Deadly Cross (Alex Cross #28)(47)

She took her purse, briefcase, and laptop and left Metro headquarters. Seeing other officers and detectives coming and going, Bree felt surprisingly removed from their concerns.

I’m free to be me, she thought, calling an Uber. Free to be Bree!

She was on Fifth Street by four and got out of the car trying to remember the last time she’d been home this early. It didn’t matter; she’d have an even shorter workday tomorrow.

She laughed, walked across the porch, and went inside feeling more alive than she had since she’d taken the job as chief of detectives. Hearing steel bowls clanking in the kitchen, Bree went in and found Nana Mama just starting to prepare dinner.

“Why don’t you sit?” Bree said. “I’ll cook dinner tonight.”

“What?” Nana Mama said. “But you don’t know what I had planned.”

“Then let me help you.”

Alex’s grandmother gave her an odd look. “No offense, and I love you, Bree, but you’ve never offered to help before. You told me you don’t like cooking.”

“I actually meant I didn’t have time for cooking. And honestly, I saw how it connected you and Billie, and I guess I’d like some of that same connection while I still have the chance. If that’s okay?”

Nana Mama softened, shuffled over to Bree, and hugged her. “It’s more than okay, dear. It’s wonderful. Thank you. And you can start by slicing those onions.”

Bree grinned, kissed the old woman on the forehead, and said, “Done.” She got a knife and sliced the onions and chopped up everything else Alex’s grandmother wanted chopped, then they poured the sauce over short ribs, covered them in foil, and put them in the oven on low heat.

“There,” Nana Mama said. “We’ll eat around seven thirty.”

“Perfect,” Bree said. “What else can I do?”

“This old lady is going to lie down for twenty minutes before Ali comes home.”

“Oh, okay, then,” Bree said. “Sweet dreams.”

Nana left the kitchen and Bree realized that she had no idea what to do next.

Then she heard footsteps and the basement door opened. Alex came into the kitchen with two coffee mugs.

“Nana Mama said you and Sampson went off this morning,” she said. “Canceled your clients to work with him.”

“That’s right,” Alex said, going to pour coffee from Nana Mama’s bottomless pot. “We’re downstairs trying to see if there’s an overlap or pattern to where Maya Parker, Elizabeth Hernandez, and the others vanished beyond Southeast DC. By the way, why are you home so early?”

Bree had barely been keeping her emotions in check. Now she blurted out, “I quit my job because the commissioner made the thought of spending one more day working for him totally unacceptable. He also called you my ‘goddamn husband,’ and I called him a ‘self-serving ass.’ ”

She felt tears flowing and could barely see Alex when he set down the coffee cups and came to embrace her. Bree held tight to him and let loose her frustration.

“Are those tears of relief or regret?” he asked when her crying had slowed.

“Relief,” she said, snuggling into his chest. “No regrets. Yet.”

“Well, then,” he said, rubbing her back, “I support your decision one hundred percent.”





CHAPTER 52





I HATE PHONE CALLS AT two fifteen in the morning, especially when I’ve fallen asleep past midnight after hours of grief therapy with Sampson (in the form of work) and listening to Bree as she dealt with the emotional upheaval of quitting a seventeen-year career in law enforcement.

So I was not happy when I heard my phone ringing and even less happy when I peered groggily at the caller ID and saw SPARKMAN.

“Not a chance, Clive,” I grumbled. I sent the call to voice mail, put the phone on vibrate, and tried to go back to sleep.

He called twice more. I could hear the phone buzzing. I was about to turn it off altogether when he texted me: Damn it, Cross, pick up! Higgins was attacked!

Higgins? I thought. Kelli Ann Higgins? The dirt-monger?

I got up without waking Bree, went into the bathroom, and shut the door. My phone started buzzing in my hand. I answered, said, “Tell me.”

“She was beaten and her apartment ransacked,” Sparkman said, a tremor in his voice. “I … I found her.”

“Where is she?”

“The back of an ambulance headed to Georgetown Medical,” he said.

“She conscious?”

“In and out,” he said. “I must have just missed whoever did it. Thank God.”

“Where are you?”

“Outside her place in Foggy Bottom. I’ll text the address.”

“Police there?”

“A patrol officer.”

“Tell him to seal her apartment. Move nothing and stay where you are.”

Before he could reply, I cut the connection, slipped out of the bathroom, went into the walk-in closet, and dressed as quietly as I could. But when I came out, Bree sat up in bed and asked me what was going on.

I told her and she flipped on the light. “I’m coming with you.”

“You resigned.”

“It’s not official until noon and I want to see this.”