Fear No Evil(Alex Cross #29)(19)

I set a world record for showering, shaving, and dressing, grabbed a to-go cup of coffee in the lobby, and went out the front door just as LA Supervising Special Agent Loughlin pulled up in a black Suburban. Mahoney came out the door behind me, puffing and staring at me as if he couldn’t believe I’d beaten him.

“It’s a talent,” I said and climbed in the back.

The second Mahoney shut the passenger-side front door, Loughlin pulled away. “We need this like a thumb in the eye,” he said. “I’m thinking we could be in for a frickin’ shitshow.”

“When was the last time you had contact with the two agents?” I asked.

“Half past three this morning,” Loughlin said. “Supposed to check in again at five thirty. When they didn’t, they got called. When they didn’t answer, I got called. I called their personal phones. When they didn’t answer, I called Ned.”

“No one’s knocked?” Mahoney asked.

“Sheriff’s deputy rang the bell at the front gate of the estate.”

“Estate?”

“Correct,” Loughlin said. “No answer. I told her to stand down, wait for us.”

We’d stayed at a hotel in Burbank, so it didn’t take long for us to get to the old and tony neighborhood in Pasadena. An LA County Sheriff’s patrol car sat idling ahead of us on the street where Amelia White’s parents lived and where the FBI agent’s widow had retreated with her children in a time of grief and crisis.

The deputy told us no one had gone in or out of the gate since she’d arrived, and that was nearly forty-five minutes ago. Loughlin thanked her and pulled over to park.

“I have no frickin’ idea what we’re dealing with here, so let’s play it by the book. Everyone in armor. I have four vests in the trunk.”

After studying the place on Google Earth, we walked up to a gate in the seven-foot ivy-covered wall that surrounded the three-acre estate of the widow’s father, Jeffrey Reising, who’d made a fortune in the aerospace industry. The gate was built of steel covered with planks of whitewashed barn board, and the lower right corner featured a small placard with the name and phone number of a security company.

Loughlin rang the bell at the intercom, got no answer, then called the security company, identified himself, and asked if they’d had any alarms at the Reising residence during the night. When the dispatcher replied in the negative, he asked her to unlock the front gate and disarm the system.

Two minutes later, there was a click, and the gate swung open.





Chapter





21


Washington, DC



John Sampson watched his seven-year-old daughter, Willow, finish her breakfast, feeling as if it were one of the most moving acts he’d ever seen, filled with meaning, tinged with joy and sadness.

He could see his late wife, Billie, in Willow’s face and in many of her gestures and habits, like having her two sunny-side-up eggs cut up in a bowl so she could use a spoon to eat them. And waiting until she’d emptied the bowl before drinking her juice. And then setting her juice glass on the table and proclaiming, “That hit the spot!”

“Every time,” Sampson said when she stood up, grinning at him, her arms thrown over her head.

A big man, a reserved man, Sampson felt his heart melt when his daughter ran to him and he scooped her up in his arms, hugging and kissing her as she giggled.

“I love you, Daddy,” Willow said when he finally put her down.

“I love you too, sweet thing,” he said. “Are you ready to go?”

“Just have to brush my teeth,” she said. “My bag’s ready by the door.”

“Good girl,” he said.

Willow skipped down the hall and into her bedroom.

He stared after her. How tiny she is. And yet her spirit seems ten times her size. Just like her mother.

Sampson’s chest felt heavy and heavier still when he remembered M’s text from the day before. After he dropped off Willow, he’d see about having the house swept for bugs and cameras, and he’d have his cell phone checked while he was at it.

To get his mind off the idea that he was being monitored, he thought about his long-awaited and long-delayed trip to Montana.

He’d talked with the wife of the man they’d hired to take him and Alex and their gear into the Bob Marshall Wilderness. Sampson had apologized for the postponement and explained that they were in law enforcement and unable to predict the demands on their time. She was fine about it and said they still had at least eight weeks of good weather left and to notify her when they could be on their way.

“Another tooth’s loose, Daddy,” Willow said. “It feels funny.”

She had her mouth open as she walked to him. He knelt, looked, and sure enough, one of her lower incisors moved when she pushed her tongue against it.

“I imagine it does,” he said. “But you have a few more days before it will come out, and in the meantime, you can tell your friends at camp that you’re going to get a visit from the tooth fairy soon.”

Willow liked that idea and retrieved her little school pack. He held her hand as they walked the three blocks to the church Billie had attended. The church offered a day camp, and Willow seemed to enjoy it.

“What’s on deck today?” he asked, though he already knew because he’d signed all the permission slips in her pack.