The People vs. Alex Cross (Alex Cross #25)(53)

“It’s your choice, Gretch,” he’d said not long before she’d been taken captive in the twisted world of sickos.

Lying on her filthy mattress in her plywood cell, holding her left leg so it wouldn’t be irritated any further by the manacle around her ankle, the seventeen-year-old was doing everything she could to keep her mind strong.

I am going to get out of here, Gretchen kept telling herself. I just have to survive long enough to get the chance. I’m going to be like Dad. Nothing they’ve done hurts me in any way. It makes me stronger. This only makes me stronger.

But it had been several days since they’d come for her. Hour upon hour of silence created all sorts of dark voices in her mind.

Doubt crept up on Gretchen and whispered that she’d die there in the box. Fear wormed its way into her stomach and said they’d take her again before that happened. Self-pity wrapped her head and heart, told her she was defeated.

But time and time again, whenever Gretchen realized the voices of despair were taking control of her thoughts, she’d think of her father and everything he’d endured, and she’d take heart.

I will survive. They can’t hurt me. This will only make me—

The dead bolts turned. She closed her eyes, not knowing if this was a meal or another of their twisted games. If it was a game, she was done crying. She was done being scared. They seemed to feed on her fright, and as the door swung open she vowed to give them none.

The big one in black came in carrying a semiautomatic AR rifle. Her father had one just like it.

“It’s time, Gretchen,” he said from behind the paintball mask. “We’re all but done here. Cleanup time now.”

Gretchen said nothing, just stared through him as if he didn’t matter anymore, as if nothing mattered anymore.

Be like Dad, she thought as he went to work on her ankle manacle.

For God’s sake, be like Dad.





CHAPTER


70


HAD THAT BEEN Gretchen Lindel’s father driving the Pathfinder?

I kept trying to convince myself I was wrong, but each time I closed my eyes, I saw Alden Lindel clearly. But why? And how?

When Annie Cassidy called to set up the appointment, she’d said that Father Fiore had referred her, hadn’t she? Well, now that I thought about it, she hadn’t actually used his name. She’d said she’d gotten my number from “a mutual friend, a priest with challenging problems.”

And Lindel? He’d contacted me directly. No reference that I remembered.

What were the odds of two people who knew each other coming to my office and never mentioning it to me?

I thought about Gretchen Lindel’s mother, Eliza, and how distraught she’d been in the days after her daughter’s kidnapping. Was Annie Cassidy the reason she and her husband separated? Had she used fake names for her lovers? Was Alden Lindel actually Carlos?

I went inside, told my grandmother I was going out, and got the car keys.

By the time I drove into a residential neighborhood west of the Cabin John Parkway, it was pitch-dark and the rain had stopped. I found the address I was looking for and parked the car across the street from a brick-faced Colonial with a big flower bed gone dormant, a crushed-gravel driveway, and a bronze Volvo station wagon. Lights gleamed in the narrow windows that flanked the front door.

I climbed out, smelled wet leaves, and started toward the house, wondering about the reception I’d get, a lone man at night unannounced. My cell phone buzzed. I ignored it, climbed the stoop, and rang the bell.

A dog started barking. A small Jack Russell terrier was soon bouncing and barking an alarm on the other side of the lower right window.

“Tinker!” a woman said. “Get back, girl!”

The dog kept barking and then yelped in protest when the woman grabbed her and held her in her arms. She peered blearily out the window at me. Despite the exhaustion and despair that seemed to hang off her like rags, I recognized her.

“Mrs. Lindel?” I said. “Eliza?”

The terrier in her arms showed her teeth.

She said, “If you’re a reporter, please go away, you’re not helping the situation. No one’s helping the situation here.”

“I’m not a reporter,” I said. “My name is Alex Cross. I’m a … my son Ali goes to school at Latin with Gretchen.”

Eliza studied me a long moment before opening the door. The dog growled like a little demon.

“Hush, now,” Eliza said, and the dog stilled but kept a close eye on me.

The missing girl’s mother was in her mid-thirties but looked older in baggy sweatpants, Birkenstock sandals, and a George Mason University tee. Her hair was in disarray and graying at the roots. Her eyes were bloodshot, rheumy.

“Alex Cross,” she said. “You’re that cop on trial for murder.”

“Innocent as charged.”

“I read you’ve killed eleven people.”

“In the course of duty I have, that’s true.”

“I also read you’ve found kidnapped girls before.”

“That’s also true. Including my niece, who today is part of my defense team. Life can go on after an abduction, Mrs. Lindel.”

“That why you’re here?”

“In part. Can I come in?”

She hesitated, then stuck her face in her dog’s face. “You be good now, Tinker, hear?”