James Patterson - Double Cross

She put down our plates and sat across from me at the kitchen table. Just like it’d been for years.

“I don’t think you’re going to like what I have to say,” I told her.

“And that’s stopped you when?”

“I’ve been in private practice for a while. It’s been good for me-the change. I like it most days.”

Nana bowed her head and clucked a couple of times. “Oh, Alex. I’m not going to like this one bit. Maybe I should go back to my room and sleep.”

“But,” I said, then corrected myself. “ And something’s missing for me.”

“Mm-hm. I’ll bet. Getting shot at, and missed. Getting shot at, and hit.”

I didn’t know what she could have done to make this easier, but she sure wasn’t trying.

“I left law enforcement for some good reasons.”

“Yes, you did, Alex. They’re all sleeping upstairs.”

“Nana, I’ve never been someone who works for a paycheck. My work, for better or worse, is part of me. And part of me is missing lately. That’s just the way it is.”

“I can’t say I haven’t noticed. But I’ll tell you something else. There’s a lot of other things missing around here these days. Things like phone calls in the middle of the night. Things like wondering when you’ll be home again- if you’ll be home again.”

We went back and forth like that for a while. The thing that surprised me was that the longer it went on, the stronger I felt about what I needed to do.

Finally I pushed back from the table and wiped my hands on a paper napkin.

“You know what, Nana? I love you dearly. I’ve tried keeping the peace. I’ve tried doing things your way, and whether or not it shows, it’s not working. I’m going to live my life the way I have to.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, what does that even mean?” she asked as she threw her hands into the air.

I stood up. My heart was racing. “Whatever it means, I’ll let you know when it’s done. I’m sorry, but that’s as much as I can give you right now. Good night.” I gathered the papers, turned, and walked away from her.

Her laughter stopped me. It was just a soft chortle at first-the kind of feather that can knock you over, though. I turned back again, and something in my expression sent her into a full cackling belly laugh.

“What?” I finally had to ask.

Nana gained control of herself, mostly, and slapped both hands down on the kitchen table. “Well, look who’s back from the dead! Alex Cross .”

IT WAS BUSINESS AS USUAL the next day, or maybe I should say business as unusual. Sampson and I were canvassing the neighborhood around the Kennedy Center that afternoon when Bree called.

“You will not be sorry if you drop whatever you’re doing and come back over here.” She hung up without a hello or good-bye.

“What happened?” Sampson must have seen the confusion on my face.

“Something. That’s all I know. Let’s go.”

We found Bree parked at a computer terminal when we got to the office.

“Please tell me we didn’t come back here to play solitaire,” Sampson said.

“Guess who’s got a blog?” Bree said. “I actually got a call from a reporter on this. She didn’t even know it was the first time I was hearing about it.”

She sat back to make room as we crowded in.

The home page she showed us was both simple and impressive. It had an all-black background with white writing. In the upper-left corner, there was an animated graphic of a television set with what looked like live static on the screen. White block letters that read MY REALITY faded up, then out, then back again, like credits on a TV show. Underneath that, there were menu options for “Channel One,” “Channel Two,” down through “Channel Eight.”

Weblog entries took up the bulk of the page, with the most recent one on top. It was marked for twelve thirty a.m., only fourteen hours prior. The title on it was simply Thanks .

“Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives.”-A. Sachs

Thanks for all the comments. I really like hearing from people who appreciate what I do. I read the negative ones too-just don’t like them as much (grin). So to most of you, I say keep it coming. To the rest, I say get a life.

Some of you have asked why I’m doing this. I am doing it for myself. Let me repeat that. I am doing it for myself. Anyone who says they know what I’ll do next is full of shit ’cause even I don’t know what I’ll do next. Don’t be fooled by the police! They have no clue what to do with me because they have never seen anything like me before. The only thing they have control of is their sound bites. Be skeptical.

I can tell you this much: there is more. If that fact pleases you, I can tell you this much again: you won’t be disappointed.

Keep on living, fuckers.

Bree scrolled further down the page. “The entries go back a ways, but they’re not all this directed. Sometimes he talks about his day. What he had for lunch. It’s a little bit of everything.”

“Does he talk about the murders?” I asked.

“Only indirectly. The entries from those days are all, like, ‘Had a good time tonight’ and ‘Did you see the news?’ ”

“What about these?” Sampson touched the screen where the menu of channel numbers was.

“Oh, you’ll like this.” Bree clicked on Channel One. The little television screen in the corner switched from static over to a grainy still image. I recognized it as one of the phone-camera captures from Matthew Jay Walker’s murder, taken by someone in the audience and already shown on several news broadcasts.

“And then there’s this.” She clicked another one, and an audio file opened. Now the little screen showed a horizontal green line that jumped and spiked with the recorded sound of a woman screaming. I recognized Tess Olsen’s voice right away.

“That’s her,” I said.

“Definitely?” Sampson asked.

“Definitely.” Bree and I said it at the same time. We had watched the videotape of her murder so often, the individual modulations of every scream were familiar, like some sick song we knew by heart.

The recording that now played had to have been made separately, we realized, given that the video was left behind in the apartment. That fact went a long way toward authenticating this site.

“Little handheld recorder in the pocket? Easy.” There was a kind of grudging respect in Sampson’s voice. “It’s all elaborate, but within that, he’s using the fewest possible strokes. Like a big, efficient machine.”

“Otherwise, we’d have his ass in custody,” Bree said. “He knows how good he is.” She grunted in disgust.

This was the admiring/hating phase of the game. His methods were undeniably bold and well executed. On the other hand, you can start to hate a killer, and even yourself a little, for every day that he gets to be free in the world. I think all three of us felt it.

“Well, the good news is that he likes attention,” Bree said.

“I thought that was the bad news,” Sampson said.

“Both.” They looked at me. “He’s going to be out there in the world more, which means that his reactivation time could be a lot quicker. But at some point, his confidence is going to outpace his skill. That’s when he’ll blow it. Has to happen.”

“Because you say so?” Sampson asked me with a grin.

“That’s right,” I said. I wadded up a page and shot it across the room into the garbage can with a metallic swish. “Because I say so.”

THE LAWYER MASON WAINWRIGHT arrived for his meeting with Kyle Craig at four o’clock sharp, as he always did. Kyle insisted that he be punctual. But this visit wasn’t to be like any of the past ones. This would be his final time with Kyle Craig, and that was cause for some sadness but also celebration.