James Patterson - Cross

Then I finally did the hardest thing – I told Jannie and Damon what had happened to Maria. I told my children the truth as I knew it. I shared most of the details of Maria's death, her murder, and I told them that I had seen it happen, been with her when she died, felt her last breath on this earth, heard her last words.

When I was done, when I couldn't talk anymore, Jannie whispered, "Watch the river, how it flows, Daddy. The river is truth."

That had been my mantra for the kids when they were little and Maria wasn't around. I'd walk them by the Anacostia River or the Potomac and make them look at it, the water, and say, "Watch the river… the river is truth."

Or at least as close as we'll ever get to it.

I WAS FEELING strangely emotional and vulnerable, and I guess, maybe, alive these days.

It was both a good and a bad thing.

I had breakfast with Nana Mama at around five thirty or so almost every morning. Then I jogged to my office, changed clothes, and started my sessions as early as six thirty.

Kim Stafford was my first patient on Mondays and Thursdays. It was always a hard thing to keep personal feelings out of the sessions, at least for me, or maybe I was just out of practice. On the other hand, some of my colleagues had always struck me as too clinical, too reserved and distant. What was any patient, any human being, supposed to make of that? Oh, it's okay if I have the affect of a turnip; I'm a therapist.

I needed to do this my way, with warmth at times, with lots of feeling and compassion rather than empathy; I needed to break the rules, to be unorthodox. Like confronting Jason Stemple at his station house and trying to punch that scum's lights out. That's what I call professional.

I had a break in my schedule until noon, so I decided to check in with Monnie Donnelley at Quantico. She was doing some research on a theory of mine about the Butcher. I hadn't said much more than hello, when Monnie interrupted. "1 have something for you, Alex. I think you're going to like this. It's your idea anyway, your theory."

Monnie then told me that she'd used my notes and tracked down news about Sullivan's wife through a mob soldier who was in the Witness Protection Program and now living in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

"I followed the trail you set up, and you were right on. It led me to a guy who was at Sullivan's wedding, which was small, as you might expect. The pal from Brooklyn you told me about, Anthony Mullino, he was there. Apparently, Sullivan didn't want many people to know about his private life. His own mother wasn't invited, and his father was dead, as you know."

"Yeah, killed by his son and a couple of pals. What did you find out about Sullivan's wife?"

"Well, it's interesting stuff, not what you'd expect, either. She's originally from Colts Neck, New Jersey, and she was a first-grade teacher before she met Sullivan. How about that? Salvatore Pistelli, the Witness Protection guy, said she was a sweet girl. Said Sullivan was looking for a good mother for his kids. Touching, huh, Alex? Our psycho hit man has a soft spot. The wife's name was Caitlin Haney. Her family's still living in Colts Neck."

That same day, we had a tap set up on the phones of Caitlin Sullivan's parents' place. Also on a sister who lived in Toms River, New Jersey, and a brother who was a dentist in Ridgewood.

I had some hope again. Maybe we could close this case after all and bring down the Butcher.

Maybe I would see him again and take a little bow myself.

MICHAEL SULLIVAN HAD BEEN USING the name Michael Morrissey since he'd been living in Massachusetts, Morrissey being a punk he'd more or less drawn and quartered in his early days as a hit man. Caitlin and the boys kept their first names but went under the surname Morrissey now too. The story they had learned by heart was that they had been living in Dublin for the past few years, where their father was a consultant to several Irish companies with business connections to America.

Now he was doing "consultant" work in Boston.

The latter part happened to be true, since the Butcher had just gotten a job through an old contact in South Boston. A job – a hit, a murder for hire.

He left the house overlooking the Hoosic River that morning at a very civilized nine o'clock. Then he drove west; he was headed to the Massachusetts Turnpike in his new Lexus. He had his work tools in the trunk – guns, a butcher saw, a nail gun.

He didn't play any music on the first part of the trip, preferring to travel down memory lane instead. Lately, he'd been thinking a lot about his early kills: about his father, of course; a couple of jobs for Maggione Sr.; and a Catholic priest named Francis X. Conley. Father Frank X had been messing around with boys in the parish for years. The rumors were all around the neighborhood, the stories laced with plenty of kinky, slimy detail. Sullivan couldn't believe that some of the parents knew what was going on and hadn't stepped up to do something to stop it.

When he was nineteen and already working for Maggione, he happened to spot the priest down at the docks, where Conley kept a little outboard for his fishing trips. Sometimes he would take one of the altar boys for an afternoon. A reward. A little sweet treat.

On this particular day in the spring, the good father had come down to the dock to prepare his boat for the season. He was working over the engine when Sullivan and Jimmy Hats stepped on board.

"Hey, Father Frankie," Jimmy said, and beamed a crooked smile. "How 'bout we take a little boat trip today? Do some fishin'?"

The priest squinted up at the two young hoods, frowning when he recognized who it was. "I don't think so, boys. Boat's not ready for action yet."

That brought a laugh from Hats, who repeated, " Ready for action – yeah, I get you."

Then Sullivan stepped forward. "Yeah, it is ready, Fodder. We're goin' on a sea cruise. You know that song? Frankie Ford's 'Sea Cruise'? That's where we're goin'. Just the three of us."

So they cruised on out of the boatyard, and Father Frank X was never seen or heard from again. "God rest his immoral soul in hell," Jimmy Hats joked on the way back.

And that morning, as he drove out on his latest job, Sullivan remembered the old Frankie Ford song – and he remembered how the pathetic priest had begged for his life, and then for his death, before he got cut up into shark food. But most of all, he remembered wondering whether he had just done a good deed with Father Frank, and whether or not it was possible that he could.

Could he do anything good in his life?

Or was he just all bad?

HE FINALLY ARRIVED IN STOCKBRIDGE, near the Massachusetts-New York border, and used his GPS to find the right house. He was ready to do his worst, to be the Butcher again, to earn his day's wage.

To hell with good deeds and good thoughts, whatever they were supposed to prove. He located the house, which was very "country" and, he thought, very tasteful. It sat on a tranquil pond in the middle of acres of maples and elms and pines. A black Porsche Targa was parked like a modern sculpture in the driveway.

The Butcher had been told that a forty-one-year-old woman named Melinda Steiner was at the house – but that she drove a spiffy red Mercedes convertible. So who did the black Porsche belong to?

Sullivan parked off the main road behind a copse of pines, and he watched the house for about twenty minutes. One of the things he noticed was that the garage door was closed. And maybe there was a fine red Mercedes convertible in the garage.

So – once again – who owned the black Porsche?

Careful to stay under the cover of thick branches, he put a pair of German binoculars to his eyes. Then he slowly scanned the east and south windows of the house, each and every one of them.