The People vs. Alex Cross (Alex Cross #25)(25)

“Glad I could find an opening,” I said, even though he was my only appointment for the day.

I steered him toward my office. “Lindel. That’s an unusual name.”

“Not in Norway,” Lindel said.

“No, it’s just that I’ve heard it twice recently and—”

“Gretchen is my daughter, Dr. Cross,” Lindel choked out. “She goes to the same school as your son, yes?”

“Yes,” I said, seeing him new all over again. “Yes, of course she does. Ali and I and my entire family, we’ve all been praying for her safe return.”

“Thank you, Dr. Cross,” he said as his eyes reddened and he gazed toward the ground. “We need … I need …”

I’ve always found that if you ask a direct question, you get a direct answer, so I said, “How can I help, Mr. Lindel? Why are you here?”

Lindel hesitated and then looked at me while turning his palms upward. “To be honest, I’m here to see Dr. Cross the shrink because of my guilt and anxiety, and Dr. Cross the detective because of my dwindling faith in my daughter’s survival.”

I took a seat. “You do know that I’m suspended pending trial?”

“I read that,” Lindel said. “I also read that before your recent troubles, you were one of the best detectives in the country.”

“Whoever wrote that was being too kind,” I said. “And I know the FBI agents in charge of your daughter’s case. They’re top-notch.”

“When my mom bakes a cake, she says you can always use more frosting,” Lindel said. “Please say you’ll help me find Gretchen before it’s too late and …”

Tears dripped down his cheeks. “She, our daughter, our Gretchen, she’s everything to us, and now they’re torturing us with these unspeakable images.”

“I’m confused,” I said. “Who’s torturing you?”

Lindel took a tissue and wiped away his tears before reaching into his jeans pocket and coming up with a small blue flash drive in a plastic baggie.

“This was in the mailbox when I checked this morning before breakfast,” he said. “Go on, plug it in.”





CHAPTER


30


I TOOK THE baggie and looked at the flash drive, a Toshiba with 128 GB printed on the face.

“You didn’t give this to the FBI?” I asked, putting the baggie down and finding latex gloves.

“I was on my way here and wanted you to see it first. I … I don’t think the FBI can get to the bottom of this without you. Can you make a copy and give the original to them for me? I have to catch a plane to New York right after I leave here. On top of everything else, my mother’s in the hospital.”

Reluctantly, but curious to see what was on the drive, I nodded. With latex gloves on, I took out the drive and plugged it into my laptop. The screen flashed brightly before a video came up that I found sickeningly familiar.

A blond girl in a white nightgown ran through a dim, leafless forest with the camera operator in full pursuit. It was dusk, and when he caught her and knocked her down, you could not make out the girl’s features for the graininess.

“Please don’t,” she begged when the gloved cameraman pulled her up to her knees by her hair.

“No?” the computer-altered voice said. “Then you want it to be the last time? No more cat-and-mouse? No more fun?”

“I just want this to be over,” she whimpered, a vague shadow now in the gathering darkness on my screen.

“Okay, then,” the voice said. “You’ll get your wish.”

I saw a dark slashing motion across her neck. I heard a slick, slicing sound and a disturbing pah noise before the screen froze and that icon of the lock appeared above a link that read www.Itsoverblondie.org.co. “Tell me if it’s a fake or not,” Lindel said, crying again. “That’s all I want you to do. Stop this torture before it drives my wife and me mad.”

I didn’t have a private investigator’s license. I was suspended pending trial. I should have expressed my sympathy and turned him down flat.

But I was a father too, and I could see the turmoil the kidnapping and now this possible snuff film were churning up in him.

“You’re sure that’s Gretchen?” I asked.

“I’d know her voice anywhere,” he said, looking at me like I was his last best chance.

“I’ll do what I can,” I said.

His fists clenched, Lindel smiled through his tears and said, “Bless you, Dr. Cross. From the bottom of my heart, bless you.”





CHAPTER


31


FBI AGENT HENNA Batra crossed her arms and stared furiously at me from behind the main security station at Quantico.

When I cleared security, I said, “I’m sorry, but you weren’t picking up your phone, and I needed to talk to you.”

Agent Batra didn’t answer, just pivoted on her black high-heeled pumps and marched down the hallway. I hurried to keep up. When I was abreast of her, she hissed, “Coming here like this? Are you trying to get me fired, Cross?”

“I said it was critical. And I’m obviously not on a watch list. Sidney let me right through the front gate.”