Cross the Line (Alex Cross #24)(44)

“No,” Mahoney said. “The bulk crap you can buy at Wal-mart.”

Sampson leaned over to me. “I gotta go. Anniversary dinner with Billie.”

“Congratulations to you and Billie. How many years?”

“The big six, and thanks.” He slipped out.

The big six. Somehow that was funny.

A few moments later, Bree leaned over and said, “I’ve got a pile of work on my desk I need to dig through.”

“I’ll stay here and tell you if there’s anything new,” I said.

There wasn’t anything new, at least not from my perspective. Mahoney wrapped up the rest of the briefing in twenty minutes, and the place emptied out.

“You look like you could use a three-day weekend,” I told Ned.

“Wouldn’t that be something?” Mahoney said.

“Go to your place on the shore; it’ll give you fresh eyes on Tuesday.”

“I don’t think the gods of the Bureau would appreciate me kicking back with a cold one if there’s another attack on the underworld over the weekend.”

“You can always keep your phone on,” I said. “No one says you have to be in your office waiting for a call. There has to be some benefit to these phones beyond Facebook and texting, right?”

Mahoney half bobbed his head, getting a distracted look. “Traffic will be a bitch tonight. Maybe I can sneak away early tomorrow?”

“Now you’re thinking.”

“What about you? And Bree? Why don’t you and the kids come? Supposed to be a beautiful weekend.”

“Nothing would make me happier, but Jannie’s got an invitational thing over at Johns Hopkins, and we were going to see Damon too.”

“There are three days to the holiday. You could always come on Sunday morning, or even on Saturday night.”

“Tempting. Let me run that by the new chief of detectives.”





CHAPTER


51


ORDINARILY, THE TRACK season ends in mid-August, but the U.S.A. Track and Field organization had launched a program to nurture young talent, inviting high school athletes from across the country to a meet on the Johns Hopkins campus in an effort to help coaches identify those with potential.

The fact that Jannie had been invited at the age of fifteen years and eight months was a shock to us. Initially, she hadn’t been among the athletes offered spots at the meet. But Ted McDonald, a well-regarded track coach who works with my daughter, showed videos of her to the right people, and she got in on discretion.

We were on the shady side of the stands an hour before she was set to run. Down on the field, the kids were warming up. Except not many of them looked like kids.

“What are they feeding them?” Bree asked.

“Human growth hormone cereal with steroid milk,” Nana Mama said, and she cackled.

“I hope not, for their sake,” Bree said. “Jannie said everyone had to submit urine and blood samples.”

“Those can be doctored,” Nana Mama said.

We knew that all too well. Earlier in the summer, a vindictive and jealous girl in North Carolina had tried to frame Jannie for drug use. Since then, we’d always demanded samples from any drug test she had to take.

A group of athletes glided by at an easy ten miles an hour. I watched them, trying to keep memories of the prior evening at bay. This was a holiday, and I’d read that it was important to take them and enjoy them or you risked burnout.

“Can I have a Coke?” Ali asked, pulling off his headphones, which were attached to the iPad we’d bought used on eBay.

“Water would be better,” Nana Mama said.

“I thought this was a holiday,” Ali grumbled. “Holidays are supposed to be fun. You’ve heard about fun, right?”

My grandmother twisted on the bleacher and fixed him with her evil-eye stare. “Are you sassing your great-grandmother?”

“No, Nana Mama,” Ali said.

“I won’t take sass,” she said. “You’ve heard about that, right?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Bree and I watched in amusement at the mastery with which Nana Mama handled Ali.

“What are you listening to?” Nana Mama asked, her voice softening.

Ali brightened. “A podcast about dolphins and how they have echolocation just like bats, only in the water.”

“What’s the single most surprising thing you’ve heard so far?”

Without hesitation, he said, “Dolphins have the best hearing in the world.”

“Is that true?” Bree asked.

“Humans can hear up to, like, twenty kilo-hearses. Dogs to like forty-five kilo-hearses.”

“Hertz,” Nana Mama said. “Forty-five kilohertz.”

“Hertz,” Ali said. “Big cats, like lions, hear up to sixty-five, I think. But a dolphin can hear sounds up to a hundred and twenty kilohertz. And they have, like, an electrical field around them. They say you can feel it if you swim with them. I want to do that, Dad, swim with dolphins.”

“I thought you had a few questions for Neil deGrasse Tyson.”

“That too,” Ali said. “Can I have a Coke, Dad?”

“Yes,” I said.

“What?” Nana Mama said.