James Patterson - I, Alex Cross

"What the hell is this about?" he asked me, after he closed the door. "You come barging in here like Eliot Ness, or Rudolph Giuliani back in his prosecutor days."

I held up a picture of Caroline. "It's about her," I said in the quietest voice I could manage.

It took him a second, but I saw a flash of recognition on his face, then a fast recovery. He was brighter than he seemed.

"Pretty girl. Who is she?"

"Are you saying you've never seen her before?"

He laughed defensively, and a little more of the anchorspeak came into his voice. "Do I need a lawyer here?"

"We found your phone number in her apartment. She was murdered."

"I'm sorry about that, the girl's murder. A lot of people have my number. Or they can get it."

"A lot of call girls?" I asked.

"Listen, I don't know what you want with me, but this is obviously some kind of mistake."

Whatever he was publicly, this guy was nothing but a scumbag to me now. It was clear he didn't care about Caroline and what had happened to her.

"She was twenty-four," I said.

I held up the picture again.

"Someone took bites out of her. Probably raped her before they killed her. Then they put her body through a wood chipper. We found what was left of her – the remains – in a plastic bag being transported by a mob guy."

"What are you… Why are you telling me this? I don't know the girl."

I looked at my watch. "I'm going to offer you a deal, Ryan. The terms are good for the next thirty seconds. You tell me how you found out about her, right now, and I leave your name out of my investigation. Unless, of course, you're guilty of something a lot more damaging than procuring."

"Is that a threat?"

"Twenty seconds."

"Even if I had any idea what you were talking about, how do I know you are who you say you are?"

"You don't. Fifteen seconds."

"Excuse me, Detective, but you can go to hell."

My hand was cocked, but I caught myself. Willoughby flinched and took a step back.

"Get out of my office, unless you want me to have you thrown out."

I waited until the full thirty seconds were up.

"I'll see you on the news," I said. "Trust me, you won't be the one delivering it."

TWENTY MILES OF thick, old-growth Virginia forest separated Remy Williams's cabin from pretty much everything else in the world. It was a pristine bit of wilderness with all the privacy he could ever want. A person could scream all night long out here and never be heard.

Not that there ever was much screaming or carrying on out here. Remy appreciated efficiency, and he was good at what he did.

Disposal .

The thing he didn't like was surprises – like the bright headlights that raked back and forth over his cabin window just after darkness fell that night.

In a few seconds, he was out the back door with one of the three Remington 870 shotguns he kept around for exactly this reason – uninvited visitors. He hustled over to the side of the cabin and took up a position with a perfect view of the dark-colored sedan that was just coming to a stop out front.

He saw that the vehicle was a Pontiac sedan, either black or dark blue.

Two men got out. "Anybody home?" one of them called. The voice was familiar, but Remy kept the Remington on his hip anyway.

"What are you doing out here?" he yelled to them. "Nobody called ahead."

Their shadows turned toward him in the dark. "Relax, Remy. We found him."

"Alive?"

"At the moment."

Remy slowly came around to the porch and traded the shotgun for a battery-powered lantern, which he lit.

"What about the other one? The girl who run off?"

"Still working on it," said the cocky one, the white guy. Remy didn't know either of their names and didn't want to. He knew the spic was the smart one, though, and the most dangerous. Silent but deadly all the way.

He walked to the back of the car and thumped on the trunk with his lantern.

"Pop it."

THE YOUNG PUNK inside was naked as a newborn, half-wrapped in a soiled bedsheet with a double dose of duct tape twisted across his mouth. As soon he as laid eyes on Remy, he started scrambling around like there was somewhere inside that trunk he could go and hide.

"Why in hell's he not wearing anything? What's the point in that?"

"He was banging some girl when we found him."

"And she's -?"

"Been taken care of."

"Awww, you should have brought her to me for safekeeping too."

Remy turned back to the kid, who'd gone still again – - except for the eyes. Those never stopped moving.

"He's a funny little gerbil, isn't he?"

He reached down and pulled the boy up, then spun him around so the punk could see the twenty-year-old wood chipper in the car's headlights.

"Now, you know why you're here, so I won't quibble on the details," he said. "I just need to know one thing from you, and I want you to think real careful about this. You ever tell anyone about this place? Anyone a 'tall?"

The kid shook his head way more than he needed to – no, no, no, no, no .

"You're real sure about that, son? You wouldn't lie to me? 'Specially now?"

The head changed direction and went yes, yes, yes .

Remy laughed out loud. "You see that? He looks like one of those stupid bobbleheads. For your dashboard?" He bent his knees to be face-to-face with the kid, and palmed his skull. Then he started rocking it up and down and side to side, laughing the whole time.

"Yes, yes, yes… no, no, no… yes, yes, yes…"

Then, just as fast, he twisted the head halfway around with a crisp snap and let the boy fall to the ground like a broken toy.

"That's it? Break his neck?" one of the other two asked. "That's what we wanted him alive for?"

"Oh, it's jus' fine," Remy told them, pushing the accent a little. "I got an intuition about this stuff." They both shook their heads like he was some ignorant redneck, which Remy took as a compliment to his acting abilities.

"Hey, you fellas want to stick around for a drink? I've got some good stuff out back."

"We've got to keep moving," said the dark-skinned ghost. "Thanks for the offer. Maybe some other time, Remy."

"Suit yourself. No problema."

In truth, there wasn't a drop of alcohol anywhere on the property. The only thing Remy drank besides bottled water, which he bought by the case, was the sun-brewed iced tea he sometimes made from it. Alcohol was poison to the system. He just liked letting these sanctimonious pricks think what they wanted to think about him anyway.

They were typical government issue, those two, the way they saw everything and nothing at the same time. If they looked a little closer, they'd know when they were being tested, and what they were up against.

"One other thing," he added. "No more pickups." He prodded the dead boy with his foot. "That part ain't been working out so well, you know? I'll do the disposals, starting with him."

"Agreed. He's all yours."

They drove off without even a good-bye wave. Remy waved, then he waited until he couldn't hear the car anymore, and got to work.

The kid was just skin and bones, and it didn't take any more cutting to get him ready than it would have for a girl. Two at the knees, two at the hips, two at the shoulders, one at the neck. Then one long swipe down the middle of his skinny little torso. It was messier with the knife than it might have been with a chainsaw or an axe, but Remy liked wet work, always had.

Once that was done, it took only about ten minutes to get the Philly Flash through the machine and into a plastic bag. It was amazing how light the bags always felt – as if it was something more than just foam and residue that got left behind inside the chipper.