James Patterson - Kill Alex Cross

“What about the father?” I said. “Other family? You check any of that?”

“Nothing on the school records. I think she really is alone,” Bree said.

“Damon’s room is just sitting empty up there. Besides, I already put clean sheets on the bed,” Nana said. Like that settled everything. The fact that I owned this house didn’t seem to count for much right now. Not enough, anyway.

“All right,” I said. “One night. But first thing tomorrow, Bree’s taking her over to CFS.”

“We’ll see,” Nana said.

“And I’m putting a lock on Damon’s door.”

“You most certainly are not!” she told me. “You can sleep out in the hall if you like. Now if you’ll excuse me, we’ve got a guest in the kitchen.”

I looked at Bree again, but her expression said it all: If you can’t budge Nana, how do you expect me to?

“One night,” I said again.

“We’ll see,” Nana said.

Bree took a little nap after dinner before she went to her shift at work. I snuggled with her until she was asleep, then I went up in the attic to work some myself.

I must have fallen asleep at my desk and when I woke up Bree was gone and everyone else was sleeping. I checked on Ava and she was out for the count. Then I went to bed — alone.

I hated leaving everything so undone the next morning, but it wasn’t exactly a call-in-sick kind of day. I got up at four thirty and made it out to Langley by six.

The morning was a beauty, a burst of burnt orange on the horizon, but I wasn’t going to see much more of it, was I?

The truth was, I didn’t want to be anchored at LX1. Cops are creatures of the field. It’s where we do our best work. I wanted to be out there chasing leads and working the case at street level. That’s where I might actually do some good.

Then about halfway through the day, I got my wish. Kind of.

It was just after one o’clock. Peter Lindley came out of his makeshift office at the command center and waved to get my attention. Half a dozen agents and supervisors were coming out behind him, and he motioned me over. I was next.

Mahoney caught my eye as I crossed the floor. I shrugged back. I had no idea what this was about. He gave me the old pinkie and thumb to his ear — call me later — and I nodded that I would. Ned will never admit it, but he hates to be left out of anything. He’s also a lot more ambitious than people might think.

“Come in,” Lindley told me. “And close the door behind you, please.”

The space was normally a conference room, but most of the chairs had been taken out. Lindley’s desk was just an eight-foot folding table in the middle of the room. He had a triple monitor set up, just like everyone else, and half a dozen phones. One of those was in his hand right now. He was also holding a small yellow Post-it note.

“As soon as I have you, I’m supposed to call Nina Friedman at the White House,” he said, wagging the Post-it. “Do you know who that is?”

“No idea,” I said. “Should I?”

“Regina Coyle’s deputy chief of staff,” Lindley said. “What’s going on, Alex? Why is the First Lady’s office looking for you? Is there something I need to know about?”

I couldn’t tell if Lindley was pissed off, overcaffeinated, or just trying to be thorough. Maybe he didn’t like feeling left out, the same as Ned Mahoney.

“Peter, I don’t know what to tell you,” I said. “I’m guessing this must have something to do with the kidnapping. Why don’t you give that number a call and we’ll both find out?”

He glared at me over the top of his half-frames like I was being coy or something. But he went ahead and dialed the number.

As soon as I took the phone from him, a woman’s voice was there.

“Detective Cross?”

“Speaking,” I said. “How can I help, Ms. Friedman?”

“I’m calling from the Office of the First Lady, here in the East Wing,” she said, unnecessarily. There was a rote kind of formality to her voice. “Are you available for a meeting with Mrs. Coyle?”

Even the question was a formality. Was I available for a meeting with the First Lady of the United States?

“Of course,” I said. “I could be there in about forty-five minutes.”

“Very good. I’ll have your name at the East Appointment Gate,” she said crisply. “I can meet you at the top of the drive, under the porte cochere.”

And out of sight of the press, if I was reading her correctly. This meeting wasn’t a secret, but discretion seemed to be the m.o.

When I hung up, Lindley was still staring at me. Two of his other phones were ringing, but he ignored them, waiting for an explanation.

“Well?” he said.

I shrugged. “I’m going to need some coverage on the desk.”

I didn’t really care if he thought I was tap-dancing or not. I had a meeting to get to.

At the White House, there was all the expected, overt security — ID check and magnetometer at the East Gate; stepped-up Secret Service presence; Capitol Police everywhere. And then there was everything I couldn’t see. I wondered how many surveillance cameras and maybe even rifle sites were on me as I walked up the curved drive to the East Wing’s main entrance.

My only regret was that Sampson wasn’t here with me to see this. And Bree. And maybe Nana and the kids. A quick photo op with everybody?

Nina Friedman was waiting on the front steps as promised. She was just as efficient in person, juggling her BlackBerry to shake my hand even as we turned to head inside.

“Thank you for coming. Won’t you please follow me?” she said. That was it. There was no briefing, no explanation.

Once I cleared the security desk and another magnetometer in the entry hall, I expected to be taken to a conference room, or maybe up to the First Lady’s offices on the second floor.

But it quickly became clear that wasn’t going to happen. Ms. Friedman walked me straight through the East Wing lobby and out the other side.

I kept my mouth shut as we passed from one building to the next, down the long East Colonnade with its view of the Kennedy Garden, and into the ground floor of the White House itself.

It made sense, now that I thought about it. Secret Service was probably restricting Mrs. Coyle’s movement as much as possible. Her office time would have been kept to a minimum, at best.

They stopped us for another ID check at the base of the main stairs. Then again on the first-floor landing before we could continue up to the residence. By the time we got to the stair landing on the second floor, the agents seemed to be expecting us. They only nodded at Ms. Friedman as we passed.

The museum quality of the lower levels had given way to something more like a home up here. There was plush blue and gold carpeting, a baby grand piano, several built-in bookcases, with hardbacks that looked like someone had actually read them.

I’m not so jaded that I wasn’t tripping out a little on where I was, either. It was impossible to be there and not think about all the presidents and First Ladies who had walked through these very rooms for the last two hundred years — all the way back to John Adams.

I guess the word for what I felt is humbled .

The hall narrowed and then narrowed again through a deep arch that opened to a sunny sitting room on the other side.

Mrs. Coyle was there with two female aides. To my right was the Lincoln Bedroom. This was just shy of surreal. I was definitely in the loop now.

The First Lady’s deputy chief of staff started the introductions.

“Mrs. Coyle, this is—”

“Detective Cross. Yes, of course.”

As Regina Coyle came over to shake my hand, I could see her eyes were still red from whenever she’d last cried. Probably not long ago.