Alex Cross, Run

“Excuse me,” he said. “I’m looking for Ron Guidice. Can you tell me if this is where he lives?”

The old man regarded the little blue Cape house and shook his head.

“Sorry. I know he’s a tall fellow with a beard, but I don’t know his name.”

“That sounds like him,” Sampson said. He held up the envelope. “He’s got to sign for this. Any idea when he tends to be home?”

“Hard to say.” The man stopped to lean on his mini-dumpster. He had lonely bachelor written all over him—the kind who liked to talk. “Ever since the old lady and that little girl moved out, he just kind of comes and goes. Mostly goes.”

Sampson nodded, keeping a poker face. Old lady? Little girl? Why hadn’t there been any mention of that in the background checks? And why didn’t they live here anymore?

“So, I guess that’s his family, huh?” he asked.

The man shrugged. “I think she was the grandma. Big fat lady, anyway. The little girl was cute as a bug, though. Same age as my granddaughter, just about. Five, maybe six, I’d say.”

Sampson’s mind was turning it all over while the neighbor talked. It explained a thing or two—like why Guidice might choose a place like this.

“I don’t suppose you know where I could find them,” he said, but now the man stepped back.

“Son, I don’t even know who they are. How am I going to know where they got to?”

“Fair enough,” Sampson said. “I’ll just try back.”

“If I see him, I’ll tell him you’re looking for him. What’s your name?” the man called out as Sampson headed to his car.

“Joe Smith,” he said. “But don’t worry about it. I’m pretty good at finding someone when I want to.”

CHAPTER

82

ABOUT HALFWAY THROUGH THE AFTERNOON, I GOT A SECOND CALL FROM Detective Pe

I’d already passed Elijah Creem’s information on to Pe

“What can I do for you?” I said.

“Actually, I might have something for you,” he said. “We’ve been seeing some of the coverage on your Georgetown serial cases up there. Sounds like some pretty crazy stuff.”

“To say the least,” I told him.

“So, these masks your perp is using. What can you tell me about them?” he asked.

Pe

“They seem to be fabricated from latex,” I said. “Definitely high-grade, and convincing enough to pass on the street. If you look closely, you can pick up on a little bit of stiffness in the footage we’ve got, but not much.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” he said. “We’ve got a little security footage of our own down here. We picked up a guy getting into a dark sedan, a quarter mile north of our double homicide, and about half an hour after the estimated time of death for our two victims. There was just something about him—”

Pe

“Older white guy? Maybe six feet, and a hundred and eighty, two hundred pounds?”

“So you know what I’m talking about,” he said.

“I know that much,” I told him.

“I was hoping we could do an image swap, and see if we aren’t talking about the same guy,” Pe

“And by same guy, you mean Elijah Creem.”

“At a minimum, it’s highly suspicious,” he said. “He’s got homes in Georgetown and Palm Beach, which just happens to be where these masks are popping up.”

I was already on my feet, with the blood pumping in my ears. Considering the kind of sociopathic tendencies Creem had shown me both times we met, it all felt entirely plausible. Creem was also a surgeon, which meant a high degree of knife skill, whether that was with a scalpel, or with our killer’s signature serrated blade.

In homicide, circumstantial evidence can be an easy trap. I’ve been around long enough to avoid getting carried away by how things seem to be sometimes. But even so, by the time I hung up with Pe

It felt a whole hell of a lot like the solution.

CHAPTER

83

IT DIDN’T TAKE LONG TO CONFIRM WHAT DETECTIVE PENNER HAD SUSPECTED. Other than a few cosmetic details, the old man mask in the Florida surveillance image was a clear match to the ones we’d seen in Georgetown. It was time to move on Dr. Creem.

The first thing I did was call Errico Valente down at his crime scene on Roosevelt Island to brief him. Then I printed everything I had in hard copy and left it in a plain envelope on Valente’s desk. I’d already gotten enough heat for one day. I didn’t need an e-trail leading back to me on any of this, and I knew Errico could handle it. Also, that he’d be discreet. If he got the credit, that was the least of my worries.

After that, all I could do was finish out my day, head home, and wait to hear what they’d made of it all.

Of course, that didn’t stop me, Bree, and Sampson from putting our heads together that night, up in my office at home. There was still plenty to talk about.

It was starting to feel like we had our own PI firm ru

I caught Bree and John up on everything I’d learned that day, and we swapped a few theories. My best guess was that Elijah Creem would be in for questioning by morning, if not actually in custody. This also put a bright light on his friend, Josh Bergman, who was starting to look pretty good as our River Killer. Valente would be speaking with him, too, no doubt.

After that, we moved on to the Elizabeth Reilly case, and her phantom boyfriend—the man we knew of only as Russell. Bree had continued checking NCIC records, flagging any arrests for someone with that first or last name. So far, none of the hits she’d gotten had shown even a remote possibility of being related.

It was the same deal with Rebecca Reilly, Elizabeth’s kidnapped daughter. I’d been checking in with Ned Mahoney at the FBI, but there was no movement on that front, either. The hard truth was that our best shot at finding this baby would be if “Russell” came out of the shadows to go after another pregnant girl. I hated to even think about it.

All of which left the subject of Ron Guidice on the table.

“What about our other friend?” I said. “The one we don’t talk about.”

Bree and Sampson looked at each other. Whatever they had going on Guidice, they’d been keeping it to themselves.

“Not much to tell,” John said.

“Not much?” I said. “Or nothing at all?” I was too curious to leave it alone. Or maybe just sick of being out of the loop.

Sampson shrugged and killed the last of his beer. “Supposedly, there was an older woman and a little girl living with him until recently. The neighbor thinks they were Guidice’s mother and daughter, but he couldn’t say for sure. Either way, they’re gone now. That place of his out in Reston is like a ghost house.”

“I thought we weren’t talking about this,” Bree said.

“We’re not,” Sampson said, and laid himself across my old leather couch.

I gave John a thumbs-up by way of thanks. I wished I could be in on this, but as long as Guidice’s restraining order was in place, I wasn’t going to touch it. If that meant Guidice got to win a few battles along the way, so be it.

I was still determined to win the war.

CHAPTER

84

RON GUIDICE SLID HIS HEADPHONES OFF.