The People vs. Alex Cross (19 page)

McDonald lowered his binoculars, said, “She’s good.”

I thought so too. She looked like the old Jannie out there, especially when she smiled after the starter said, “Set.”

At the pistol crack, my daughter came out of the blocks well, more smooth power than explosive. Her stride lengthened, her legs found a relaxed cadence, and her arms were driving fluidly by the end of the first straight. She ran the curve cleanly and confidently, no sign of foot pain.

Exiting onto the backstretch, Jannie was exactly where she’d been in the previous race, in fourth, just off the shoulder of the girl in third, with Claire Mason leading by two body widths. But there was no move for the front. Jannie stayed right in her groove through the second curve and back up the near straightaway.

“Nice,” her coach said, clicking his stopwatch as she flashed by. “I like that number a whole lot.”

Claire Mason tried to run away with it coming out of the third turn, but the three athletes chasing her, including Jannie, reeled the state champion in down the backstretch. They were running in a tight bunch entering the final, far turn.

“Well done,” McDonald said, watching through his binoculars. “Now gallop for home, girlie-girl.”

Jannie seemed to hear her coach’s words in her head because he’d no sooner said them than she found another gear. She passed the girl in third and was right off the shoulder of the athlete in second coming out of the last curve.

I couldn’t help it; I started yelling, “C’mon, Jannie!”

Damon shouted, “Show them who’s boss, sis!”

My daughter did something then that I hadn’t seen since the foot injury. Her gait became more like bounding, and she blew by the girl in second place and bore down on Claire Mason with thirty yards to go. Mason gave a backward glance, saw Jannie coming, and ran in fear. But even sheer terror wouldn’t have helped the state champ’s cause that day.

With fifteen yards remaining, Jannie caught Mason. She was a full body width ahead at the wire.

JANNIE SLOWED, LAUGHED
, and threw her arms up to the sky. Damon cheered. I whooped and hollered and felt better than I had in days. Poor Claire Mason looked shell-shocked; she was a senior heading to a top track program, and she’d been bested by a junior just back from a long time off for a foot injury.

McDonald clapped when Jannie came up a few moments later.

“That is
exactly
how you do it,” he said, giving her a high five. “The win’s nice. So is beating Mason. But I’m prouder of you for being a disciplined and smart athlete.”

Beaming, Jannie said, “It worked staying just off them. I felt like I had a lot in the tank when it counted.”

“Sometimes I do know what I’m talking about,” McDonald said, and he winked at her. “Enjoy the moment. I’ll talk to you Monday.”

“Leaving already?” Damon asked.

“Noon flight to Dallas,” he said, and he looked to Jannie. “Ice bath ASAP.”

Jannie groaned. “I hate ice baths.”

“But she’ll do it,” I said.

After we’d left Damon to his studies, Jannie was bubbling with excitement as she got into the car and for half the way home. Then she checked her cell phone and got quiet again.

“They giving you a hard time?”

For several moments Jannie did not reply, but then she said, “They’re idiots, Dad. They don’t know you like I know you, so I think it’s time I do some serious de-friending and maybe take a week or two vacation from all social media, even Snapchat and Instagram.”

“Two weeks? I read somewhere that it’s virtually impossible for teenage girls to get off their smartphones.”

“Alert Mark Zuckerberg. I’m going to be the first.”

I laughed. “Good for you.”

“I’m sorry for the way I’ve been acting. I guess I could only see what the trial was doing to
my
life.”

“And I’m sorry you’ve had to suffer for my actions. It’s not fair to you or to your brothers.”

We drove on in silence for a while. “Dad?”

I looked over and saw tears dripping down her cheeks. “What’s the matter, sweetie?”

“I love you, Dad, and I believe in you, but I’m also really scared for you.”

A big ball of emotion surged in my throat. “I love you too, Jannie, and don’t be scared for me. We’re going to be all right.”

But the closer we got to DC and home, the less I believed it.

ALI CROSS HEARD
Jannie come through the front door, and the excitement in her voice and then in Nana Mama’s, but it wasn’t enough to get him up from the desk in his father’s attic office or make him take his eyes off the computer screen showing a YouTube video of his father shooting three people.

