“Alex, I’ll join them in a day or two, but right now I need to work. Okay?”
There was such desperation in his eyes. I glanced at Nana Mama, who nodded sadly. Sampson was looking for a case to get lost in so he could forget his grief, and I realized it was more merciful to let him.
“I have to cancel a few appointments, but I agree, let’s go to work, John.”
He acted like I’d just thrown him a life preserver. “Thank you. Where are we going? What case?”
“The rapes and killings,” I said.
Sampson jumped up, said, “I got a car parked down the street.”
“Why don’t you go get it and I’ll make my calls,” I said.
He nodded, hugged Nana Mama, thanked her for the coffee, and left. When the front door banged shut, my grandmother came over and took my hand.
“You’re a good friend as well as his best friend,” she said.
“I know.”
“You’ll be doing two jobs out there with him.”
“I get that. You’re right. It could be a good thing.”
She gave my hand a little shake and said, “Cancel your appointments.”
Ten minutes later we were rolling, John at the wheel, driving to an address in Landover, Maryland. It was just like old times except for the ghost of Billie. I did not bring her up or ask how he was doing. Instead, I was quiet, present with him, waiting for him to talk. When we got close to the address, he finally asked, “Who are we speaking to here?”
“Peggy Dixon,” I said. “Several months before Elizabeth Hernandez was taken, Dixon claimed she was attacked by and escaped from a man trying to rape her after a party in Southeast DC. But she was evidently under the influence of an illegal substance at the time and unable to describe her assailant.”
He looked over at me. “Kind of a long shot going back to her, don’t you think?”
“You never know. There’s the address.”
We pulled over in front of a sign reading patrol, a unisex hair salon, parked, and got out. There was a line of ten people waiting to get in.
“Feel like a trim?” I asked, running my hand over my hair.
“I already keep mine high and tight,” Sampson said. “She work here?”
“That’s what I’m guessing,” I said. We cut to the front of the line, held up our IDs, and entered a small waiting area.
A receptionist with blue fingernails and long blue bangs like the rock star Sia’s sat behind the counter and said in a high nasal whine, “Wait your turn. No reservation, no cutting the line.”
Sampson held up his ID and badge, said, “Hey, Sia, do me a favor? Please tell Peggy Dixon we’re here and would like to talk to her.”
Fingers flew to the bangs and pushed them aside, revealing an Asian guy. “I’m not Sia,” he said. “I don’t do derivative. And Ms. Dixon is with clients. All day.”
I said, “Whatever your name is, have you heard of the Maya Parker case?”
“Who hasn’t?”
“We’re here about that.”
“Oh,” he said, perking up. “Oh, oh, okay, then, let me see what I can do.”
CHAPTER 50
WITH THAT, THE RECEPTIONIST JUMPED up and scurried through the salon, which seemed to be doing a bustling business; there were patrons in all ten chairs.
“Gold mine,” Sampson said.
Before I could answer, Sia, or whatever his name was, motioned for us to come through the salon. We ignored the looks of indignation from patrons and stylists alike and went to Sia.
“Peg’s upstairs,” he said. “With a client, but the old thing’s half deaf and under the dryer already, so she says go on up.”
We climbed narrow steps into an airy loft space with a single chair, sink, and dryer. There was an older woman under the dryer reading People magazine.
A plump woman in her late twenties with a wild hairdo — purple roots rising to frosted spikes — peasant clothes, and lots of piercings got up from behind a glass-and-steel desk. “I’m Peg Dixon. I thought someone might come months ago when she disappeared. Maya, I mean. It’s him, right? The guy who took Elizabeth Hernandez and who tried to take me?”
“You tell us,” I said after we showed her our credentials. “According to the report we saw, you were under the influence of an illegal substance at the time of the attack?”
