James Patterson - I, Alex Cross

Not even when the FBI and the Secret Service are both arguing that justice has been done.

There were endless meetings to come, and after that, public hearings. A full congressional investigation had already been promised, amid all kinds of unchecked speculation on the Hill and in the media. The country was buzzing: about Tony Nicholson's client list, about the involvement of Secret Service, and even about who else might still be out there as part of Bowie 's murder spree.

Once the paperwork was behind me, I put in for the rest of the week off. I left the office late on Wednesday and went straight to the hospital. Nana was looking a lot more peaceful these days, like an angel, which was kind of nice and also hard to take. I stayed awake most of that night, just watching her.

Then Aunt Tia spelled me early on Thursday, and I managed to catch Bree still in bed when I finally, finally got home. She was just starting to stir as I spooned up next to her.

"Do whatever you want," she whispered softly. "Just don't wake me up."

But then she laughed and turned over to kiss me good morning. Her feet and legs stayed tangled up with mine under the covers.

"All right, then, just do whatever you want to me," she said.

"This is nice. Remember this?" I said.

She nodded with her forehead against mine, and I was thinking maybe I never had to be anywhere else but here. Ever again.

Then the bedroom door opened. Of course it did . "Daddy, you home?" Ali poked his head around the corner and jumped up onto the bed before we could tell him to go away.

"Little man, how many times have I told you to knock first?" I asked him.

"About a million," he said, and he laughed and wormed in between us anyway.

Not to be outdone, Jannie was there soon enough, and the two of them started chattering at us like maybe it wasn't six thirty in the morning. Even so, it was kind of nice to be all together again.

By seven, I was frying up a batch of bacon, egg, and tomato sandwiches while Bree made coffee and poured the orange juice. Jannie and Ali were scanning the morning paper for my name, and I even had a little Gershwin playing in the living room. Not the bedroom with Bree, but not too shabby either.

Just as I was flipping my breakfast creations out of the pan, a phone chirped from upstairs, loud enough to be heard over the music.

Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at me, standing there with my greasy spatula in hand.

"What?" I said, all wide-eyed and innocent. "I don't hear anything."

That got me a chorus of cheers all around the table, and even a little pat on the butt from Bree.

Whoever it was, they had the good sense not to call again.

A FEW HOURS later, Bree and I were back from walking the kids to school and running a few necessary errands to the drug-and food stores. "Upstairs," I told her before the front door had even closed behind us. "We've got some unfinished business, you and I."

She took the grocery bag out of my hands with a kiss. "I'll be right there. Don't start without me."

I was halfway up the stairs, when she called me back from the kitchen.

"Alex!" Her voice was tense. What was it now? "Company."

When I came down, she was standing at the pass-through to the sunporch, looking out.

"Guess who's here?" she said.

I stepped up next to her and saw Ned Mahoney sitting in our backyard, drumming his fingers on the picnic table.

"God damn it," I said.

He stayed where he was as I came out onto the porch and then down into the yard to see what was happening.

"Was that you who called earlier?" I asked. Ned nodded, and before he even said a word, I realized the case wasn't over. "You want to come in?"

"Let's talk out here," he said.

I grabbed a jacket and two cups of coffee from inside, and then came back out to the picnic table.

Ned gulped the coffee as I sat down. He looked exhausted. All his usual effusiveness seemed to be gone – or at least depleted.

"You okay?" I asked him.

"Just a little tired," he said. "I haven't let go of this thing, Alex. I've used up all my personal days, all my vacation. Kathy's ready to kill me."

I nodded. "So is Bree. And she has a gun."

"Still, it's paid off. Boy, has it ever. I've got somebody I want you to meet. His name is Aubrey Lee Johnson. He lives down in Alabama, but he's got a custom fly reel business that brings him up to Virginia a lot."

Ned downed the last of his coffee, and I slid mine over to his side of the table. Some of the usual rev was coming back into him already. "This guy's got a story he thinks might be important. And guess what, Alex? It is ."

THERE WAS NO way Mahoney could get travel status for this. Even if it were his case, which it wasn't, the Bureau watches out for our tax dollars by requiring agents to use the local field offices for out-of-state interviews. Ned had already traded a few electronic communications with the Mobile office, but in the end, we decided to fly to Alabama on our own nickel.

We arrived at Mobile Regional Airport late the next morning and rented a car from there.

Aubrey Johnson lived on Dauphin Island, about an hour south. It was a sleepy little village, at least this time of year, and we had no trouble finding his store – Big Daddy's Fishing Tackle, on Cadillac Avenue.

"This is why we're here? Big Daddy's Fishing Tackle?" I said to Ned.

"Odd as it may seem, this is it, the end of the road. The conspiracy gets tripped up here. If we're lucky, that is."

"So let's start getting lucky."

Johnson was a tall, gregarious guy in his midfifties, and he ushered us in like a couple of old friends, just before he double-locked up behind us.

Ned had already questioned him on the phone, but Johnson repeated his story for me – how he'd been driving late one night on Route 33 in virginia about a month ago, when a beautiful girl in a negligee stumbled out of the woods in front of his truck.

"Truth be told, I thought it was my lucky night," he said, "until I saw what kind of terrible shape she was in. Any bigger caliber on that slug in her back and she would have been dead."

Even so, the girl had insisted that Johnson keep driving, at least until they were across the state line. He finally got her to an ER just outside Winston-Salem.

"Still, Annie wasn't hanging around for any cops to show up," he went on. "She told me she was either leaving there on foot or in my truck, so I drove her. Probably shouldn't have, but what's done is done. My wife and I have been looking after her ever since."

"Her name is Annie?" I asked.

"I'll get to that part," Johnson said.

"Why did she come forward when she did?" I asked them. All I knew was that the contact between Mr. Johnson and Mahoney had started before the names Constantine Bowie and Zeus had ever made it into the headlines.

"That's a little complicated," he said. "She still hasn't told us everything. We don't even know her real name; we just call her Annie to keep things simple. When I tried putting out some feelers, there wasn't much I could say, so I don't think people took me too seriously. At least, not until Agent Mahoney here called me back. He was following up on a call I'd made to the FBI field office in Mobile."

"And where is she now, Aubrey?" Ned asked.

"Not far." Johnson took a set of keys off the counter. "I'll let her speak for herself, but I will tell you this much. That fellow they're calling Zeus on the news? She says you all got the wrong man. She isn't Annie, and he isn't Zeus."

JOHNSON LED US back through the village in his truck, almost to the mainland bridge.