Ali had heard about the videos on Facebook and had watched them nearly twenty times by then. The first playing had been the most difficult. He’d jerked back and shut them off when his dad pulled the trigger, killing Virginia Winslow. It reminded him so much of seeing his debate teacher shot during the kidnapping of Gretchen Lindel that he almost got sick.

Deciding not to finish the tape, he almost shut down the browser. But then he remembered Ms. Marley, his dad’s attorney, quoted in the
Washington Post
the day before, saying that there was something wrong with the videos, that they had been altered somehow. And he saw the comments people had posted
on YouTube, most of them saying that Alex Cross was guilty as hell and deserved to spend life in prison or worse.

Ali had fought off the urge to cry reading the posts and forced himself to play the videos to the end, and then again and again, freezing the screen whenever one of the victims’ hands was visible.

No gun. No gun. No gun.

But his dad said they’d all had guns, so he’d watched the videos over and over and over again. It wasn’t until the fifteenth or sixteenth time that Ali noticed that the lighting seemed to change in the moments before each of the victims appeared, going dimmer but not dark enough that you couldn’t see them and then brightening so you could see their empty hands just before the shot.

Ali had looked at those parts of the videos in detail at least three times and could not figure out what the change in lighting meant. He reached for the computer mouse and was about to play the videos yet again when he heard someone climbing the stairs.

Heart pounding, Ali clicked off the browser, revealing a Microsoft Word file that he pretended to be scanning when his dad came in.

“Nana Mama says you’ve been up here all morning,” he said.

“I have a paper due on Monday,” Ali said, still not looking up.

“Really? What’s your topic?”

“Magic,” he said, lifting his head. “Like Harry Houdini magic.”

“The best there ever was,” his dad said. “How’s it going?”

The truth was Ali had finished writing the paper two days before, but he said, “Pretty good. I should be done on time if I work hard.”

“Good for you,” his dad said, looking around at the stacks of boxes that crowded the little office. “I’ve got to do something about this. I can’t move in here half the time.”

“Bree said it’s evidence stuff and not to touch it.”

“Too much evidence stuff,” his dad said, distracted. “Don’t stay up here all day. Go ride your bike at some point, or maybe we can go shoot a few hoops.”

“That’d be good,” Ali said, and he smiled. “Why was Jannie so happy?”

“She won her race, beat the strongest girl in Maryland.”

“Wow,” Ali said. “And no foot pain?”

“None,” his dad said and turned to leave.

“Dad?” Ali called after him. “Do you think real magic exists? That there are people who can make things appear and disappear for real?”

“No,” he said. “It’s all deception, sleight of hand, smoke, light, and mirrors.”

Ali nodded. “I think so too.”

“You want lunch?”

“I’ll come down in a bit,” Ali promised. He watched his dad duck his head going out the door and listened to him drop to the second floor, then the first.

Ali felt a moment of guilt before launching the Internet browser again. He didn’t like lying to his father or directly disobeying him, but someone had to figure out what was wrong with the videos.

He hit Play again and decided not to fast-forward, to watch them all from the beginning. He focused on the middle camera, the north one, looking back across the width of the factory floor with the bottoms of the three spotlights on the roof of the southern alcoves visible. Ali froze the screen and zoomed in.

He’d hoped to see some shadow there behind the spotlights, the suggestion of a silhouette, but he saw none. He hit Play again and noticed a tiny blue pinpoint light flash. And then it was gone.

It took Ali three attempts to freeze the middle video feed on that tiny blue light. He zoomed in on it but couldn’t tell what the light was attached to. Frustrated, he hit Play again. He focused on the third feed, the one showing the length of the factory room, with the spotlights aimed toward the mural.

He zoomed in on the spotlights, but saw no one behind them.

Who was running the lights? And where was that blue pinpoint?
Try as he might, he couldn’t spot it.

“Ali!” Nana Mama yelled up the stairs. “I’ve got your bacon, lettuce, and tomato down here waiting.”

“Coming, Nana,” he cried. He cleared the browser’s history to cover his tracks, then shut down the web page.