She cackled with laughter. “Is that what it said? That dweeb. Sorry. Well, I suppose I was. A little, anyway. I mean, how long does a good dose of molly last? Eight, ten hours? And I was like twelve out from dropping, on the downward slide of the trip for sure, so I was like, you know, in that dreamy and unaware but, like, totally-there state you get into sometimes. That’s when he grabbed me.”
She cackled again. “He didn’t expect me. That’s for sure.”
I could see why the original detective had found Peggy Dixon frustrating, but I decided to relax and listen to her tell the story in her own way and at her own pace. Over the next fifteen minutes, until her client under the dryer was done, we listened to her ramble and spin and double-back in her narrative multiple times before we got a clear sense of what had happened.
She’d been at an underground rave at a condemned factory building in Southeast. There were four or five hundred people partying in the building, lots of people of all ages in rave-wear staples like bunny and raccoon suits.
“I was there from four in the afternoon, real early, dosed at five, and lasted until four in the morning,” she said. “I just hit that point where I was done and I couldn’t find my friend so I put it on autopilot and headed home.”
“On foot?”
“Correcto-mundo,” she said. She made her fingers into a pistol and set it to her head. “Peg here was not too bright. But to this day I don’t know why I noticed this, like, weird smooth black rock in the weeds near the building. I picked the rock up. It was maybe five inches long, thick, and kind of cylinder-shaped in the middle, too big to go in my pocket, but I thought my little brother would like it, so I decided to carry it home.”
A block and a half from the rave, as she was going by another factory, she was attacked from behind.
“He was quiet, never heard him. He came up behind me and got his arm around my neck,” she said. “Next thing I knew he was dragging me into an alley, and I could feel he was big because he kept lifting me off my feet, and I’m not exactly a lightweight.” She cackled again. “But anyway, I could feel this crazy kind of dark energy coming off the dude and I’m thinking, Peg, you have one chance to live here. Make it count.”
Halfway down the alley, her assailant slowed, brought out a strip of duct tape with his free hand, and covered her mouth with it. She whined, stiffened, and then intentionally went limp, as if she’d lost consciousness.
He relaxed his hold and she sagged to the ground and went over onto her side.
“I was looking up at him sideways then, my eyes barely open,” she said. “And the light in the alley was weird, but I believe he wore a ski mask and had a big zip tie in his mouth. I swear, he had the darkest, deadest eyes I’ve ever seen.”
“And then?” Sampson said.
“I waited until he crouched over me and reached for my arm, then I swung that rock sticking out the bottom of my fist like it was my daddy’s ball-peen hammer. I can’t tell you where I hit him, only that I did. Hard. I mean, that sucker went back on his heels, tripped, and sprawled on the ground, and this gal was up and moving.” Dixon said she ran screaming down the alley, got to a road, and ran the full fourteen blocks home. Scared, wired, she called the attack in and a police officer came and took her report.
“He was more concerned about the drugs I’d been on.”
Sampson said, “Anything you might have remembered about him later? I mean, after you made that report?”
She thought about that. “You know, yes. I had terrible nightmares after the attack. For almost a year. And really the only thing that kept coming up in those nightmares was his smell.”
“What di
d he smell like?”
“Like this men’s cologne I’d smelled before. And I didn’t know what it was until just a few weeks ago when I smelled it in a bar and almost had this, like, freak-out, but I kept cool enough to ask the guy wearing it what it was.”
“What’d he say?”
“Versace Eros for Men,” she said and cackled. “Isn’t that, like, ironic and dark in a twisted kind of way? A rapist and killer who wants to smell like Versace Eros?”
CHAPTER 51
TWO HOURS LATER, BREE STONE stared at a spot a few inches over the police commissioner’s head as Dennison ranted.
“Your goddamn husband told the vice president of the United States that I leaked Kay Willingham’s stay in a loony bin?”
Bree lowered her gaze and glared at Dennison, who was behind his desk in his office with Chief Michaels to one side. “Are you denying it, Commissioner?”
“Denying it? Who the hell do you think you are?”
