Criss Cross (Alex Cross #27)(32)

“Everything’s better with bacon and sugar,” I said and gave her a kiss. “Go on, sit down. I’ll serve you this morning.”

Nana cocked her head. “Well, what’s come over you?”

“Just remembering some advice you gave me back when the kids were young. You know, about making meals family time.”

She smiled and went willingly to the table. I served her and then Bree when she came down, and we all caught up with one another’s lives. Ali arrived next, once again babbling about his ride with the Wild Wheels.

“There were twelve kids, four my age, all boys, and, my God, Captain Abrahamsen is an amazing mountain biker. We were riding in Rock Creek Park, and he hopped his bike over a log like it was nothing!”

“You said that last night,” Nana Mama said. “Twice.”

“And I still can’t believe it!”

Jannie came down a few minutes later, her comforter wrapped around her. She yawned, sat in her chair, and stared at the vitamins I’d put in a cup by her plate.

She wrinkled her nose. “There are too many. They make my stomach feel gross.”

“You’re supposed to take them after you eat.”

“You look better,” Bree said. “I think those vitamins are working.”

Jannie seemed about to argue, but then she nodded. “You know, I do feel better. This is the first morning I even wanted to get up. I don’t feel great, but it’s nothing like last week.”

“See there,” I said, glancing at Bree with gratitude. “Eat something and take the vitamins. By this time next week, who knows how good you’ll feel?”

I was happy to see her eat eggs, bacon, toast, and a banana. Then she took the vitamins and washed them down with orange juice.

When she was done, Jannie turned to her great-grandmother and said, “Can you look at that essay I did for Mrs. Schultz?”

Nana’s eyebrows went up. “You already wrote it?”

“Well, like, a draft,” she said. “Last night before I went to sleep.”

“You are feeling better. I’d be glad to.”

Bree helped me do the dishes while Ali went upstairs to get dressed for school.

“You and John going back out there?” she asked. “To Rivers’s place?”

“After we buy a drone,” I said.

“Who’s paying for that?”

“At the moment, I am.”

She said nothing for several moments, just put dishes in the washer. Then: “You’re that convinced Rivers is M?”

“He’s smart enough. He’s got money enough. His ex-wives and girlfriends think he’s controlling to the point of violent. And there’s something about that anthill. It’s a perfect place to hold hostages.”

She barely nodded.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I don’t know how much longer I can let you have Sampson,” she said.

“As long as you can.”

Bree studied me. “You getting obsessed with this?”

“In a good way.”

“Promise me something?”

“Anything.”

“At least once every four or five hours, stop for a moment and take the thirty-thousand-foot view of the situation.”

“Perspective.”

“Not a bad thing.”

I took her in my arms and kissed her. “Not a bad thing at all.”





CHAPTER 40





BY EARLY AFTERNOON THAT DAY, Sampson and I were back in that cut field northwest and across the road from Rivers’s acreage. I got out the drone I’d bought at a hobbyist store in Fairfax, Virginia.

“You know how to use it?” he asked.

“Twenty-minute lesson from the young lady who sold it to me,” I said, thumbing on the power for the remote. The drone was painted in desert camo, the main reason I’d bought this particular model. I followed her directions and then gave the drone the command to fly. To my delight, it lifted off right away, climbed seventy feet, and then came almost straight back down to a soft landing.

“I think I like this thing already,” I said. “You seeing its camera feed on the laptop?”

“Very clear images,” Sampson said, sounding impressed. “But I don’t get it, Alex. What are we going to do, just have it hover over his place until the battery is dead?”

“I did buy extras.” I sent the drone up again. “But I don’t know if we’ll need them.”

“What’s that mean?” Sampson said.

“Hang with me, old buddy,” I said. I had the drone climb to three hundred feet and then head southeast toward Rivers’s property, meadow, and doomsday bunker.

Nothing appeared different from the afternoon before. I flew the drone well past the solar panels, the anthill, and the house before starting to circle.

As the drone approached the bunker on its way back, I dropped it quickly down to one hundred feet. It flew right over the top of the anthill to that scorched pine tree where an eagle had built its nest. I twitched the joystick, brought the drone directly above the nest, and aimed the camera inside. “Definitely abandoned,” I said. “Not even a feather.”

“Alex, you’re in Rivers’s airspace.”