Ali got up and headed toward the stairs, only vaguely aware of the stacks of evidence boxes he passed. Indeed, he was thinking so intently about that pinpoint blue light that he barely noticed that the box on the filing cabinet closest to the door was labeled
AUTOPSIES
.

WE WERE FINISHING
up lunch when I heard a knock at our side door.

“Who’s that now?” Nana Mama grumbled. “A damn reporter again?”

“If it is, I’m calling a real cop,” I said, grinning and tousling Ali’s hair because he seemed lost in thought.

I put my dishes on the counter, crossed to the side door, and opened it. A distressed Alden Lindel stood there.

“Mr. Lindel?” I said, stepping out and closing the door.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Cross,” the father of the kidnapped girl from Ali’s school said. “I know you’ve got your own issues, but I didn’t know where else to turn.”

I took a deep breath and then gestured to the basement door.

In my office, Lindel reached into his jacket pocket and came out with another flash drive in a baggie. “This time they hanged Gretchen.”

He dropped into the chair, hid his face in his hands, and sobbed. “God damn it, they hung my daughter, or made it look
that way, and they’re selling tickets to the show on the Internet.”

I flashed on Jannie and felt sick to my stomach. I walked over, put my hand on Lindel’s shoulder, and said, “I can’t imagine what you’re going through.”

He looked up at me with bloodshot eyes. “My wife and I barely talk. I can’t work. My boss has threatened to fire me. Some days Gretchen’s all I think about. And then, just for a while, she slips my mind. I get a little rest, and then something like this shows up in the mailbox. What do they want, Dr. Cross? Why are they doing this?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But you need to take the drive straight to the FBI. I’ve been cut out of the loop because of my trial.”

He continued to look at me, his face wretched. “You can’t help me?”

“I want to,” I said, sitting down across from him and leaning forward, my elbows on my knees, hands clasped. “Mr. Lindel, I want to help find your daughter and the other missing women in the worst way. I really do. But the ugly truth is, given my situation, I’m afraid I’d be more of a hindrance than a help to you. I hope you understand, sir. I’m not much good to you at the moment.”

He didn’t understand, not really. He got up, looking abandoned.

“You were our last chance,” Lindel said, defeated. “But I wish you luck in your trial.”

Feeling helpless, I shook his hand. “Don’t give up. They’re keeping Gretchen alive, which means there is hope you’ll see her again. But the FBI can’t find her if you’re not turning over things like this flash drive.”

He nodded. “I’ll take it straight to their office.”

When Lindel left, I went back into my office and collapsed on the couch. I felt bad, but what choice did I have? I couldn’t have gotten Rawlins or Batra to expedite an analysis of the flash. They thought I was a killer.

My cell phone rang. It was Anita Marley.

“Alex,” she said. “I’ve got bad news. Judge Larch is in the hospital. Possible stroke.”

“What?” I said, shocked. “When?”

“She was taken to GW last night,” Marley said. “They got drugs into her fast, so they’re hopeful, and they’re running more tests.”

I shook my head, seeing little Judge Larch striding up onto the bench in a way that made her seem ten feet tall, larger than life. A stroke?

I said, “What if she can’t go on?”

Anita sighed. “It will be a mistrial.”

I shut my eyes. “And months before any kind of verdict.”

“Let’s wait to hear the diagnosis.”

“I’ve got some bad news too,” I said. “The videos weren’t monkeyed with. At least, according to the metadata.”

There was a pause. “And how do you know that?”

“A well-placed source in the FBI told me last night.”

When Anita spoke again, she was irritated. “And you didn’t think it smart to alert me or Naomi? We’ve lost twelve, maybe fifteen hours of—”

“The news was pretty devastating. I guess I wasn’t thinking straight.”

She sighed and said, “Well, I’m trying. My people are still working on those videos despite what the FBI tells you. And I do have a bit of good news. The saliva tests are done. I’ve
put in a call to an old chemist friend in San Francisco just to make sure I’m interpreting the results correctly, but let’s just say they’re interesting.”

“Can they clear me?”

“Given our inability to impeach the videos, no, it’s not enough. But if I’m right, with luck, we’ll be able to muddy the prosecution’s waters a bit, show there were mitigating circumstances.”