James Patterson - Kill Alex Cross

“Get off me!” she screamed, scrambling to get away. “Help! Somebody call the damn po-lice!”

Bree’s badge was already out and in the girl’s face. The Glock, she left in its holster.

“I am the damn police, little girl. Now turn around! You knocked down the wrong grandmother.”

She put the girl up against the wall of a corner Exxon and gave her the full treatment. There was nothing down her sides, nothing in the hoodie’s pouch when she squeezed it. But then she felt something in the front right pocket of the shorts.

“Is that a credit card?”

“Yeah,” the girl said over her shoulder. “My mama’s card, okay? We done here?”

Bree stepped back, but not more than arm’s length. “Show me,” she said.

“Bite me,” the girl snapped. “I don’t gotta.”

“You know what? Screw it.”

She grabbed the young suspect by the arm and reached into the pocket herself. So much for the Fourth Amendment. It was too hot for this nonsense.

Sure enough, she pulled out a sweaty wad of three twenties and a familiar-looking Visa card. The name embossed across the front was Regina Cross.

“Your mama’s, huh?”

“All right, all right!” The girl didn’t miss a beat. “Some kid down the street gave it to me. I swear to Jesus Our Lord and Saviour! Right over there!” She pointed back toward the square.

Bree didn’t take the bait. “Let’s go,” she said, and started walking.

The mouthy little con artist didn’t have any choice but to move her feet and keep up. “What’re you doing? Where we going?” she said. “You can’t arrest me, I’m just a damn kid!”

“I’m not arresting you,” Bree said. “You’re going to show me where you dropped that purse. Then you’re coming down the street to apologize for what you did. And I suggest you watch your mouth when you do.”

Nana got up off the couch as Bree came in with their mugger in tow. She seemed to want to make a point of meeting them in the front hall on her own two feet.

“Oh now, see that?” she said, looking the girl up and down. “I’m a little embarrassed. I told my granddaughter-in-law here that you were something scary.” She pointed a crooked finger at the dusty ball cap on the girl’s head. “And you need to take that off inside the house. It’s only polite.”

The girl squinted back. “You joking, right?” she said, but Bree snatched the hat off for her.

The hair underneath looked like baby dreds at first, but it wasn’t quite that. It was regular braids that had been chopped off at some point. Maybe to look more like a boy out on the streets, Bree thought. In the close quarters of the front hall, it was obvious this one hadn’t known a shower in a long time either.

“What’s your name?” Nana asked.

The girl thrust the tan leather purse out at her. “I’m sorry, okay?” she said, not sounding very sorry at all.

Nana let the bag hang there between them. “I didn’t ask if you were sorry. I asked what your name was.”

“Ava,” she grunted out. Then she set the purse on the newel post and looked at Bree. “I said I was sorry, didn’t I? Can I go now?”

But Nana wasn’t done. She still had the floor. “Tell me something, Ava, and that’s a beautiful name, by the way. What was the first thing you were going to buy with my money?”

“Huh?”

“ Huh is not a word. What I want you to tell me is why you needed to take my purse. I got knocked down for it. I think I deserve to know why.”

Bree was almost starting to feel sorry for the girl now. Ava’s face was like a stone mask, but one tear had escaped down each cheek. She scrubbed them off with her sleeve right away.

“I dunno,” she finally said.

“Well, if you don’t know, then you can’t go,” Nana told her.

The girl’s jaw dropped open. “Say what?”

“That’s what I used to tell my students,” Nana said. “I was a teacher, see, about a hundred years ago, maybe more than that. It seems to me you need some time to come up with a better answer.”

The tears were coming faster now. “I never done anything like this before!” Ava blurted. “I swear!”

“That much I can believe. She was just hanging out in the square when I found her,” Bree said.

Nana turned away from both of them and headed toward the kitchen.

“Come on, Ava. I’m going to make some tea with milk. And from the look of you, I don’t suppose you’d mind a sandwich.”

Ava didn’t move, but Bree noticed she wasn’t angling for the front door anymore, either.

“I don’t drink tea,” she said sullenly.

“You do if I make it!” Nana said, and she disappeared on the other side of the swinging kitchen door.

If Bree hadn’t called to give me the lowdown, I would have been caught completely off guard. Apparently, Nana had taken in a stray that afternoon, and the girl was still there when I got home after a long day of bureaucratic nonsense.

I could hear everyone talking — and laughing — as I came onto the back porch, but they all went still when I stepped into the kitchen. It was like something out of an old Wild West movie.

Jannie and Ali were at the table with the other girl, whose name was Ava. The kids all had plates of lasagna in front of them, but Ava was the only one eating right now. In the silence, I could hear the dryer running downstairs, and I recognized the old Bob Marley T-shirt she was wearing. It was something Damon had left behind when he went away to boarding school.

“Alex, this is Ava,” Nana told me. Despite the bandages, my grandmother didn’t look too much the worse for wear and tear. In fact, she looked a little smug.

“Hi, Ava,” I said.

“Hello.”

Ava didn’t look up and kept eating with her elbows jutted out on either side, like she expected someone to take her plate away at any second.

Jannie and Ali both sat up tall like a couple of meerkats, watching to see what I’d do next. I wasn’t quite sure myself.

“Nana, could I speak with you in the living room?” I finally said.

“I’m an old woman, Alex.”

“Now, please?”

I held the door for her and we walked to the far end of the house before either of us spoke. Then she jumped in first.

“The girl’s got nowhere to go,” she said. “She just needs a place to sleep where she doesn’t have to keep one eye open all the time.”

I ran my hand over my head, trying to gather some patience at the end of this very long day. “That’s what Child and Family Services is for,” I said.

“Why? So they can put her in the warehouse? ” Nana said, and pointed up at me. “That’s right, I know what they call it down at the police department, so don’t even try that on me, mister.”

I couldn’t argue that point. The temporary holding facility where Ava would probably land was, in fact, pretty bleak, and it was called “the warehouse.”

“The poor thing’s been on the street for a month,” Nana added.

“So she says.”

“Look at her! She’s no bigger than my little finger. I don’t need a polygraph to tell me no one’s been looking after that child. Do you?”

Bree had wandered out behind us. She’d been playing Switzerland so far, but she spoke up now.

“For what it’s worth, Alex, her story checks out. The mother’s name she gave us is Olivia Williams. There was an Olivia Williams who died of a heroin overdose, DOA, at Washington Hospital on August tenth. Also, Kramer Middle School had an Ava Williams enrolled last year, but she hasn’t shown up for seventh grade.”

Nana gave me a told-you-so kind of glare. I could feel myself losing ground already.