Deadly Cross (Alex Cross #28)(66)

Part of me was sad because Bree had been a fine chief of detectives and would no longer be a force for good inside Metro PD. But she seemed so thrilled and the job sounded so phenomenal that I smiled, leaned over, and kissed her. “Congratulations. I guess I’ll have to get used to the idea of you calling me from jets on your way to Abu Dhabi.”

“Why not?” Bree said, beaming. “This will be a whole new world for me!”

“So that starts next month. What are you doing in the meantime?”

“Catching a killer and a rapist.”





CHAPTER 74





I ASKED BREE HOW SHE was going to solve the series of killings if she was on leave and about to quit Metro PD. She said she had thirty days of leave due to her and when she offered to spend the time working exclusively on those cases, Commissioner Dennison had agreed.

Jannie came home soon after me. She’d been training on hurdles and said she’d posted one of her best times ever in practice.

A few minutes later, John Sampson arrived with Willow, who was looking kind of listless and sad until Jannie suggested they go up to her room to hang out.

Nana Mama insisted Sampson, Bree, and I take coffee and brownies she’d made from scratch that morning to my basement office. Down there, Sampson showed me the map he’d created and explained how he’d found what he believed was the rapist and killer’s favorite hunting ground.

“Impressive,” I said. “We’re going to have to show this to Keith Karl Rawlins if it pans out. The FBI should be looking at this approach. Have you found a common denominator between the incubator, the apartment building, and the school?”

“Not yet,” Bree said. “The incubator has changed ownership three times in the seventeen years it’s been in operation, and since the incubator is a place for start-ups, the tenant turnover has been high. We’ve talked to the past two owners, gotten the names of some of the past tenants, and tracked down a few personnel rosters, but we haven’t seen anything that links anyone to the apartment building or the streets around Harrison Charter.”

Sampson said, “Then again, we’re still waiting for the apartment’s landlord to dig up records older than ten years, which was when she bought the property.”

“How many units there?”

“Sixty,” Bree said. “And like the incubator, lots of turnover.”

I chewed on that a few moments. The doorbell rang.

“She’s early,” Bree said.

“Analisa Hernandez is always early,” I said and went to the door to let her in.

For the second time in a row, she came in her bubbly self, hugged me, hugged Bree, and even hugged John, who she’d never even met before.

“What’s happened, Analisa?” I said. “I’d swear you were a happy lady.”

She smiled, sat down, put her hand over her heart, and said, “You know, I woke up this morning and started to worry in bed about everything all over again. Then I said, No, Analisa, you must stop spending so much time in your head. You must return to your heart to find your peace. And I did, you know. I put my hand over my heart like this and I closed my eyes and I said, ‘Please, God, show me the way. Just for today.’ ” She got tears in her eyes. “Not long I’m lying there and I feel Elizabeth. Not think of her. I just felt her love, right here in my heart, like she was living in me.”

“Of course she is,” I said softly. “She always will be.”

“Yes, Dr. Cross,” Analisa said, smiling through her tears. “But I never felt it like that until this morning, and I got up believing that everything is going to be okay. Elizabeth is not gone. Her love for me and my love for her will be with me always, and like you said, she will give me meaning in my work with the girls in Guatemala.”

Bree handed her a tissue and said, “I love that.”

Sampson was wiping at his eyes. “I do too.”

“And you know what else?” Analisa said, patting her heart. “When I feel Elizabeth here this morning, I also just suddenly knew for certain that you will find him someday. I think so. The one who ended her physical life.”





CHAPTER 75





BREE, SAMPSON, AND I EXCHANGED glances. Bree said, “Well, that’s why we asked you here, Analisa. Maybe you can help us make that day come faster.”

“Okay?”

Sampson pulled up Google Earth and the map of Southeast Washington, DC, on my computer and highlighted the apartment complex, the business incubator, and the charter school.

Bree said, “Have you or Elizabeth ever been to this apartment building?”

She put on her reading glasses to peer at the screen and the address, then shook her head. “Elizabeth, maybe, but not me.”

“You’ve obviously been in and around Harrison Charter,” Sampson said.

“Lived in the neighborhood fifteen years.”

“What about this building?” Bree asked, tapping on the third location.

Analisa squinted at the screen. “Can you show me the street view?”

Sampson typed and used his mouse, and then we were on the street, looking straight at the building.

“Ahh, the business incubator. I cleaned it for many years in my old job.”