Greg Iles - True Evil

"I need to go with him, Chris. I don't want to leave you alone, but-"

"I'm all right. I have-"

Three soft knocks sounded in the room. Then the door opened a crack and a voice Alex didn't recognize said, "Hello? Chris Shepard?"

"Yes," she called, walking to the door.

It opened before she reached it, revealing a handsome man in his early forties with two children standing in front of him, a boy and a girl.

"I'm Penn Cage," said the man, extending his hand. "Tom Cage's son. Are you Alex Morse?"

She nodded and shook the hand.

"My father was having some angina this morning," Penn said, "so I thought Annie and I should drive Ben up to see his dad. I hope that's all right."

Only then did Alex realize that the boy standing before her in the school uniform was Ben Shepard. "Oh, yes. I really appreciate it." She backed out of the way so that Chris could see his visitors.

"Penn?" Chris said from the bed. "What…?"

Cage walked forward and gently shook Chris's hand. "I thought Ben might like to ride up with Annie and me."

Alex saw Chris wipe his eyes before the children got close enough to see his tears.

Annie Cage was a well-knit girl of about eleven with tawny hair and wise eyes. She took Ben's hand to lead him to his father's bed, and to Alex's surprise, Ben allowed it.

"Hey, buddy," Chris said weakly.

Ben's face was red. He was about to cry. "Are you sick, Dad?"

"Just a little. But I'm going to be fine in a couple of days. How are you doing?"

Ben nodded. "The mayor brought me to see you."

"I see that. Hello, Annie."

"Hi, Dr. Chris," Annie Cage replied.

Penn smiled, then touched Annie's shoulder and pulled her back toward him. "I think we're going to let you two visit for a while."

Chris looked up gratefully.

"Do you need anything?" Penn asked. "A Coke or something?"

"No, thanks."

"We'll see you in a while, then."

With a pointed look at Alex, Penn backed into the hall with Annie in tow.

Chris put his hand on Ben's shoulder, then looked up at Alex and said, "Go get him. And don't come back here until you have. Okay?"

Forcing down a rush of emotion, Alex nodded, then waved good-bye and walked into the hall. Penn Cage was waiting for her. Looking down the corridor, she saw his daughter sitting on a bench by the nurses' station.

"How bad is he?" Penn asked.

"He could die."

Penn blew air from his cheeks. "Is there anything I can do to help you? I'm not just saying that. I used to be a prosecutor in Houston, and I have a lot of contacts in federal law enforcement."

Alex suddenly realized that Penn Cage was the lawyer who had destroyed a former director of the FBI, by implicating him in a civil rights murder cover-up that dated to the 1960s. "I wish you'd made that offer a week ago."

Cage's eyes burned with surprising intensity. "I'm making it now. You tell me what Dr. Shepard needs, I'll do everything in my power to get it or make it happen."

Alex glanced at her watch, her mind on Kaiser's chopper. "Do you know Chris well?"

"Not as well as I'd like. But my father says he's as fine a man as he's ever worked with. That's saying something."

"I think so, too," Alex said, surprising herself.

"Don't let me keep you. Just remember what I said."

"I will."

Alex turned and ran toward the elevators. Ten steps down the hall, she passed her mother's door. Margaret Morse would never know whether her daughter had stopped, and Alex almost kept running. But halfway to the elevators, she slid to a stop, then ran back and darted into her mother's room. As she had done with Chris, she squeezed her mother's hand and bent low beside her face.

"Mom?" she whispered. "It's Alexandra. Jamie's going to be all right. You can go now."

She prayed for a sign, a blinking eye or moving finger-but there was nothing. She kissed her mother's cheek, then fled the room.

The helicopter that touched down on the roof of the University Medical Center was a sleek, white Bell 430, capable of carrying eight passengers plus crew at 140 knots for nearly four hours. Alex had flown into many hostage situations, but rarely in a chopper as powerful as this. A 430 would deliver them to the Gulf of Mexico with time to spare. She bent almost double as she ran beneath the whirling rotors. The familiar whup-whup-whup set her heart racing. She leapt through the open door, took a quick look at the six black-clad SWAT agents behind Kaiser, then strapped herself in beside him.

"Ready?" Kaiser shouted.

She gave him a thumbs-up.

Kaiser smiled as the whine of the engine rose. "These things always remind me of Vietnam."

"Is that good or bad?"

"Good question." He squeezed her shoulder in reassurance. "The trick now is taking Tarver alive."

Alex nodded.

"That's where you come in. That's how I sold the director on you being here."

"So I'm a hostage negotiator again?"

"In a manner of speaking. You're going to negotiate, only there won't be any hostages. Or so we hope, anyway."

"Amen."

"I'm going up front for a second. I need to speak to the pilot before we lift off."

Kaiser went forward and leaned down beside the pilot's helmet. Alex looked out at the sky, gray overhead and piled with black clouds to the east. Feeling a vibration against her thigh, she took out her cell phone and looked at the LCD window. It read: 1 NEW MESSAGE. When she opened the phone, she saw that the message was from Jamie. Finally! She hit READ. The message read, Dad's packing our stuff! Says we're moving. 2DAY! Heard him talking 2 HER about Mexico. Can he take me 2 Mexico? He seems scared. I'm scared. Can u come get me? On computer. Dad wont let me call u.

Alex slammed the phone against her leg. Bill's timing was perfect, as usual. She wanted to tell Kaiser to order the chopper to the Ross Barnett Reservoir to pick up Jamie, but of course she couldn't. Andrew Rusk's written confession would soon nail Bill Fennell's hide to the wall, but right this minute, Bill had legal custody of the boy.

Alex had thought this chopper was taking her to the man who'd murdered Grace, but now she realized that Eldon Tarver hadn't really murdered her sister. He was just the weapon. Bill Fennell was the real killer. And now, like Tarver, Bill was planning to flee the country-with Jamie in tow. That left Alex no choice about what to do. But she couldn't tell Kaiser why she had to get out of the helicopter. She might just have to commit a felony herself in the next half hour-a kidnapping. And Kaiser couldn't be party to that.

She lifted the cell phone to her ear and began simulating a conversation with one of her mother's nurses. "What?" she yelled. "I can't hear you!"

Kaiser turned and watched her from the cockpit.

"When?" she shouted. "What does that mean?…Her kidneys ? Now? Or the in the next couple of hours?…Jesus, all right. I'm on my way…. Probably ten minutes."

Kaiser walked back and knelt beside her. "What is it?"

"My mother's crashing. All systems. She signed a DNR, so she's probably going to die in the next few minutes. Do you believe this shit?"

Kaiser looked at his watch, then the metal deck, then back up at Alex. "It's your call. We can't wait for you if you go back down. Is she conscious?"

"In and out. Mostly out. But still…it's my mother, you know?"

"I know." He looked at his watch again, silently calculating. "I wish you could be there. You know it's going to come down to a standoff, and you could be the one holding the bullhorn."

"Don't make it worse, okay?" She forced a smile. "I appreciate you getting me the chance. Just go. Nailing Tarver is the thing."

Alex unstrapped her harness and climbed back down to the roof. Kaiser knelt in the big sliding door, watching her with compassion. Under the roaring blades he shouted, "I'm sorry about your mom!"