Patterson, James - Alex Cross 3 - Jack and Jill

I got a couple of beers from the fridge, popped them open for the two of us. I needed to talk to Sampson, anyway There hadn't been a free moment all day long.

“She's afraid for the kids' sake. That gets the fur up on her neck. Claws out,” Sampson said, then took a long sip of beer.

“Sharp claws, man.” I finally managed a half-smile in spite of the incredibly bad circumstances and my weariness.

We both listened to the silence of the old house on Fifth Street for a long moment. It was finally punctuated by the familiar dull clanging of the heating pipes. We took pulls on our bottles of ale.

No invasive phone calls came now. Maybe Nana's whistle wasn't such a bad idea.

“How are you and the all-stars doing with the search for the Moore kid?” I asked Sampson. “Anything today? Anything new from the rest of our group? I know our surveillance is breaking down. Not enough manpower.”

Sampson shrugged his broad shoulders, moved in his seat.

His eyes turned hard and dark. "We found traces of makeup in his room. Maybe he used makeup to play the part of an old man.

We will find him, Alex. You think he's the one who called here tonight?"

I spread my hands, then I nodded my head. “That would make sense. He definitely wants special attention, wants to be seen as important, John. Maybe he feels Jack and Jill is taking attention away from him, stealing the spotlight from his show. Maybe he knows I'm working Jack and Jill, and he's angry with me.”

“We'll just have to ask the young cadet,” Sampson said. He smiled a truly malevolent smile, one of his best, or worst, ever.

“Sure wish I was popular like you, Sugar. No freaks call me late at night. Write me mash notes at my house. Nothing like that.”

“They wouldn't dare,” I said. “Nobody's that crazy, not even the Truth School killer.”

We both laughed, a little too loudly Laughter is usually the best and only defense in a really tough murder investigation.

Maybe Jack and Jill had called me at home. Or Kevin Hawkins had called here. Or maybe even Gary Soneji, who was still out there somewhere, waiting to settle his old score with me.

"Technician will be at the house first thing in the morning.

Put a crackerjack hookup on your phone. We'll put a detective in here, too. Until we find the boy wonder anyway. I talked to Rakeem Powell. He's glad to do it."

I nodded. “That's good. Thanks for coming by and being here for Nana.”

Things had taken a turn for the worse. They were threatening me in my own house now, threatening my family Someone was.

The freaks were right at my doorstep.

I couldn't get to sleep after Sampson left that night.

I didn't feel like playing the piano. No music in me for the moment.

I didn't dare call Christine Johnson. I went up and looked in on the kids. Rosie the cat followed me, yawning and stretching.

I watched them, much as Jannie had watched me sleep the other morning. I was afraid for them.

I finally dozed off about three in the morning. There were no more phone calls, thank God.

I slept on the porch with the Glock in my lap. Home, sweet home.

I HEARD THE KIDS squawking and squealing first thing the next morning. They were laughing loudly, and it both raised my spirits and mildly depressed me.

I immediately remembered the situation we were in: the monsters were at our doorstep. They knew where we lived. There were no rules now. Nobody, not even my own family, was safe.

I thought about the Moore boy for a moment or two as I lay on the old sofa on the porch. Strangely, nothing in his past history fit in with the two murders. It just didn't track. I considered the monstrous idea of a thirteen-year-old boy committing purely existential murders. I had a lot of material stored in my head on the subject. I vaguely recalled Andr Gide's Lafcadiok Adventures from grad school. The twisted main character had pushed a stranger from a train just to prove that he was alive.

I glanced at the portable alarm clock beside my head. It was already ten past seven. I could smell Nana's strong coffee wafting through the house. I refused to let myself get down about the lack of progress. There was a saying I kept around for just such occasions. Failure isn't falling down... it's staying down.

I got up. I went to my room, showered, put on some fresh clothes, rumbled back downstairs. I wasn't staying down.

I found my two favorite Martians spiraling around the kitchen, playing some kind of tag game at seven in the morning.

I opened my mouth and did my imitation of the silent scream from Edvard Munch's painting The Shriek.

Jannie laughed out loud. Damon mimed a silent scream of his own. They were glad to see me. We were still best pals, best of friends.

Somebody had called our house last night.

Sumner Moore?

Kevin Hawkins ?

“Morning, Nana,” I said as I poured a cup of steaming coffee from her pot. The best to you each morning and all that. I sipped the coffee and it tasted even more wonderful than it smelled. The woman can cook. She can also talk, think, illuminate, irritate.

“Morning, Alex,” she said, as if nothing bad had happened the night before. Tough as nails. She didn't want to upset the kids, to alarm them in any way. Neither didI.

“Somebody will be by to look at our phone.” I told her what Sampson and I had discussed the night before. “Somebody will be around for a few days, too. A detective. Probably it will be Rakeem Powell. You know Rakeem.”

Nana didn't like that news one bit. "Of course I know Rakeem.

I taught Rakeem in school for heaven's sake. Rakeem has no business here, though. This is our home, Alex. This is so terrible. I just don't think I can stand it... that it's happening here."

“What's wrong with our telephone?” Jannie wanted to know.

“It works,” I told my little girl.

THE TWO MURDER CASES were beginning to feel like a single, relentless nightmare. I couldn't seem to catch my breath anymore. My stomach was in knots and apparently would stay that way for the duration of the investigation. The situation was Kafkaesque, and it was wearing down the entire Metro police force. No one could remember anything like it.

I had decided to keep Damon home with Nana and Detective Rakeem Powell for a few days. Just to be on the safe side. Hopefully, we'd find thirteen-year-old Sumner Moore soon, and half the horror story would be ended.

I continued to suspect either that Sumner Moore wanted to be caught or that he would be soon. The carelessness in both murders indicated it. I hoped that he wouldn't kill another child before we found him.

I considered moving Nana and the kids to one of my aunts', but held back. Rakeem Powell would stay with them at the house.

That seemed enough chaos and disruption to force into their lives. For the moment, anyway.

Besides, I was almost certain Nana wouldn't have moved to one of her sisters' without a huge battle and casualties. Fifth Street was her home. She would rather fight than switch. Occasionally, she had.

I drove to the White House very early in the morning. I sat in a basement office with a mug of coffee and a two-foot-thick stack of classified papers to read and ponder. These were literally hundreds of CIA reports and internal memos on Kevin Hawkins and the other CIA “ghosts.”

I met with Don Hamerman; the attorney general, James Dowd; and Jay Erayer at a little past nine. We used an ornate conference room near the Oval Office in the West Wing. I recalled that the White House had originally been built to intimidate visitors, especially foreign dignitaries. It still had that effect, especially under the current circumstances. The “American mansion” was huge, and every room seemed formal and imposing.

Hamerman was surprisingly subdued at the meeting. “You made quite an impression on the President,” he said. “You made your point with him, too.”