Criss Cross (Alex Cross #27)(74)

ABRAHAMSEN HIT HIS BRAKES SO HARD, he skidded; he hit gravel, the bike went out from under him, and he crashed into the grass. On the ground, he grabbed his shoulder and yelled out in pain.

“Oh God! That broke ribs, and there goes the shoulder again. Oh God.”

“Keep praying, and keep your hands where I can see them,” I said, grabbing him by the back of his bike shirt and wrenching his upper body my way. “You’re going to need all the help you can get.”

Abrahamsen screamed. “Don’t move me! What the hell are you doing?”

“Placing you under arrest,” Mahoney said, running up with his FBI badge out.

“What?” he said, panting. “What are you talking about?”

“Murder and kidnapping,” I said. “Where’s my son?”

“Arthur Abrahamsen, you have the right to remain silent,” Mahoney began.

“Ali?” he cried. “I have no idea where he is. I haven’t seen him since before I—”

“We know you have him,” I said, pushing hard on his right shoulder, ramming his busted left side into the ground.

The captain screamed again. “My God, Dr. Cross. Believe me!”

“We have the texts,” I said. “Now where is he?”

“Texts?” he said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I texted him once, the day before yesterday, to tell him I was back.”

“Before you drowned your phone and texted him repeatedly with a burner,” I said. “Invited him for a bike ride. Where is he, M?”

Abrahamsen groaned. “Who’s M? I did no such thing. You’ve got the wrong man.”

“I don’t think so,” I said as Mahoney unclipped Abrahamsen’s shoes from the bike pedals. “We’re searching your house.”

“Good,” he said. “You won’t find him there. You won’t find much of anything in there. You’ve got it all wrong.”

Ned’s radio crackled with the voice of the HRT commander. “SAC Mahoney.”

Mahoney raised the handheld to his lips. “Come back.”

“No one here. Place is virtually empty. Looks like they just applied some kind of textured plaster to the walls and the heat’s jacked up like a sauna.”

“To dry the plaster,” Abrahamsen said, grimacing as he looked at me. “Dr. Cross, I adore your son. I think he’s one of the more remarkable boys I’ve ever met. I will swear on a stack of Bibles, I don’t have Ali. I haven’t seen him in more than ten days.”

My cell phone dinged in my pocket, and I reached for it with my gut sinking again. I looked at the Wickr message, then back at Abrahamsen, wanting to sit down and cry.

“I believe you, Captain,” I said. “I apologize. I should have suspected M would try to use you to get to me.”





CHAPTER 95





SOMEONE SHOOK MY SHOULDER, and I came groggily awake into a splitting headache. I opened my eyes, and saw I was in my attic office chair, head down on the Edgerton files, an empty pint bottle of Jack Daniel’s beside me.

Bree was crouched next to me, looking concerned.

“Why didn’t you use the bed?”

I gazed at her stupidly and then remembered. “I thought I’d find something up here, and then I realized I couldn’t control this. M. Any of it. So I put my forehead on my fists, and I prayed for him. I must have fallen asleep.”

“I imagine you did, with that much whiskey in you.”

“For the first time in my life, I felt so afraid, I needed to black out.”

“Oh, baby,” she said, throwing her arms around me.

We hugged in silence for many minutes, and in the love I felt from her and gave to her, I began to come more alert.

When we broke apart, Bree kissed me and then gave me a disgusted look. “Your breath could stop a train, and you look even worse.”

“Thanks.”

“Anytime. Sampson said he sent you a Wickr message?”

I nodded and gestured to a piece of paper on the desk where I’d written it down because I’d forgotten to take a screenshot of it. But the words were indelible in my mind:

Have you noticed I’m always three steps ahead of you? Your son now suffers the sins of his father. Soon the rest of the family will be like him and Granny, gasping and clawing for air.



Bree read it.

As she did, my hungover mind keyed on the words now suffers, unable to control the things my imagination threw at me. Then the sins of his father.

What were my supposed sins? What had I done to M to make him come after me like this for so many years? I couldn’t …

“I think we need to get Nana Mama and Jannie out of here,” Bree said.

I looked at her dumbly.

“He said that the rest of the family would be gasping and clawing for air, Alex,” she said. “We have to get them somewhere safe.”

I didn’t reply, just read the last sentence again. Soon the rest of the family will be like him and Granny, gasping and clawing for air.

Something there bothered me, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

“Alex,” Bree said again.

And then I got what was bothering me, and held up my hand, seeing all the implications of that last sentence. I cleared my throat. “I agree. I’ll call Ned, ask him if you, Jannie, and Nana Mama can use his beach house. It’ll be safe. You can work from there.”