I, Alex Cross

A strong arm looped across his throat and pulled hard, until his feet nearly left the floor. Duct tape was pressed over his mouth. He heard it rip in the back and felt it stick and tighten.

"Don't fight, Mr. Petoskey. You fight – you lose – you die."

A hard finger pressed into the spot between his shoulder blades and moved him toward the bedroom door. "Let's go. This way, my friend."

Petoskey's brain squirmed. He was a numbers man, after all. He could run equations and probabilities like a machine, and right now, everything he knew told him to do as this guy said. It was even a strange kind of relief, following someone's orders after seven days of solitude in this hellhole.

In the bedroom, the man turned on a light. He was no one Petoskey recognized – tall and white, with gray-flecked dark hair. His gun had one of those extensions on it, a silencer, if the ones on TV were any indication.

"Pack a bag," he said. "Don't leave anything out. Clothes, wallet, passport, whatever you need for a long trip."

Petoskey didn't hesitate, but a whole new raft of questions floated into his crowded mind as he started to pack. Where was he going? What kind of long trip? And how could he possibly convince anyone of the truth, that he'd never had any intention of telling a soul what he knew?

One thing at a time, Petoskey. Clothes, wallet, passport…

"Now get in the bathroom," the man told him. "Pack everything you'll need in there."

"Right, he thought, clinging to the task at hand. Don't leave anything out. Toothbrush, toothpaste, shaver… condoms? Sure. Why not be positive?

The master bath was tiny, with barely enough room to stand between the pedestal sink, toilet, and shower.

Petoskey opened the medicine cabinet, but then he felt another poke between his shoulder blades.

"Get in the tub and lie down, little man."

It made no sense, but nothing did right now. Was he going to be tied up in the tub? Robbed? Left behind after all?

"No," the man said. "The other way, with your head down by the drain."

And suddenly it all became horribly clear. For the first time, Petoskey screamed – and he heard just how tiny his voice was from behind the tape. This was it. This was really it. Tonight, he disappeared forever.

He knew too much – the famous names, all their dirty secrets.

Chapter 79

I HAD FEWER and fewer people I could talk to about this murder case anymore. Lucky for me, Nana was still one of them.

For a few days, I'd been holding back on her. Somehow it seemed wrong to bring the extra stress into her room at the hospital. But as the days had passed, and these visits of mine turned into their own kind of normal, I started to realize something. If Nana were awake through all of this, she would have been asking about Caroline's case every day. No doubt about it in my mind.

So I didn't hold back anymore.

"It's not going well, old woman. Caroline's murder case," I told her that night. "I'm overwhelmed, to be honest. I've never been in a position like this before. Not that I can remember, anyway.

"Ramon Davies is ready to take me off. The Bureau was going at it full clip, and now I don't even know where they are on it. I've got the White House breathing down my neck, if you can believe that. Believe it.

"And these are supposed to be the good guys, Nana. I don't know. It's getting harder and harder to tell the difference anymore. It's like somebody said: You can love this country and hate our government."

It was quiet in the room, as usual. I kept the heart monitor volume down when I was there, so the only sounds besides my own voice were the hiss of the ventilator and an occasional snatch of conversation from the nurse's station down the hall.

Nana's condition hadn't changed, but she just seemed sicker to me. Smaller, grayer, more distant. It felt as though everything in my life was sliding in the same direction these days.

"I don't know where to go with any of this. One way or another, it's going to come out, and it's going to be huge when it does. I mean like Watergate huge, old woman. There'll be hearings and spin, and probably no one's ever going to know the real story – but I feel like I'm the only one who even wants to open that particular door. I want to know. I need to know."

There was one other thing about the quiet. It meant that I could hear Nana talking back.

Poor Alex. An army of one, huh? What else have you got?

It wasn't a rhetorical question. She'd really want to know. So I gave it some thought… I had Sampson on my side. I had Bree, of course. I had Ned Mahoney – somewhere out there.

And I had one other rainy-day idea I'd been sitting on. It wasn't the kind of thing that could be undone once it was started, but hey, how much rainier did I expect it to get?

I reached through the bed rail and put my hands on Nana's. Things like touch had become more important than ever to me – any way I could co

The room's ventilator hissed. Someone laughed down the hall.

"Thank you, old woman," I said. "Wherever you are."

You're welcome, she communicated somehow, and we left it at that. As always, Nana had the last word.

Chapter 80

AND PEOPLE CONTINUED to die. Anyone who knew anything was at risk.

It was two thousand miles from Virginia back to the island of Trinidad and the bright blue house where Esther Walcott had grown up, just outside the capital city of Port of Spain. That's where she'd run to after the raid on Mr. Nicholson's club.

Mum and Bap had welcomed her home with open arms and, more important, asked no questions about the life she'd left behind so abruptly in America.

Two years of hostessing and recruiting for the club in Virginia had left her with a nice bank account, if nothing else, and she pla

But when she woke up on that third night home with a man's hand pressed tightly over her mouth, and heard the American accent in her ear, Esther knew that she hadn't run far enough.

"One peep and I'll kill everyone in the house. Everyone. Do you understand what I'm saying, Esther? Just nod."

It was almost impossible not to scream. Her breath was coming in fast, high-pitched gasps, but she managed to nod yes.

"Good girl, smart girl. Just like at the club in America. Where's your suitcase?" She pointed to the closet. "Okay. Very slowly, now, I want you to sit up."

He got her propped up in bed and pasted a length of tape over her mouth before he let go. It was seventy-five degrees out, but she was shaking as if it were thirty. The touch of his rough hands on her stomach and breasts made her feel practically naked. And vulnerable. And sad.

When a light showed under her door, Esther's heart flip-flopped – a rush of hope at first, but then dread. Someone was coming!

The intruder turned to her in the semidark and held a finger to his lips, reminding her of what was at stake. Her family.

A moment later, there was a soft knock. "Esther?" It was her mother's voice, and all at once, more than she could take. Her right hand flew up and clawed the tape off her mouth.

"Run, Mummy! Man has a gun! Run!"

Instead, the door to the bedroom flew open. For a moment, Esther saw the wide shape of her mother shadowed against the light from the hall.

There was a soft popping sound, nothing like a regular gunshot, but Miranda Walcott clutched her chest and collapsed to the floor without another word.

Now Esther was screaming – and couldn't have stopped if she'd wanted to. Next she heard her father's voice, coming closer. He was ru