Джеймс Паттерсон - Cross the Line

The detective advanced the frames so the windshield of the car and then the tinted driver-side window disappeared. When he stopped the film again, we had a side-angle view through the open rear window.

We could see the silhouette of a person with a wild mop of hair sitting in the middle of the backseat.

“Okay?” I said.

Lincoln advanced the film two frames. Here, the shadows were different. Three-quarters of the face was revealed.

I stared for a second and then said, “Raggedy Ann?”

“That was our reaction,” Detective O’Donnell said. “At first we thought we had the wrong car and the cap on the wind-shield was just chance.”

Lincoln said, “But the more we thought about it, the more we became convinced that there wasn’t a third person in the backseat. A scarecrow was sitting there. See the shadows here and here? That’s the shoulders of a dark coat. See the lapels?”

“I get it,” I said. “Why’s Raggedy Ann wearing a coat?”

“Exactly,” Lincoln said.

Rubbing my chin, I said, “I agree that’s our shooter’s car. Have pictures of it at the best angles sent to every officer on the force.”

“On it,” Lincoln said, and he started typing.

Bree fought off a yawn. I fought off a yawn too and then nodded at O’Donnell, who said, “I started going through Chief McGrath’s work files. Right away, I found a threatening e-mail.”

He typed on his computer, and the screen changed from the close-up of the Raggedy Ann doll to a July 3 e-mail to McGrath from TL.

You push too hard, we gonna push right back. Only it’s gonna be lethal this time, Chief McG.

“TL?” Sampson said. “That Thao Le?”

“Has to be,” Bree said, sitting forward.

Muller said, “I thought Le got convicted in Prince George’s last year.”

“Got off on appeal four months ago,” O’Donnell said, showing us an investigative file he’d found in McGrath’s desk. “Tommy had evidently been running a solo investigation into Le’s activities since his release.”

“What did he find?” Bree asked.

“That Le was back in the game. Associating with known criminals and members of his old gang. Drugs. Women. Loan-sharking. Extortion.”

“Why wouldn’t Tommy have told someone?” Sampson asked.

“Nailing Le was personal with Tommy,” O’Donnell said. “He even wrote about it. He thought Le was the one who’d planted the evidence in Terry Howard’s case, and even though Terry hated him, Tommy was out to prove it.”

“So maybe Tommy got close enough to spook Le into making good on his threat,” Bree said.

“Where’s Le now?” I asked.

“No clue yet,” O’Donnell said. “But the last two times Le was picked up on weapons charges, he was carrying a forty-five-caliber Remington 1911.”

I was up before dawn, startled awake by a dream where a pistol-packing Raggedy Ann drove a motorcycle down Rock Creek Parkway, which was littered with fifty-dollar bills. The cash almost covered the corpses of Edita Kravic and Tommy McGrath.

I eased from bed, letting Bree sleep. We’d gotten home after midnight, wolfed down leftovers from the fridge, and gone straight to sleep.

After a shower, I went downstairs to find my ninety-one-year-old grandmother making breakfast.

“You’re up kind of early, Nana Mama,” I said, kissing her on the cheek.

“Big day ahead for you,” she said. “I wanted to make sure it starts right.”

“We appreciate it,” I said. I poured myself some coffee and got the papers from the front porch.

The murder of Tommy McGrath and Edita Kravic led the front page of both the Washington Post and the Washington Times . Chief Michaels was quoted as saying DC Metro had lost one of its best men and that the department would be relentless in its pursuit of the killers. He announced the formation of an elite task force to investigate the murders, and he named me as team leader.

“Pop?”

I glanced up from the papers to see my oldest child, Damon, standing there, looking excited.

I smiled, asked, “You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

“Sit down there and Nana will give you one last proper breakfast.”

Damon’s six foot five and towers over my grandmother. He scooped her up and gave her a kiss, which caused her to shriek with laughter.

“What was that for, young man?” she demanded, looking ruffled when he set her down.

“Just because,” Damon said. “Can I get three eggs this morning?”

She sniffed. “I suppose I can manage it.”

“Two for me,” said my fifteen-year-old daughter, Jannie, who was still in her pajamas and rubbing her eyes when she came in. “I’ll make my own shake.”

Ali, almost eight and my youngest, ran in after her and said, “I want French toast.”

“No sugar-bombing in my kitchen,” Nana Mama said. “Eggs. Protein. Good for your brain.”

“So’s French toast.”

I looked at him, said, “You’ll never win that one.”

Ali acted like the weight of the world was on him. “Can I get two sunny-side up with regular toast?”

“That you can have,” my grandmother said.

Bree joined soon after. It was a nice treat, all of us sharing breakfast together on a weekday. All too soon, though, we were out in front of the house helping Damon load the last of his things into our car.

“That’s it?” I said, shaking my head. “Really not that much.”

“That surprises you?” Damon asked.

“I guess it does,” I said. “Back when I left for school, I had twice the amount of stuff, or maybe my stuff was just bigger. That’s it — there’s no huge stereo system anymore. Everything’s gotten smaller.”

“That’s a news flash, Alex,” my grandmother said impatiently, and she rapped her cane on the sidewalk. “Now, Damon, you come over here and give your Nana Mama some love before you go, but do not pick me up again. You’ll break my back.”

Damon smirked before bending over and kissing Nana Mama good-bye.

“I’m so proud of you,” she said, her eyes getting glassy. “You are a gentleman and a scholar.”

Coming from my grandmother, a retired English teacher and former high school vice principal, that was high praise.

Damon beamed, said, “That’s because you taught me how to study.”

“You learned it and ran with it,” she said. “Give yourself some credit.”

He kissed her on the cheek again and then turned to Jannie. “You keep killing it, you hear?”

“That’s the plan,” she said, and hugged him. “You’ll come to the invitational, right?”

Damon said, “Wouldn’t miss out on watching the fastest woman on earth.”

“Not yet,” Jannie said, grinning.

“Dream it, own it, give it time,” Damon said, and then he picked up Ali, who was looking morose. “Why the face, little man?”

Ali shrugged, said, “You’re going away. Again.”

“I’ll be an hour away,” Damon said. “Not six hours, like when I was up at Kraft, so I’ll be home to see you a whole lot more.”

Ali perked up. “Promise?”

“You know I need my Ali Cross fix,” Damon said, and he tickled Ali until he howled with laughter.

Then he hugged Bree, told her to take care of me.

“Ready?” I asked.

“Whole new life waiting,” Damon said, and even though he was trying to remain cool, I could see he was vibrating with emotion as we drove away.

We took 295 heading north toward Baltimore and drove in a pleasant quiet. Part of me wanted to be a helicopter parent, remind him to do this or do that, tell him how to handle one academic crisis or another.

But Damon had left home at sixteen to chase his dreams. He knew how to take care of himself already, and that made me both proud and sad. My job as a parent had shrunk to the role of adviser, but once upon a time, I had been all he had.