Patterson, James - Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

I couldn't take my eyes off Nana during the checkup. She just sat there, and she seemed like a little girl to me. She never said a word, never complained.

When Kayla was finished, Nana finally spoke up. “Am I still alive? I haven't passed, have I? Like that scary movie with what'shisname Willis.”

“Bruce Willis... Yes, you're still with us, Nana. You're doing beautifully.”

Nana took a deep breath and sighed out loud. “Then I guess tomorrow's the big day. Go in for my catheter ablation, my radio-frequency ablation, whatever it is.”

Dr. Coles nodded. “You'll be in and out of the hospital in a snap. I promise you that.”

Nana narrowed her eyes. “You keep your promises?”

“Always,” said Kayla Coles.

Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

Chapter One Hundred and One

In the early evening, Nana and I took a ride out to Virginia in the old Porsche. She'd asked if we could take the drive, just the two of us. Aunt Tia was home with the kids.

“Remember when you first got this car? We used to take a ride just about every Sunday. I looked forward to it all week,” she said once we were out of Washington and on the highway.

“Car's almost fifteen years old now,” I said.

“Still runs pretty good, though,” Nana said. She patted the dash. “I like old things that work. Long, long time ago, I used to go for a car ride every Sunday with Charles. This was before you came to live with me, Alex. You remember your grandfather?”

I shook my head. “Not as much as I'd like to. Just from the photographs around the, house I know the two of you came to visit in North Carolina when I was little. He was bald and used to wear red suspenders.”

“Oh, those awful, awful suspenders of his. He had a couple dozen pairs. All red.”

She nodded, then Nana seemed to go inside herself for a moment or two. She didn't talk about my grandfather very often. He had died when he was just forty-four. He'd been a teacher, just like Nana, though he taught Math, and she was English. They had met while working at the same school in Southeast.

“Your grandfather was an excellent man, Alex. Loved to dress up and wear a nice hat. I still have most of his hats. You go through the Depression, things we saw, you like to dress up sometimes. Gives you a nice feeling about yourself.”

She looked over at me. “I made a mistake, though, Alex.”

I glanced over at her. “You made a mistake? This is a great shock. I'd better pull over to the side of the road.”

She cackled. “Just one that I can recall. See, I knew how good it could be to fall in love. I really loved Charles. After he died, though, I never tried to find love again. I think I was afraid of failing. Isn't that pathetic, Alex? I was too afraid to go after the best thing I ever found in this life.”

I reached over and patted her shoulder. “Don't talk like you're leaving us.”

“Oh, I'm not. I have a lot of confidence in Doc Kayla. She would tell me if it was time for me to start collecting on all my old debts. Which I plan to do, by the way.”

“So, this is a parable, a lesson?”

Nana shook her head. “Not really. Just an anecdote while we're taking this nice ride in your car. Drive on, young man. Drive on. I'm enjoying this immensely. We should do it more often. How about every Sunday?”

The whole ride out to Virginia and back, we never once talked about Nana's procedure in the hospital the next morning. She obviously didn't want to, and I respected that. But the operation, at her age, scared me as much as any murder case could. No, actually it scared me more.

When we got back to the house I went upstairs and called Jamilla. She was at work but we talked for nearly an hour anyway.

Then I sat down at my computer. For the first time in over a week I pulled up my notes on the Three Blind Mice. There was still one big question I needed to answer if I could. Big if.

Who was behind the three of them?

Who was the real killer?

Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

Chapter One Hundred and Two

I fell asleep at my work desk, woke up around three in the morning. I went down to my bedroom for a couple of hours. The alarm sounded at five.

Nana was scheduled to be at St. Anthony's Hospital at six-thirty. Dr. Coles wanted her to be one of the first operations of the day, while everybody on the staff was fresh and alert. Aunt Tia stayed at the house with little Alex, but I brought Damon and Jannie with me to the hospital.

We sat in the typically antiseptic-looking waiting room, which really started to fill up with people around seven-thirty. Everybody in there looked nervous and concerned and fidgety, but I think we were probably right up there with the worst of the lot.

“How long does the operation take?” Damon wanted to know.

“Not long. Nana might not have gone in first, though. It all depends. It's a simple procedure, Damon. Electrical energy is delivered to the AV node. The electricity is a little like the heat in a microwave. It disconnects the pathway between the atria and the ventricles and will stop the extra impulses causing Nana's irregular heartbeat. Got all that? Don't hold me to it, but that's fairly close to what's happening.”

“Is Nana wide awake while it's happening?” Jannie wanted to know.

“Probably. You know your Nana. They gave her a mild sedative and then local anesthesia.”

“Won't touch her,” Jannie said.

So we talked and waited, and fretted and worried, and it took longer than I thought it should take. I tried not to let my mind wander to bad places. I wanted to stay in touch with the moment.

I conjured up good memories of Nana, and they were a little like prayers. I thought about how much she meant to me, and also to the kids. None of us would be where we were without Nana's unconditional love, her confidence in us, and even her needling irritating as it could be sometimes.

“When is she coming out?” Jannie looked at me. Her beautiful brown eyes were full of uncertainty and fear. It struck me that Nana had really been a mother to all of us. Nana Mama was more mama than nana.

“Is she all right?” Damon asked. “Something's wrong, isn't it? Don't you think this is taking too long?”

Unfortunately, I did. “She's just fine,” I said to the children.

More time passed. Slowly. Finally, I looked up and saw Dr. Coles coming into the waiting room. I took a quick breath and tried not to let the kids see how anxious and nervous I really was.

Then Kayla Coles smiled. What a beautiful, glorious smile that was, the very best I've seen in a long while.

“She's all right?”I asked.

“Aces,”she said. “Your nana is a tough lady. She's asking for you already.”

Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

Chapter One Hundred and Three

We visited with Nana in the recovery room for an hour, then we were asked to leave. She needed to rest up.

I dropped the kids off at school around eleven that morning. Then I went home to do a little more scud work in my office.

I was looking into something for Ron Burns, a strange but intriguing case involving convicted sex-offenders. In return he'd gotten me some US Army records that I wanted to check out. Some of it had come off AC IRS and RISS, but most had come straight from the Pentagon. One of the subjects was the Three Blind Mice.

Who was the real killer? Who gave orders to Thomas Starkey? Who sanctioned the murders?

I kept thinking about Nana, and how tough she was, and how much I would have missed her if something had gone wrong that morning. The terrible, guilt-ridden fantasy kept running through my head that I was going to get a call from Kayla Coles and she would say, I'm sorry, Nana passed away. We don't know what went wrong. I'm so sorry.