Along Came a Spider (Alex Cross #1)(23)

Jezzie Flanagan had gotten good at forgetting over the past few years, though—avoiding pain at all costs. It was dumb to be in pain, if you could avoid it.

Of course, that also meant avoiding close relationships, avoiding even the proximity of love, avoiding most of the natural range of human emotions. Fair enough. It might be an acceptable trade-off. She’d found that she could survive without love in her life. It sounded terrible, but it was the truth.

Yes, for the moment, especially the present moment, the trade-off was well worth it, Jezzie thought. It helped get her through each day and night of the crisis. It got her through until the cocktail hour, anyway.

She coped okay. She had all the right tools for survival. If she could make it as a woman cop, she could make it at anything. The other agents in the Service said she had cojones. It was their idea of a compliment, so Jezzie took it as one. Besides, they were spot on—she did have brass cojones. And the times that she didn’t, she was smart enough to fake it.

At one o’clock in the morning, Jezzie Flanagan had to take the BMW bike for a ride; she had to get out of the suffocating, tiny apartment in Arlington.

Had to, had to, had to.

Her mother must have heard the door opening out to the hallway. She called to Jezzie from her bedroom, maybe right out of her sleep.

“Jezzie, where are you going so late? Jezzie? Jezzie, is that you?”

“Just out, Mother.” Christmas shopping at the mall, a cynical line bounced against the walls of her head. As usual, she kept it inside. She wished Christmas would go away. She dreaded the next day.

Then she was gone into the night on the BMW K-1—either escaping from, or chasing after, her personal nightmares, her devils.

It was Christmas. Had Michael Goldberg died for our sins? Was that what this was about? she thought.

She refused to let herself feel all the guilt. It was Christmas, and Christ had already died for everyone’s sins. Even Jezzie Flanagan’s sins. She was feeling a little crazy. No, she was feeling a lot crazy, but she could take control. Always take control. That’s what she would do now.

She sang “Winter Wonderland”—at a hundred and ten miles an hour on the open highway heading out of Washington. She wasn’t afraid of very much, but this time she was afraid.





CHAPTER 19


IN SOME PARTS of Washington and the nearby suburbs of Maryland and Virginia, house-by-house searches were conducted on Christmas morning. Police blue-and-whites toured the streets downtown. They loudly broadcasted over their PA systems: “We are looking for Maggie Rose Dunne. Maggie is nine years old. Maggie has long blond hair. Maggie is four feet three inches tall and weighs seventy-two pounds. A substantial reward is offered for any information leading to Maggie’s safe return.”

Inside the house, a half-dozen FBI agents worked more closely than ever with the Dunnes. Both Katherine Rose and Tom Dunne were terribly shaken by Michael’s death. Katherine suddenly looked ten years older. We all waited for the next call from Soneji.

It had occurred to me that Gary Soneji was going to call the Dunnes on Christmas Day. I was beginning to feel as if I knew him a little. I wanted him to call, wanted him to start moving, to make the first big mistake. I wanted to get him.

At around eleven on Christmas morning, the Hostage Rescue Team was hurriedly called together in the Dunnes’ formal sitting room. There were close to twenty of us now, all at the mercy of the FBI for vital information. The house was buzzing. What had the Son of Lindbergh done?

We hadn’t been given much information yet. We did know that a telegram had been delivered to the Dunne house. It wasn’t being treated like any of the previous crank messages. It had to be Soneji.

FBI agents had monopolized the house phones for the past fifteen minutes or so. Special Agent Scorse arrived back at the house just before eleven-thirty, probably coming from his own family’s Christmas. Chief Pittman swept in five minutes later. The police commissioner had been called.

“This is getting to be a real bad deal. Being left in the dark all the time.” Sampson slouched against the room’s mantel. When Sampson slouches, he’s only around six feet seven. “The Fibbers don’t trust us. We trust them even less than we did at the get-go.”

“We didn’t trust the FBI in the beginning,” I reminded him.

“You’re right about that.” Sampson grinned. I could see myself reflected in his Wayfarers and I looked small. I wondered if the whole world looked tiny from Sampson’s vantage point. “Our boy send the Western Union?” he asked me.

“That’s what the FBI thinks. It’s probably just his way of saying Merry Christmas. Maybe he wants to be part of a family.”

Sampson peered at me over the tops of his dark glasses. “Thank you, Dr. Freud.”

Agent Scorse was working his way to the front of the room. Along the way, he picked up Chief Pittman. They shook hands. Good community relations at work.

“We received another message that appears to be from Gary Soneji,” Scorse announced as soon as he was in front of us. He had an odd way of stretching his neck and twisting his head from side to side when he was nervous. He did that a few times as he began to speak.

“I’ll read it to you. It’s addressed to the Dunnes…. ‘Dear Katherine and Tom… How about ten million dollars? Two in cash. Rest in negotiable securities and diamonds. IN MIAMI BEACH!… M.R. doing fine so far. Trust me. TOMORROW’S big day… Have a merry… Son of L.’ ”