Alex Cross, Run

Even Stephanie was upset. She had tears in her eyes when I answered the door. We’d already spoken about the drug charge, and asked her to please interview Ava about it the first chance she got. Stephanie had promised she would. Meanwhile, there was a forty-eight-hour waiting period before we could visit Ava in her new place. That meant we wouldn’t know anything else for at least two days.

“Ava, honey, you ready to go?” Stephanie asked, trying to stay upbeat.

Ava just shrugged and shuffled over to the door. I could already see the hardness coming back into her eyes. It was like she’d been expecting this all along. The only constant in this girl’s life up to now had been impermanence itself. Why would she expect this situation to be any different?

“Hold your horses there,” Nana said. She unclasped the silver locket from around her neck as she followed Ava to the door. Inside, I knew the locket had a tiny picture of the whole family on one side, and a goofy little baby picture of me on the other.

“Here.” Nana put the chain around Ava’s neck. “This is a loan, so don’t you dare trade it or sell it. I’m going to want it back the minute you’re settled here again.”

Ava raised and lowered one shoulder, staring at the ground. “Thanks for being nice to me,” she said, without any discernible emotion. “I’m sorry I wasn’t always so good.”

At that, Nana’s expression went dark. She reached up and took Ava by the shoulders with her own small, bony hands.

“Girl, you’ve got nothing to be sorry for,” she said, her voice starting to shake. “You are loved in this home, Miss Ava Williams. Do you hear me? Nothing you do is ever going to change that. Nothing!”

She wrapped Ava up in a big hug, and we all gathered around. I could feel Ava there in the middle of us, as stiff as a board. It was like she was trying to feel as little as possible. The girl who had cried in my arms a week ago was now packed up and put away, just like the rest of her things. To me, that felt like a tragedy.

“I’m sorry, everyone, but we really do have to get moving,” Stephanie said. “It’s getting late.”

“Bye, Ava,” Ja

“Bye, Ava!” Ali said, crying in my arms, as we followed her down the front stairs.

By the time we got to the curb, where another woman from Child and Family Services was double-parked, Ava wasn’t even looking at us anymore. She climbed into the backseat and took her suitcase from Bree.

“We love you, Ava,” Bree said. “And we’ll see you in two days.”

Ava stared straight ahead, up Fifth Street, with dry eyes. “Bye,” was all she said.

A moment later, they were gone.

CHAPTER

66

RON GUIDICE WATCHED HIS REARVIEW MIRROR AS THE LADY FROM SOCIAL services walked Ava down the front steps. He hadn’t been able to overhear much from inside the Cross home. His listening mike on the first floor was in the kitchen. But still, this little scene spoke for itself.

There was a time when he might have felt sorry for the Crosses on a day like this. Now, it felt more like a checkmark. If he needed any reminder about why, every glance in the mirror showed him the bandages across his broken nose. He had a black eye, too, and his jaw was as stiff as concrete.

An undeniable line in the sand had been crossed. Alex was on the run now, and he knew Guidice was coming for him. But Guidice still had the upper hand. Anytime he felt compromised, all he had to do was pull the trigger—literally, and figuratively. That’s what the Kahr 9mm was doing under the seat. From here on out, he’d keep it with him at all times.

Meanwhile, his thumbs jumped around the touchpad on his phone, finishing up a quick piece for The Real Deal. As Ava climbed into the tan minivan in front of Alex’s house, he jotted down his last few thoughts for the day.

Then, as the car took off from the curb, and before Guidice pulled out to follow, he hit Send.

UNFORTUNATE, AND INEVITABLE

Posted by RG at 5:28 p.m.

It seems that Detective Cross of the MPD has gone off the rails. Anyone who has been following this story might call the events of the last twenty-four hours unsurprising. I call it an unfortunate inevitability.

Before anything else, let me reiterate that I am making this information available as a matter of public record. I have no intention to sell, package, or profit from my own story beyond what you see in this space.

In a nutshell: Detective Cross beat the s**t out of me yesterday. This was not the first unprovoked confrontation I’ve had with the detective, but it was certainly the most violent. (Click here for an overview of Cross’s most recent lapses in judgment.)

From the moment I encountered him, outside the Georgetown Ripper’s most recent crime scene, I suspected that Detective Cross was altered in some way—either drunk, high, or both. When I asked him about it, he quickly grew angry and belligerent.

As I pressed the question, it sparked a reaction that surprised even me. After six years of reporting on police practices both in and out of the US, I’ve never experienced anything like this. I received one punch to the face, where I sustained a broken nose; one punch to the jaw; and one kick to the stomach while I was on the ground. Click here for pictures (warning—graphic content, not suitable for children). I will be using these images as evidence in my civil suit against Detective Cross, against whom I have already filed a restraining order.

The story doesn’t end there, either. Immediately following this incident, the detective was seen passing out, and was then taken away in an ambulance. (I know this because MPD attended to his medical needs before mine.) Given that I never hit him, or even touched him, I feel more certain than ever that he was, in fact, under the influence of some illicit substance.

The city seems to agree with me, too. Just this evening, the foster child in Detective Cross’s care was removed from his home. Hopefully, that child will now be living in a safer and healthier environment.

Lastly, for the record, I fully admit to using this platform for making an example of Detective Cross over the past several weeks. After what happened yesterday, I wonder if anyone could blame me. If even one corrupt police officer is taken off the streets as a result of my investigations, then this work (and yes, my recently sustained injuries) will have been worth it.

Comments? Thoughts? Share them here.

Part Three

DROP DEAD, GORGEOUS

CHAPTER

67

ELIJAH CREEM STOOD ON A DARK STRETCH OF PALM BEACH, ADMIRING HIS OWN house from a distance.

“You know, I’m actually going to miss this place?” he said to Bergman over the phone.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s just a house,” Bergman told him.

“Yeah, but it’s a nice goddamn house, and I paid for it. Not her.”

Even at night, and all closed up, the place fairly glowed from the pearlescent white finish on the sleek modern exterior. Miranda had insisted it be reclad that way when they bought it, to the tune of three hundred thousand dollars. It was a ridiculous bit of real estate vanity, but she’d been right in the end.

The bitch had good taste. There was no denying that.

She’d also made it clear through her mouthpiece of a lawyer that she was coming after the Palm Beach place in the divorce. Absent a thriving private practice, and the cash flow that went with it, Miranda was taking her revenge in real estate. Creem wouldn’t have expected anything less.

“Ah, well,” he said. “I guess I’ll have to make it up to myself somehow.”