The People vs. Alex Cross (Alex Cross #25)(47)

My cell phone dinged, alerting me to a text. I pulled it out, saw it was from Bree: Where are you, Alex? I’m worried.

I texted back, Talking to an old friend. On my way.

I looked at Tess and said, “I have to go. Thanks for talking.”

“One good deed deserves another.”

We both stood and headed toward the door. I opened it and looked back at her before leaving.

“I forgot to ask. How are you keeping busy?”

Tess smiled wistfully and said, “Running twice a day, reading, and trying to learn how to forgive myself without a bunch of drugs in my brain.”





CHAPTER


62


AT TEN THE following morning, I was in the stands inside the Johns Hopkins University field house with Damon, a sophomore now. We were watching Jannie take her last warm-ups. She’d been quiet on the ride up for the meet, so quiet that I had finally asked her what was going on.

Jannie didn’t want to talk at first, but she eventually admitted that she was upset because someone had uploaded the shooting videos to YouTube. Social media was incensed. Terrible comments had been directed at her and at the boys.

That only made the day worse. When I’d told Bree the night before that Rawlins said the videos had not been doctored, I’d seen something in her eyes that I swore I’d never see there. Doubt. Not open suspicion, not a lack of faith, but doubt about the facts of the shootings as I’d described them.

“How are you doing, Dad?” Damon asked.

“Let’s focus on Jannie,” I said. “I’m sick of thinking about everything else.”

“How’s our girl looking?” Ted McDonald asked, breaking into my thoughts.

I was surprised to see him. “Thought you couldn’t make it, Coach.”

“My plans changed last night.”

“Does Jannie know?” Damon asked.

“She will after the race.”

“You mean after you see if she executes your race plan,” I said.

“That too,” McDonald said. “The field’s pretty much the same as last time, including Claire Mason, so we can kind of hit reset today.”

“Same tactics you recommended before?”

“A few tweaks based on her recent practice times,” he said, and he dug in his pocket for a stopwatch.

Jannie had pulled the inside third lane. Claire Mason, the Maryland state champion and future Stanford athlete, was two wide in the fifth slot.

Whatever frustration and hurt Jannie might have been feeling on the ride to Baltimore appeared to be bottled and corked when the race starter called the young women to their marks. Our girl went to the blocks bouncing, shaking her arms, and rolling her head, all the while staring into the middle distance.

McDonald lowered his binoculars, said, “She’s good.”

I thought so too. She looked like the old Jannie out there, especially when she smiled after the starter said, “Set.”

At the pistol crack, my daughter came out of the blocks well, more smooth power than explosive. Her stride lengthened, her legs found a relaxed cadence, and her arms were driving fluidly by the end of the first straight. She ran the curve cleanly and confidently, no sign of foot pain.

Exiting onto the backstretch, Jannie was exactly where she’d been in the previous race, in fourth, just off the shoulder of the girl in third, with Claire Mason leading by two body widths. But there was no move for the front. Jannie stayed right in her groove through the second curve and back up the near straightaway.

“Nice,” her coach said, clicking his stopwatch as she flashed by. “I like that number a whole lot.”

Claire Mason tried to run away with it coming out of the third turn, but the three athletes chasing her, including Jannie, reeled the state champion in down the backstretch. They were running in a tight bunch entering the final, far turn.

“Well done,” McDonald said, watching through his binoculars. “Now gallop for home, girlie-girl.”

Jannie seemed to hear her coach’s words in her head because he’d no sooner said them than she found another gear. She passed the girl in third and was right off the shoulder of the athlete in second coming out of the last curve.

I couldn’t help it; I started yelling, “C’mon, Jannie!”

Damon shouted, “Show them who’s boss, sis!”

My daughter did something then that I hadn’t seen since the foot injury. Her gait became more like bounding, and she blew by the girl in second place and bore down on Claire Mason with thirty yards to go. Mason gave a backward glance, saw Jannie coming, and ran in fear. But even sheer terror wouldn’t have helped the state champ’s cause that day.

With fifteen yards remaining, Jannie caught Mason. She was a full body width ahead at the wire.





CHAPTER


63


JANNIE SLOWED, LAUGHED, and threw her arms up to the sky. Damon cheered. I whooped and hollered and felt better than I had in days. Poor Claire Mason looked shell-shocked; she was a senior heading to a top track program, and she’d been bested by a junior just back from a long time off for a foot injury.

McDonald clapped when Jannie came up a few moments later.

“That is exactly how you do it,” he said, giving her a high five. “The win’s nice. So is beating Mason. But I’m prouder of you for being a disciplined and smart athlete.”