“I am goddamn Alex Cross’s wife,” Bree shot back. “And his confidante and his colleague. You took information that you were warned was sensitive and you decided to give it to that reporter for your own reasons. Whatever the hell they were.”
Dennison looked ready to blow his stack. “Well, then, I guess you have to decide whether your allegiance is to Alex Cross or Metro PD.”
“You’re making this too easy, Commissioner,” she said. She took out her badge and slammed it on his desk, then followed it with her weapon. “I don’t know what your angle is or what you are trying to be, but I am no longer part of it. I have better ways to spend my life, and I intend to pursue them.”
She turned to Chief Michaels. “It’s been an honor to serve with you, sir, but some things just aren’t worth it. I’ll have my letter of resignation on your desk and my office cleaned out by tomorrow noon.”
“You can’t just walk out!” Dennison shouted.
“Watch me,” Bree said, heading for the door.
“Chief Stone, stop, and that is a direct order!”
“What is it about the term letter of resignation that you don’t understand, you self-serving ass?” she said, opening the office door. “I don’t work for you anymore.”
Bree slammed the door behind her because it made her feel good. So did making a face at Dennison’s personal assistant and heading for the elevator without the weight of her job and whether she was good enough at it hanging around her neck. She’d quit barely a minute before and already the stress of it was gone.
I can do anything, she thought giddily. Anything I want!
Bree returned to her office thinking about travel and exotic beach vacations and graduate school. But seeing the mementos of a long career in law enforcement all around her dampened her enthusiasm.
Part of her wanted to take it all right then and there and clear out. But she didn’t have her car with her, and she wanted to have boxes and packing material to do it right.
She took her purse, briefcase, and laptop and left Metro headquarters. Seeing other officers and detectives coming and going, Bree felt surprisingly removed from their concerns.
I’m free to be me, she thought, calling an Uber. Free to be Bree!
She was on Fifth Street by four and got out of the car trying to remember the last time she’d been home this early. It didn’t matter; she’d have an even shorter workday tomorrow.
She laughed, walked across the porch, and went inside feeling more alive than she had since she’d taken the job as chief of detectives. Hearing steel bowls clanking in the kitchen, Bree went in and found Nana Mama just starting to prepare dinner.
“Why don’t you sit?” Bree said. “I’ll cook dinner tonight.”
“What?” Nana Mama said. “But you don’t know what I had planned.”
“Then let me help you.”
Alex’s grandmother gave her an odd look. “No offense, and I love you, Bree, but you’ve never offered to help before. You told me you don’t like cooking.”
“I actually meant I didn’t have time for cooking. And honestly, I saw how it connected you and Billie, and I guess I’d like some of that same connection while I still have the chance. If that’s okay?”
Nana Mama softened, shuffled over to Bree, and hugged her. “It’s more than okay, dear. It’s wonderful. Thank you. And you can start by slicing those onions.”
Bree grinned, kissed the old woman on the forehead, and said, “Done.” She got a knife and sliced the onions and chopped up everything else Alex’s grandmother wanted chopped, then they poured the sauce over short ribs, covered them in foil, and put them in the oven on low heat.
“There,” Nana Mama said. “We’ll eat around seven thirty.”
“Perfect,” Bree said. “What else can I do?”
“This old lady is going to lie down for twenty minutes before Ali comes home.”
“Oh, okay, then,” Bree said. “Sweet dreams.”
Nana left the kitchen and Bree realized that she had no idea what to do next.
Then she heard footsteps and the basement door opened. Alex came into the kitchen with two coffee mugs.
“Nana Mama said you and Sampson went off this morning,” she said. “Canceled your clients to work with him.”
“That’s right,” Alex said, going to pour coffee from Nana Mama’s bottomless pot. “We’re downstairs trying to see if there’s an overlap or pattern to where Maya Parker, Elizabeth Hernandez, and the others vanished beyond Southeast DC. By the way, why are you home so early?”
