Criss Cross (Alex Cross #27)(16)

I’d been shocked by that, and it had given me a new appreciation for what women, including Marlene Rogers, went through on a daily basis. I decided she’d probably been sexually harassed enough to know when a guy posed an actual threat, so if she said someone was following her, I believed her.

Around nine, Rogers, no longer in her Hooters uniform and with a heavy purse over one shoulder, came out the back door of the restaurant. She climbed into her Toyota Prius and drove out of the parking lot. No one followed her except us.

“She’s headed to her mom’s place to pick up her son,” I said. “Let’s go sit on her condo and make sure she gets inside, then we’ll call it a night.”

“Works for me,” Sampson said.

Rogers lived in the upper right unit of a two-story, fourplex rental near the Walmart Supercenter off I-66. We parked across the street and down the block.

I used binoculars to scan the cars on the street but saw no one in any of them. Rogers rolled in ten minutes later, parked the Prius in her normal spot—nose in against a cedar hedge—and carried her sleeping son up the stairs and into the apartment.

We watched for a few minutes, and I was about to call it when Rogers came back out and hurried to her car. She opened the door, ducked inside, and emerged with her purse. Slinging it over her shoulder, Rogers turned to head back to her apartment.

A looming dark shape slipped from the cedar hedge, took two steps toward her, and grabbed her from behind.





CHAPTER 19





HE WAS BIG AND OUTWEIGHED Marlene Rogers by a solid hundred pounds at least, maybe more. He clamped a gloved hand over her mouth and wrapped his other arm around her neck.

He started dragging the waitress as we bolted from the squad car and ran down the street toward them. He’d taken her through the hedge by the time we reached her car.

We went through the hedge, guns drawn, and found ourselves on a lawn behind the parking lot of another, larger apartment complex.

He was maybe fifty yards away, dressed in black from his boots to his face mask and hood. Rogers had stopped squirming, and he was hustling her toward the open side door of a beige panel van. We sprinted at him, me slower and more off balance than Sampson but refusing to stop.

Still not seeing us, he turned, keeping the waitress in front of him, and tried to pull her back into the van. But when he did, she dug in her heels and drove herself backward, going with his momentum. It threw him off balance, and he let go of her mouth long enough for her to scream and strike at his ribs with her elbow.

He grunted, swore, reached behind.

“Police!” Sampson shouted, gun up, coming between two parked cars about thirty yards away from them. “Let her go!”

The man put a Glock to Marlene’s head. In a flat voice, he said, “If you want her to live, you let me go.”

“Let her go now!” I said, coming at him from a slightly different angle.

“Stay where you are, or I’ll kill her,” he said. “I’ve got nothing to lose. I swear I’ll kill the bitch out of spite.”

Before we could say anything in response, a shot rang out, then another.

Sampson and I dived for cover.

But we needn’t have.

The big guy wasn’t the one who’d fired the gun. One bullet went through his right shoulder, which caused his arm to buckle and sag, and the second round struck him four inches higher, entering the side of his neck.

He went limp as a rag doll and let go of the gun and Marlene Rogers. Then he fell backward and landed half in and half out of the panel van.

The waitress let out a shriek and ran. I tried to grab at her from my knees as she passed. “You’re okay!”

“No, I’m not!” she screamed. “I have to make sure Eddie’s safe!”

She got by me and tore toward the cedar hedge, sobbing hysterically.

Sampson and I lurched up and got into combat shooting crouches, still on high alert, guns aimed toward the darkness where the two shots had come from.

FBI special agent Kyle Craig stepped from the shadows, right hand and service weapon hanging at his side, his open left palm raised in salute and surrender.





CHAPTER 20





“GOOD THING I CAME ALONG when I did,” Craig said, sounding matter-of-fact rather than smug, “or that young lady would have been dead. Or one of you.”

Our astonishment was complete as we lowered our pistols.

“Jesus, Kyle,” Sampson said. “Where did you come from?”

“Back there,” he said, walking toward the body. “I’ve been watching this guy. But I had no idea what he was going to do even after he disappeared through that hedge.”

“Wait,” I said. “You’ve been following him?”

“Last night and all day today,” Craig said.

“You know who he is?” Sampson said.

“Definitely,” Craig said, holstering his weapon, getting out a flashlight, and shining it on the dead man’s face. He removed the mask and said, “Pal of yours, Sampson.”

We gaped at Bernard Mountebank, the shop owner who’d given us the runaround when we asked about the tie.

“What?” Sampson said, dumbfounded.

“Right?” Craig said, sounding pleased with himself.