James PATTERSON: Cross Fire

When I raised my head, I saw that there was no question of survivors. The ambulance was a black carcass, with flames and dark smoke still rising into the air. Both police officers and both EMTs were dead.

And so was Kyle. By the time the fire was out and we got close enough to see his body, we realized that it was charred from top to bottom.

The face he’d invested so much in was completely unrecognizable, just a featureless black mask where the man used to be. In fact, not that much of him was even there anymore.

As to whether Kyle fired into that oxygen tank on purpose, I have to wonder. Maybe going back to solitary confinement was more than he could bear. Prison might have easily killed him in the end, and maybe Kyle knew that.

Maybe he was even trying to take me out with him as he went – one last effort to finish the job that, for whatever reason, he’d turned into his life’s work.

Actually, I think I know what the answers to all those questions are, but of course I’ll never know for sure. And maybe someday I won’t care anymore either.

THE MEDIA STORM WAITING for me when I got home topped what I’d left behind, if that was possible. Kyle Craig had been the most famous wanted person in the country, and everyone clamored for a piece of the story. I had to hire Rakeem Powell’s security service for several more days just to keep the gawkers at bay and give my family some semblance of privacy.

I thought Nana would blow a fuse over what happened in Nassau, but she didn’t. We all quietly settled back in as best we could.

Over the next several days, I started the slow and steady process of talking to the kids, together and separately. I wanted them to know that while what happened was very real, it was also the end of something.

I think each got that in his or her own way. By the time my two weeks’ vacation was up, everyone was doing pretty well.

But I’d also come to a decision. I needed to be around more than I’d been, at least for a while. I put in for an unpaid leave from work through the end of the summer and just hoped they’d accept it. If not, then not. I’d find something else to do.

In fact, I was thinking seriously about writing another book, this one focusing on Kyle Craig and the Mastermind case. Not only had Kyle been the toughest challenge of my career, he’d also been a friend of mine – once. I felt as if I had a story to tell, and it would be a powerful one.

Meanwhile, there were sunflowers to plant and movies to see. Boxing lessons to catch up on in the basement, baseball games, trips to the Smithsonian. Long dinners to linger over until after dark, with good conversations or games of Go Fish . There was my new wife to lavish with all the love I could give.

And, of course, a new life to start together.

IF ONLY THINGS could have stayed that way – the endless summer.

It was just after Fourth of July weekend when I got that call from MPD, the call that everyone over there swore they wouldn’t make, no matter what the circumstances.

A detective in Austin, Texas, had been calling around looking for me. He was dealing with a multiple down there, a baffling and grisly one. But it wasn’t just the murders. The case was starting to show a striking similarity to one of my own – something I thought I’d put to bed years ago.

Even so, I made the appropriate referral to a detective I’d worked with in Dallas and stood my ground. I wasn’t a cop right now. Not until September.

But then the next call came about two weeks later. This one was from a detective in San Francisco by the name of Boxer. She had a strange one on her hands, and her case sounded familiar, too, a lot like the murders committed by a madman known as “Mr. Smith.” I had caught Smith and watched him die. At least, I thought I had.

But that’s a story for another day.