ridiculous family? Take away your precious fiancee?” His tone had changed on a dime to pure rage. “How dare you talk to me about what’s been taken away. What you get to keep! Just how many lives have you taken, Alex? How many families have you shattered with that nine millimeter of yours? You don’t even know the meaning of loss – not yet, you fucking hypocrite!”

I’d never heard him go on like this before. In fact, Kyle rarely even cursed. Not the Kyle I’d known.

Was he devolving in some way? Or was this just another one of his carefully timed acts?

“Do you want to know the real difference between us, Alex?” he went on.

“I already know the difference,” I said. “I’m still sane and you’re not.”

“The difference is, I’m alive because none of you people have been able to bring me down, and you’re alive because I haven’t decided to kill you yet. Please tell me that obvious fact hasn’t escaped you.”

“I’m not going to kill you, Kyle.” The words were just spilling out of me now. “I’m going to make sure you rot to death, slowly, back in that cell in Colorado where you came from. You’re going back.”

“Oh, that reminds me,” he said – and then abruptly hung up. It was pure Kyle, just one more way of saying he’d started this thing and he was going to finish it, his way. Control was like oxygen to him.

Suddenly, Bree was right there, with her arms around me. “I spoke to Nana,” she said. “Everything’s fine, but she knows we’re coming home. And I’ve got a squad car headed over there right now.”

I got up and started dressing as fast as I could. My body was shaking with anger, and not just at Kyle.

“I messed up, Bree,” I said. “Bad. I can’t let him get to me like that. I can’t! It’s only going to make things worse.”

If that was possible.

GODDAMN HIM! For everything.

Kyle had just accomplished exactly what he wanted, which was to inject himself into my life. He had my number, in more ways than one. Now I had no choice but to respond.

An MPD cruiser was in front of the house when we got there, with another uniformed officer in the back by the garage. Sampson was there, too; I’m not even sure who called him, but I was glad he came.

“All cool, sugar, we’re good here,” he said as we came in. He and Nana were hanging out in the kitchen. She’d even managed a ham sandwich and chips for him by then.

“This isn’t over,” I said. It was a struggle to keep my voice down while the kids slept upstairs. “We have to talk about moving the family.”

“Oh, is that so?” Nana said, and the temperature in the room dropped about twenty degrees.

“Nana–”

“Alex, no. Not again. You do what you need to with the children. I, for one, meant it the last time when I said it would be the last time. I’m not moving out of this house, and that’s my final word on the subject.”

Before I could even respond, she decided she wasn’t done after all.

“And another thing. If this Kyle Craig is as good as you say he is, then it doesn’t matter where you put the children. What matters, Detective Cross, is that you protect them where they are.” Her voice was shaking, but her finger was steady as she pointed it right at my face. “Defend your home, Alex. Make it happen! You’re supposed to be good at your job.”

She smacked the table twice with the flat of her hand and leaned back again. My move.

First, I took a breath and counted to ten. Then I asked Bree to start the APB process right away. “Get it out on WALES, all jurisdictions, and then NCIC at the Bureau as soon as we can.” For that, we’d need a warrant number, and Sampson got on the stick to track it down.

I put in my own call to the FBI field office in Denver. Technically, Kyle was their case, since he’d escaped from prison in Colorado.

Over the phone, an Agent Tremblay told me that they had nothing new to report but that he’d be in touch with all mid-Atlantic field offices right away. This was a priority case for them, too, and not just because of the damage Kyle had done to the Bureau’s reputation the first time around. I had a feeling I’d be hearing from Jim Heekin at the Directorate in Washington first thing in the morning.

Meanwhile, I made another call – and woke up my good buddy and sometimes sparring mate Rakeem Powell.

Rakeem had been with the force for fifteen years, and a detective with the 103 for eight. Then, in the same six-month period, he’d gotten married and shot, in that order, and ended up taking early retirement.

No one ever thought Rakeem would leave the department, but then again, no one thought he’d ever settle down either. Now he had his own close-security firm in Silver Spring, and I was about to become a client.

By seven that morning, we had a whole system in place. The kids were covered to and from school by me and Bree, with Sampson as backup. Rakeem’s firm would provide overnight security, front and back, with daytime coverage as needed. They’d also spend the first day working up an assessment of penetrable areas of the house and try to have them wired up before the kids got home.

Nana tried to put her foot down about FBI agents in the yard, but I came out on top of that one. As instructed by her, I was doing whatever I needed to do to make things happen. She and I were barely speaking at this point, and no one was happy about any of it, but this was our reality now.

Life under siege. Kyle Craig was back in our lives.

AND THEN LIFE does go on, ready or not.

Once I got the kids to school, I made it over to St. Anthony’s in time for my second appointment of the morning, after missing the first. I’d been doing pro bono counseling for the hospital ever since I shut my private practice. These were high-need folks who couldn’t afford even basic mental-health care, so I was glad to do my part. It also helped keep me sharp and on my toes.

Bronson “Pop-Pop” James pimp-walked into my dank little office with the same too-cool-for-school attitude as always. I’d met him when he was eleven; now he was a little older, and more confident in his cynical assessment of the world than ever.

Two of his friends had died since I’d started seeing him, and most of his heroes – street thugs barely older than he was – were already dead, too.

Sometimes I felt as if I were the only one in the world who cared about Bronson, which is not to say he was easy to work with, because he wasn’t.

He sat on the vinyl couch across from me, with his jaw pointed at the ceiling, looking at something up there, or probably just ignoring me.

“Anything new since the last time?” I asked.

“Nothin’ I can talk about,” he said. “Man, why you always bringin’ that Starbucks in here?”

I looked at the cup of Tall in my hand. “Why? Do you like coffee?”

“Nah, never touch the stuff. It’s nasty. I like them Frappuccino shits they sell, though.”

I could see him angling now, like maybe I’d pick him up a treat next time. Get him all sugared up. It was one of those rare flashes where the actual kid showed through the armor he seemed to wear day and night.