Джеймс Паттерсон - Detective Cross

I took her threat seriously. From her records, I knew some of the damage she’d done to herself already. Kate’s teeth were stained from drug abuse. Her dirty blond hair was as thin and brittle as straw, and she wore a long-sleeve Electric Daisy Carnival T-shirt to hide evidence of cutting.

“Is that when it started?” I asked. “When you were nine?”

Kate wiped at her eyes furiously. “You know, I’m not talking about it anymore. Digging around back there never helps. Just pushes me to pull the plug on sobriety, on everything, sooner.”

I set my notepad aside, sat forward with my palms up and said, “I’m just trying to understand your history clearly, Kate.”

She crossed her arms. “And I’m just trying to hang on, Doc. The court ordered me here as a term of my probation, otherwise I gotta tell you, I’d be a no-show.”

This was our second session together. The first hadn’t gone much better.

For a few moments I studied her slouched posture and the way she used her thumbnail to dig at the raw cuticles around her fingers, and I knew I was going to have to change the dynamic in the room if I was to get through to her.

There was another seat beside Kate I usually reserved for couples therapy, but I got up and sat in it so that I was roughly her mirror image, side by side. I let that physical change settle in her. At first she seemed threatened, shifting away from me. I said nothing and waited until she lifted her head to look at me.

“What do you want?”

“To help, if I can. To do that I have to see the world the way you see it.”

“So, what, you sit next to me and expect to see the world the way I do?”

I ignored the caustic tone, and said, “I sit next to you rather than confront you, and maybe you give me a glimpse of your world.”

Kate sat back, looked away from me, and said nothing for ten, then fifteen deep, ragged breaths.

“Yes, nine,” she said at last. “Just before my tenth birthday.”

“You knew him?”

“My Uncle Bert, my mom’s sister’s husband,” she said. “I had to go live with them after my mom died.”

“That’s brutal. I’m sorry to hear that. You must have been terrified, betrayed by someone you trusted.”

Kate looked at me and spoke bitterly. “It wasn’t a betrayal. It was a robbery, armed robbery. None of that slow ‘grooming’ you hear about. Six months after I got there, my Aunt Meg went to visit friends for the weekend. Uncle Bert got drunk and came into my bedroom carrying a hunting knife and a bottle. He threatened me with the knife, told me he’d cut my throat if I ever said a thing. Then he pinned me facedown and...”

I could see it in my head and felt sickened. “You tell anyone?”

“Who would believe me? Uncle Bert just so happened to be the sheriff. Aunt Meg idolized him, the piece of shit.”

“How long did the abuse go on?”

“Until I ran away. Sixteen.”

“Your aunt never suspected?”

Kate shrugged and finally looked over at me. “When I was a little, little girl, I loved to sing with my mom in the church choir. My aunt was in a choir, too, and until Uncle Bert came into my room, singing with her was the only thing that made me happy. I could forget things, become part of something.”

She was blinking, staring off now, and I saw the muscles in her neck constrict.

“And after Uncle Bert?”

Kate cleared her throat, said in a soft rasp, “I never sang in tune again. Just couldn’t hold a note for the life of me. Aunt Meg could never figure that one out.”

“She never knew?”

“She was a good soul in her way. She didn’t deserve to know.”

“You weren’t at fault, you know,” I said. “You didn’t cause the abuse.”

Kate looked over at me angrily. “But I could have stopped it, Dr. Cross. I could have done what I wanted to do: snatch that Buck knife off the nightstand when he was done with me and lying there all drowsy drunk. I could have sunk the knife in his chest, but I didn’t. I tried, but I just couldn’t do it.”

Kate broke down then, and sobbed. “What kind of coward was I?”

When Kate Williams left my office twenty minutes later, I was wondering if my tactics had done any good. She’d opened up, and that was positive. But right after she called herself a coward, she clammed up tight again, said she hated thinking about those times — they made her cravings for the pipe and the bottle more intense.

“See you at our next appointment?” I asked before she went out the basement door.

Kate hesitated, but then nodded. “Got no choice, right?”

“Judge wants it, but I hope you come to want it. This is a safe place, Kate, no judgments. Opinion only if you ask for it.”

Her eyes roamed to my face, saw I was sincere. “Okay then, next time.”

I’d no sooner shut the door than my cell phone buzzed in my office. I ran and grabbed it on the fourth buzz, seeing Bree was calling for a second time.

“You already showered and off to work?” I said.

“I never made it home,” she said in a strained voice. “You haven’t heard?”

“No. I’ve been in a session the past—”

“Someone put two bombs on the National Mall, Alex. Michaels put me in command up on the Washington Monument where I could see everything. We got one neutralized before it exploded at 8:26. But I made a decision to send a bomb team to neutralize the second IED versus checking it first with a robot. When they were close, at 8:23, it went off. They’re okay because of the mats and the suits, but it’s a wonder they weren’t killed.”

“Jesus,” I said. “How are you?”

“Shaken,” she said. “I haven’t sent men in to get bombed before.”

I winced. “I can’t imagine, baby. What’s Michaels saying?”

“He has my back. Denton recommended the attempt. We had seven minutes, so I accepted her recommendation.”

“How did you know you had seven minutes?”

“The bomber told me. He called my cell to warn me that an IED was supposed to go off at 8:26 a.m.”

“Why you?”

“No idea. But he had my private number.”

“No suspects?”

“We have a suspect in custody,” she said, and told me about a man who’d waded into the reflecting pool before dismantling his pistol. “We want you to come in and talk to him ASAP.”

“Uh, I’m suspended pending trial.”

“Mahoney’s taken the lead. He wants you there, and Michaels will never know.”

“Okay,” I said uncertainly. “But I’m stacked with patients until two.”

There was a pause before Bree said, “Two bombs on the National Mall, Alex?”

Even though she wasn’t there with me, I held up my free hand in surrender. “You’re right. No argument. Where do you want me and when?”

“FBI building, ASAP. Bring me a change of clothes?”

“Absolutely,” I said, grabbing a pen to scribble notes on what she wanted.

So much for my suspension.

I raced upstairs, told Nana Mama I wouldn’t be picking up my younger son, Ali, after school, got Bree’s clothes and basic toiletries in an overnight bag, and called a car through Uber that arrived in just a few minutes. The driver said traffic was finally starting to move, as the police opened up the roads. I spent most of the ride calling patients to cancel appointments.

When I finished, I closed my eyes and shifted my thinking from the call of psychotherapy back to the craft of investigation, a craft that until five months before had consumed most of my adult life in six years with the Bureau’s Behavioral Science Unit, and fourteen on and off with DC Metro’s major cases team.

When I opened my eyes, it felt like I’d put on an old and familiar set of clothes and picked up tools that I could have used blindfolded. I have to admit, I felt full of renewed purpose when we pulled up in front of the J. Edgar Hoover Building.