James Patterson - Double Cross

We waited until Wally Walewski and his braid were gone before we discussed anything further about our own prep. Check .

“Where are our people now?” I asked Bree. What the Unhinged folks didn’t know was that we had an undercover team working the event. Baltimore PD had provided us with four local detectives who were passing as conference attendees. We had two of our own people from DC embedded in the hotel staff too.

Bree glanced over the program. “Right now, the Baltimore boys are in either a fingerprinting seminar or, let’s see, a ‘serial-killer breakout session,’ whatever the hell that is. Later tonight, we’ll have them here … and here .”

She pointed to either side of the audience area. “Vince and Chesney will float. And, Sampson, I think you and I should stay together. That okay?”

“Sounds good to me. I don’t want to be alone here, anyway.”

The rest of Baltimore PD was on standby, with at least one extra cruiser in the neighborhood of the hotel at all times. Hotel security had been briefed and wouldn’t be doing anything out of the ordinary, with any luck keeping out of our way if and when crunch time came.

This was meant to be a quiet operation, a little desperate for sure, maybe nothing more than information gathering. But if the killer did show up, we’d be ready to grab him. Stranger things had happened. Hell, stranger things had happened to me.

Besides, we already knew DCAK was surveilling us.

“THIS IS MY AUDIENCE,” I began, and got some easy laughs from the captive crowd of oddballs stretched across the auditorium. I went on to talk about the known homicides for DCAK but passed on only information we’d already released to the press. Then I did a little damage control on the copycat theories and showed some crime-scene photos that the audience seemed to appreciate. I also gave what the Unhinged people had billed as an “insider’s look” at our suspect profile. It was something I could do in my sleep by now and probably had. If nothing else, details from my talk would wind up on the Internet and possibly get to somebody who knew something about the killer.

“This is a nearly psychotic man with a deep-seated need for larger-than-life approval,” I told the packed room.

“The expression of this need eclipses everything else in his world to an extreme, sociopathic degree. When he gets up in the morning, if he sleeps at all, he has no free choice except to seek another audience, to plot and obsess on another murder, and this ritual of his may well escalate.”

I leaned forward on the podium, checking out as many faces as I could in the crowd. It was stunning to me how rapt and attentive they were.

“What this maniac doesn’t realize yet-what I think he can’t permit himself to admit-is that he’ll never get what he’s looking for. And that’s what will catch up with him. If we don’t bring him down first, he’ll do it to himself. He’s moving toward self-destruction, toward facilitating his own capture, and he can’t help himself.”

Everything I said was basically true-just a little slanted. If the killer happened to be in the audience, I wanted to make him as uncomfortable as I possibly could. Actually, I wanted to make him sweat like a pig on a spit.

I spotted a few in the crowd who had a physical resemblance to DCAK, based on what we knew: tall, powerfully built, male. But no one had given me any reason to make a move, or to signal Bree and Sampson. I was concerned that our little plan was a bust, though not all that surprised. I’d just about run out of things to say at the podium-and no one had tried to take my audience away, to upstage me at the “crime convention.”

Are you watching me, you bastard?

Probably not.

You’re too smart, aren’t you? You’re much smarter than we are.

AFTER THE SPEECH, a brief Q amp;A, and some unexpectedly warm applause, I was installed by Wally Walewski behind a wobbly card table in the reception area. Check .

Anyone who wanted to could meet me here, get a book signed, that kind of thing. For the first twenty minutes, I shook hands, made pleasant small talk, and signed everything from books to the palm of one woman’s hand. Almost everybody was nice. Polite too. As far as I could tell, not a serial killer in the bunch.

The only request I refused was a T-shirt that said DCAK on the front and Keep on living, fuckers across the back.

“How’s it going over there?” I finally heard through my acoustic tube earpiece.

I looked down the line, where Bree was standing with dozens of fans who were still waiting patiently, chatting with one another. “Quiet so far,” I said. “Strange but nice enough people. Unfortunately.”

Bree turned her back away from the line and spoke low. “That sucks. Okay, then… Sampson, I’m going to take another quick swing through the crowd. I’ll check back in with you when we’re at the front door. Hopefully, somebody here isn’t all that nice.”

I heard John’s reply in my ear. “Sounds good to me. Alex, you riding home with us? Or hoping to get lucky with one of your fans?” I just smiled at the next person in line.

“I’ll be back soon,” Bree said, and disappeared into the crowd. “You be good, now.”

“I’ll try my best.”

A few minutes later, as I was signing a book, I felt a presence behind me.

When I looked up, though, no one was there. But I was sure someone had been.

“She left you a note.”

The woman across the table from me pointed to a piece of paper at my elbow. I unfolded it and saw a printout from a Web page.

Black background, bold white letters. I read the message.

Guess again, smart guy. I’m not psychotic! And I’m not dumb!

See you back in DC, where it’s all happening.

In fact, you’re missing the show.

WHAT SHOW AM I MISSING? I wondered. I jumped up from the table, my pulse already racing.

“Who left this?” I asked the people in line. “Did anybody see who put this note down here?”

The woman whose book I’d just signed pointed back into the crowd. “She went thatta way, Sheriff!”

“What did she look like?” I asked. “You sure it was a woman?”

“Um… straight dark hair. Black shirt. Jeans. I think? Like everybody else here. Looked female.”

“And glasses!” someone else said. “She had a blue back-pack!”

“Alex”-Bree came back in my ear-“what’s going on over there? Did something just happen? What the hell happened?”

“Bree, we’re looking for a woman . Definitely a female. Black shirt, jeans, glasses, a blue backpack. I need you and Sampson to cover the exits. Let Baltimore PD know what’s going on. She left me a note from DCAK.”

“We’re on it!”

A ripple of excitement spread inside the crowd as I began to push my way through a tightening knot of people. Not everyone wanted to let me pass, either. Several of them closed in on me, trying to find out what was happening, where I was going, asking me questions I didn’t have time to answer at the moment.

I waved them off as best I could. “This isn’t a game now! Anyone see a woman in a black shirt and glasses go this way?”

A kid smelling of marijuana giggled out a response. “Man, that’s half the people here.”

The crowd shifted again, and I thought that I saw her-at the far end of the lobby. I moved the kid and a few others out of my way. “Let me through here!”

“Bree!” I was running now. “I can see her. She’s tall. White. Carrying the blue backpack.”