Bree had barely been keeping her emotions in check. Now she blurted out, “I quit my job because the commissioner made the thought of spending one more day working for him totally unacceptable. He also called you my ‘goddamn husband,’ and I called him a ‘self-serving ass.’ ”
She felt tears flowing and could barely see Alex when he set down the coffee cups and came to embrace her. Bree held tight to him and let loose her frustration.
“Are those tears of relief or regret?” he asked when her crying had slowed.
“Relief,” she said, snuggling into his chest. “No regrets. Yet.”
“Well, then,” he said, rubbing her back, “I support your decision one hundred percent.”
CHAPTER 52
I HATE PHONE CALLS AT two fifteen in the morning, especially when I’ve fallen asleep past midnight after hours of grief therapy with Sampson (in the form of work) and listening to Bree as she dealt with the emotional upheaval of quitting a seventeen-year career in law enforcement.
So I was not happy when I heard my phone ringing and even less happy when I peered groggily at the caller ID and saw SPARKMAN.
“Not a chance, Clive,” I grumbled. I sent the call to voice mail, put the phone on vibrate, and tried to go back to sleep.
He called twice more. I could hear the phone buzzing. I was about to turn it off altogether when he texted me: Damn it, Cross, pick up! Higgins was attacked!
Higgins? I thought. Kelli Ann Higgins? The dirt-monger?
I got up without waking Bree, went into the bathroom, and shut the door. My phone started buzzing in my hand. I answered, said, “Tell me.”
“She was beaten and her apartment ransacked,” Sparkman said, a tremor in his voice. “I … I found her.”
“Where is she?”
“The back of an ambulance headed to Georgetown Medical,” he said.
“She conscious?”
“In and out,” he said. “I must have just missed whoever did it. Thank God.”
“Where are you?”
“Outside her place in Foggy Bottom. I’ll text the address.”
“Police there?”
“A patrol officer.”
“Tell him to seal her apartment. Move nothing and stay where you are.”
Before he could reply, I cut the connection, slipped out of the bathroom, went into the walk-in closet, and dressed as quietly as I could. But when I came out, Bree sat up in bed and asked me what was going on.
I told her and she flipped on t
he light. “I’m coming with you.”
“You resigned.”
“It’s not official until noon and I want to see this.”
I knew better than to argue and waited while she got dressed. The city’s streets were virtually empty, and by a quarter to three we were parked and hustling up the sidewalk past a patrol car to a swank townhome in Foggy Bottom.
Sparkman was outside the front door, smoking a cigarette, his hands shaking, speaking to the uniformed officer on the scene. “I’m a wreck,” he said when he noticed us. “Look at me.” He broke down crying. “She always said I was so naive, that I didn’t begin to understand how cruel and ruthless DC could be. She told me she feared for her life, and I didn’t believe her. Is she still alive?”
“We don’t know,” Bree said. “Explain how you came to find her, Mr. Sparkman.”
He looked at me. I said, “Answer Chief of Detectives Stone, Clive.”
Sparkman got himself together and told her that what had started as a purely professional relationship with Higgins had changed in the past few weeks. It had been one-way up to then, Higgins teasing him, leading him on, and, when it suited her, feeding him informed dirt for his blog.
But then there’d been this one drunken night.
“She seemed embarrassed when she woke up, and she asked me to leave as discreetly as possible. I figured that was the end of it, you know, a mistake on both our parts. But she called me a few nights later. She sounded a little drunk. I went over. And, I don’t know, it became a secret thing between us. Pretty regular too.”
I said, “You don’t think you should have mentioned that when you told me to talk to her a few days ago?”
“It’s not like we were in love. It’s just … you know.”
“I don’t know, but I assume she called you earlier tonight?”
“Texted me. Around nine. Said she wouldn’t be done with work until after midnight, but she’d appreciate the company and to come in from the alley like I always do. Here, I have the text.”
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