Deadly Cross (Alex Cross #28)(89)

“Chief Stone, remove your weapon and drop it out the window. Backup too.”

“As a matter of policy, high-ranking officers in Metro PD cannot carry a backup.”

“Prove it,” Peters said. “But dump your pistol first.”

Bree rolled down the window, removed her Glock from her belt holster, and dropped it to the pavement. Then she tugged up her slacks and showed Peters her ankles. She shrugged her jacket off her shoulders to show no holster, then rocked forward and raised the back of her jacket to show nothing at the small of her back.

“Good,” Peters said. “Now you, Dr. Cross. Slowly.”

As Alex reached into his shoulder holster, Bree let go of her jacket and sat back, her hands in her lap, palms up. She forced herself to breathe as Alex removed his Glock with his thumb and index finger, rolled down the window, and tossed it out.

Then Alex bent over and removed his backup nine-millimeter from its ankle holster and tossed it as well.

“Cell phones,” Peters said.

They both reached for their phones and dropped them to the broken pavement.

“Windows up,” Peters said, still pressing the gun against Alex’s head.

“Where are the girls?” Alex said.

“In airless places,” Peters said, sitting back. “Where they won’t be found until I want them found. Now start the car. Put it in drive. Go out the gates. Turn right.”

Alex started the car. Country music came on. He put the Tahoe in reverse, saying, “You killed them, Kay Willingham and Randall Christopher, didn’t you?”

“Randall wouldn’t let it go and he got too close for comfort,” Peters said. “The vice president’s ex was collateral damage.”

“Did you doctor the security footage you gave Detective Sampson?” Alex asked, braking to a stop and turning the wheels toward the gate.

“Having an associate’s degree in film helps.”

“What about the gun?”

He smirked again as Alex put the car back in drive. “I own the little company that cleans Elaine Paulson’s house. She mentioned she and her husband were separating when I happened to stop by to inspect my workers’ job. The rest was sheer creativity.”

The fingers of Bree’s right hand crawled up her jacket’s left sleeve and found the Bond derringer in its clever holster snugly beneath her upper forearm. She released the simple stretch band that wrapped around the hammer and kept the gun in place.

Alex drove toward the gate, slowing to avoid potholes, and said, “Don’t you want to know what got us here?”

Peters chuckled and pressed the pistol barrel harder against Alex’s head. “I figured Dee got out a 911. Not that it really matters to either of you now. You won’t be around to do anything about them. Speed it up!”

That sealed it in Bree’s mind. She shifted her upper body toward Peters, hoping the sound and the country music would be enough to cover the rustle of jacket fabric as she drew the derringer and the soft click when she cocked the hammer.

Peters sat directly behind Alex. He looked at her as she shifted and then moved his gun her way. “How can I help, Chief Stone?” he said.

Bree pressed the double barrels of the derringer against the seat fabric and said, “You could tell us if they’re alive, for starters.”

“I could, but I won’t,” he said before shifting his aim back at Alex. “Out the gate. Take a right. It’s time to finish this.”

“It is,” Bree said and squeezed the trigger of the derringer.

The little gun barked and bucked in her hand as two. 45-caliber bullets blew through the seat. Both hit the rapist/kidnapper/killer square in the chest from less than three feet away.

Peters died instantaneously and the Colt dropped to the floor.





CHAPTER 105





FIVE MINUTES LATER, SIRENS WAILING and lights flashing, Deputy Janet Cafaro’s patrol car squealed up to the entrance of the old silica plant. She jumped out, eyes wide and staring at the Tahoe, which we’d parked and left running with the dead man inside.

My ears were still ringing from the double-barreled pistol going off in the car. I said, “He was going to take us somewhere and kill us. Bree saved our lives with that derringer. His gun’s there. Back seat on the floor.”

“That’s him?” she said. “The psycho you were after, for real?”

“For real,” Bree said. She was standing with her arms crossed in the shade about ten feet from the Tahoe. The derringer was on the hood. Our service weapons were back where we’d dropped them on the ground.

I said, “We need to search his body.”

Deputy Cafaro shook her head. “Not before a state homicide investigator is on the scene.”

Bree started toward her, feeling shaky from having to kill Peters but determined that no more girls would die because of him. “His victims are somewhere close by. He told us he had them in ‘airless places.’ He came on foot. He’s got dried mud caked on his lower pants and boots. Take photographs in situ with your phone and then let us search him. Please. If those girls are in airless places, do it for their sake.”

Cafaro hesitated. “I have to make a call, but then we’ll do it your way.”

She returned to the patrol car, called dispatch, and requested another patrol car, a county coroner, and a state homicide investigator sent to the scene. Then she pulled out her phone and got to work.