The People vs. Alex Cross (Alex Cross #25)(8)

Fiore was amazed and inspired by how courageous Penny was, by how determined she was to raise her sons right, and by how much she wanted to honor her late husband’s memory in their lives. To his surprise, Fiore learned Penny went to St. Anthony’s for services from time to time.

“Penny started bringing the boys to Mass, and I got to know them,” he said. “We did things together, hikes, a trip to the beach, and it was like I experienced a dimension of life that I’d thought I understood, but didn’t.”

“And what dimension was that?” I asked.

“Love,” Fiore said, sitting forward, hanging his head, and rubbing his hands. “I didn’t just fall for her, Dr. Cross. Penny became my best friend, and I became hers. And those boys are just … every time I leave them, Dr. Cross, I feel as if my heart has a new hole in it.”

“Does Penny know how you feel?” I asked.

He nodded. “We both feel this way.”

“Have you slept together?”

“No,” he said firmly. “We both believe in the sanctity of marriage.”

“But the church does not believe in married priests,” I said.

He nodded miserably, said, “So what do I do, Dr. Cross? Leave the only calling I’ve ever had or leave the only woman I’ve ever loved?”





CHAPTER


8


AN ASHEN-FACED AND distraught woman walked to a bank of microphones.

“Please,” Eliza Lindel said in a tremulous voice. “I beg you, from a mother’s broken heart, if you know anything about my daughter’s kidnapping, come forward, call the police or the FBI, and give me hope. Gretchen is a sweet, innocent young woman. Please help us find her before it’s too late.”

The feed cut away to a local station’s news desk and an anchor who began prattling on about the kidnapping.

In her office downtown, Bree hit the mute button on her remote. She didn’t want to hear the talking heads sum up the case. She knew the situation cold.

The critical first forty-eight hours of the investigation had elapsed with little progress. Part of that was due to the fact that the FBI had stepped in to take over the case because it was a kidnapping and Gretchen had likely been taken across state lines. Bree and DC Metro had been largely cut out at that point, especially after the FBI reviewed the tape of the snatching and saw the police car. As far as she knew, there’d been no ransom note, no attempts by the kidnappers to contact anyone.

“Chief?” Sampson said, knocking at her door. “We’ve got something.”

Before Bree could reply, Detective Fox barged in front of Sampson and said, “I think we should be reporting this to the FBI. They’re the higher authority now.”

Bree’s expression hardened. Ainsley Fox had never met a regulation or rule she didn’t worship as gospel.

“Detective Fox,” Bree said. “Last time I looked, your badge said DCMP, and you report to me. Anything you have, I want to hear.”

“For Christ’s sake, Fox,” Sampson said when the detective hesitated. “I’ll tell her if you won’t.”

Sampson took a seat, opened a file, and began by noting that all DC Metro patrol cars carried GPS trackers that transmitted their locations to databanks. A check of those banks showed no Metro cruisers in the vicinity of Washington Latin at the time of the kidnapping and murder.

“But Ali Cross’s video clearly shows a patrol car with all the right markings and decals of a Metro rig,” Sampson said. “Someone detailed that car to perfection, even configured the sirens and blues exactly the way we do.”

“Where does that take us?” Bree asked. “To body shops? Places that rent stunt vehicles to the movies?”

Sampson glanced at his new partner and said in a grudging tone, “At some point, maybe, but Detective Fox has turned up a more promising lead.”

Fox almost smiled. She pushed back her lank hair, got out her laptop, typed something, then spun the screen around. Bree saw a picture of a blond woman, late twenties or early thirties, earth-mama sort, no makeup but very attractive in a wholesome way. She was vaguely familiar.

“Cathy Dupris,” Fox said. “She disappeared from her home in small-town southern Pennsylvania ten weeks ago.”

Bree remembered, then said, “The neighbors claimed an ambulance came, and men dressed in EMT uniforms rushed into her house and took her out on a stretcher. But there was no record of a 911 call or a private ambulance request.”

“And no ransom note,” Fox said, nodding.

“What’s the connection?” Bree asked.

Fox called up another photograph of another pretty blonde, Delilah Franks, a bank teller in Richmond, Virginia, who’d vanished six months before.

Bree said, “Don’t they think the boyfriend’s responsible?”

“She was having an affair behind his back,” Fox said. “But maybe that’s just a coincidence. Maybe Delilah was taken for some other reason.”

“You think you know that reason?” Bree said.

“Show her the pair first,” Sampson said.

Fox typed a third time and showed Bree a split screen featuring school portraits of two teenage girls, both blond, both very cute.

“That’s seventeen-year-old Ginny Krauss on the left,” Fox said. “Alison Dane, sixteen, is on the right. Both girls disappeared nearly seven months ago from rural Hillsgrove, Pennsylvania.”