James Patterson - Roses Are Red

"How about that ugly mutt there?" I said and pointed toward the street corner we were approaching. "He knows everything happening around here."

"He spotted us," Sampson said. "Shit, there he goes!"

I spun the steering wheel hard to my left. The Porsche skidded toward a stop, then hopped the curb with a jolting thud. Sampson and I jumped out and started to run after Cedric Montgomery.

"Stop! Police!” I yelled at him.

We shot down a narrow, twisted alley behind the small-time enforcer and all-round tough guy. Montgomery was a source of information, but he wasn't a snitch. He just knew things. He was in his early twenties; Sampson and I were both a whisker past forty. We worked out and we were still fast at least in our minds.

Montgomery could really move, though. He was a blur up ahead of us.

"He's just a sprinter, sugar," Sampson huffed. He was at my side, matching me stride for stride. "We're good for the long haul."

"Police!” I yelled again. "Why are you running, Montgomery?"

Sweat was already forming on my neck and back. The perspiration was dripping down from my hair. My eyes were burning some. But I could still run. Couldn't I?

"We can take him," I said. I accelerated, turned up my jets. It was a dare a challenge to Sampson, a game we'd been playing for years. Who can; we can.

We were actually gaining some on Montgomery. He looked back -and couldn't believe we were right behind him. Two freight trains on his tail, and there was no way for him to get off the track.

"Put it in full gear, sugar!" Sampson said. "Prepare for impact."

I gave it everything. Sampson and I were still matching steps. We were having our own private foot race, and Montgomery was the finish line.

We both hit him at the same time. He went down like a shocked wide-receiver crushed between two very fast linebackers. I was afraid he would never get up again. But Montgomery rolled a few times, moaned, and then looked at us in total amazement.

"Goddamn!" he whispered. That was all he said. Sampson and I took the compliment, then we cuffed him.

Two hours later Montgomery was talking to us at the station house on Third Street. He admitted that he had heard something about the robbery and murders over in Silver Spring. He was willing to trade information if we would look past half a dozen dime bags he had in his possession when we gang-tackled him on the street.

"I know who you lookin' for," Montgomery said, and he seemed sure of himself. "But you ain't gonna like hearin' who it is."

He was right I didn't like what he told me. Not at all.

I wasn't sure whether I could trust Cedric Montgomery's information, but he'd given me a good hard lead that I had to follow. He was right about one thing: His tip was disturbing to me. One of the people he'd implicated in the robbery was the stepbrother of my late wife, Maria. He'd heard that Enrol Parker might have done the bank in Silver Spring.

Sampson and I spent the next day trying to locate Errol, but he wasn't at home or at any of his usual haunts around Southeast. His wife, Brianne, wasn't around either. No one had seen the Barkers for at least a week.

Around five-thirty I stopped by the Sojourner Truth School to see if Christine was still there. I'd been thinking about her all day. She hadn't answered my calls or returned any messages.

I had met Christine Johnson two years before, and we'd almost gotten married. Then a sad and tragic thing happened, and I still blamed myself: She was kidnapped by a monster who had committed several murders in Southeast. She had been held as a hostage for nearly a year. Christine was kidnapped because she was seeing me. She was missing for a year and believed to be dead. When Christine was found, there was another surprise. She had a baby, our son, Alex. But the abduction had changed her, wounded her in ways she didn't understand, and she couldn't cope with that. I'd tried to help in any way I could. It had been months since we'd been intimate. She kept pushing me farther and farther away. Now Kyle Craig had made it even worse.

Nana usually watched over the baby while Christine was working at the Sojourner Truth School. Then Christine and little Alex went to her apartment in Mitchellville. It was the way she needed it to be.

I entered the school through a side metal door near the gym and heard the familiar sound of basketballs pounding against hardwood and the laughter and joyful screams of kids. I found Christine huddled over the computer in her office. She was the principal at the Sojoumer Truth School. Jannie and Damon are students there.

"Alex?" Christine said when she saw me at the door. I read the sign on the wall: Praise loudly, blame softly. Was Christine able to do that for me? "I'm almost finished for the day. Just give me another minute or two." At least she didn't seem angry about the other night with Kyle Craig; she didn't tell me to leave.

"I came to walk you home from school. I'll even carry your books," I said and smiled. "That's all right?"

"I guess so," she said, but she didn't smile back and she still seemed so far away.

When she was ready to go a little while later, we locked up the school together, then strolled down School Street toward Fifth. True to my word, I carried Christine's briefcase filled with what felt like a dozen books. I tried a little joke. "You didn't say anything about carrying your bowling ball too."

"I told you the books were heavy. I'm a heavy thinker, you know. Actually, I'm kind of glad you came by tonight," she said.

"Couldn't keep myself away." I told the truth and shamed the devil. I wanted to take Christine's arm, or at least her hand, but I held back. It seemed strange and wrong to be so close and yet so distant from her. I ached to hold her in my arms.

"I want to talk to you about something, Alex," she finally said. She stared into my eyes. I could tell from the look on her face that this probably wasn't good news I was about to hear.

"I was hoping that it wouldn't bother me your getting on a new murder case. But it does bother me, Alex. It makes me crazy. I worry about you. I worry about the baby. And I worry about my own safety. I can't help it after what happened in Bermuda. I haven't been sleeping since I returned to Washington."

It tore me apart to hear Christine talk like this. I felt terrible about what had happened to her. She had changed so much, though. There didn't seem to be anything I could do to make it better, to help her. I'd been trying for months, but nothing worked. I worried that I wouldn't just lose Christine, but little Alex as well.

"I remember some of the dreams I've had lately. They're so violent, Alex. And they're so real. The other night you were chasing the Weasel again, and he killed you. He stood there calmly and shot you again and again. Then he came to kill the baby and me. I woke up screaming."

I finally took her hand. "Geoffrey Shafer is dead, Christine," I said.

"You don't know that. Not for sure," Christine argued and pulled her hand away from me. She was angry again.

We walked along the edge of the Anacostia River in silence. After a while she told me about some of her other dreams. I sensed she didn't want me to interpret them. Just to listen. The dreams were all violent -people Christine knew and loved were mutilated and murdered.

Christine finally stopped walking at the corner of Fifth near my house. "Alex, I have to tell you something else. I've been going to a psychiatrist, Dr. Belair, in Mitchellville. He's helping me."

Christine continued to stare into my eyes. "I don't want to see you anymore, Alex. I've thought about this for weeks. I've talked about it with Dr. Belair. You can't change my mind, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't try."