Deadly Cross (Alex Cross #28)(2)

“Right behind you,” Devon said. He tugged the pearls from the dead woman’s ears and laid her head back on the seat.

“Alley now,” Lever said, pivoting.

They heard scuffling in the gravel behind them. They took off at a sprint and dodged through a hole in the fence into a dark alley, where they stopped to look back. Someone was heading toward the car.

They ran the length of the alley, slowed to a walk across Alabama Avenue, then kept on at a faster pace toward Fort Circle Park. Forty minutes later, as the boys were reaching home, they heard sirens begin to wail back at the school.





CHAPTER 3





IT WAS SEVEN THIRTY IN the morning, and I was standing at the bottom of a granite cliff on Old Rag Mountain in Shenandoah National Park, looking dubiously up at the cracks in the wall and the ropes dangling beside them.

“Biggest one yet, Dad!” said my ten-year-old son, Ali, who stood to my right wearing a white rock helmet and a climbing harness over his T-shirt and shorts.

“You think?” his sister said. Jannie, my seventeen-year-old, was kneeling to my left, retying her climbing shoe.

The man beside her, who was going through a knapsack, said, “Definitely. It’s six stories and technically more challenging. And the rappel down’s a screamer.”

“It’s a screamer, Dad!” Ali said.

“No screamers,” I said. “As far as I’m concerned, if you’re screaming, you’re falling, so no screamers.”

“Sorry, Dr. Cross,” the man said, setting the bag down. “It just means you can take bigger leaps before you tighten up on the rack coming down.”

“I’ll be good, Tom, and locked into my rack, thank you,” I said.

Tom Mury grinned and clapped me on the back. “It’s just cool to see someone like you willing to go on rope.”

“Someone like me?” I said.

“Six two? Two twenty-five? Forties?”

“With all the hiking we’ve been doing, I’m two twenty.”

“It’s still impressive to see a guy your size going up.”

“He is at a disadvantage,” Ali said. “So is Jannie.”

“Nope,” my daughter said, standing. “I’m stronger and got longer arms and legs than you do.”

“Helps to be small and crafty if you want to be a human fly,” Ali said.

“Sometimes,” Mury said. “Who’s up first?”

For the past four days, we’d been taking a course with Mury, who was a certified rock-climbing instructor. It was Ali’s idea, of course, the newest of his obsessions, and Jannie had expressed interest in it right away.

To be honest, I had been less enthusiastic, but with Jannie entering her senior year of high school in two months and her college years looming, I was trying to lead a more balanced life, focusing more on my family and less on murder and mayhem. So I agreed to join them.

We’d been bouldering and climbing less sheer rock for the past two days. Though we’d all spent time prior to the course learning the basics in a climbing gym in Northern Virginia, this would be the first time we had climbed an actual cliff.

“I’ll go!” Ali said, stepping forward.

“Sisters first,” Jannie said.

“Dad?”

“She’s up.”

While my son pouted, Jannie went to the rope and watched Mury intently as he linked her to the line with a small mechanical device called a jumar that was already tied to her harness. The jumar would allow the rope to slip through only when Jannie ascended. If she fell off the rock, the device would lock her in place on the rope.

“Just like we talked about yesterday,” Mury said. “We’re not trusting the jumar, are we?”

“I’ll work the Prusik knot, too, and the cow’s-tail all the way up.”

He picked up the other rope and called, “On belay.”

Jannie turned all business, said, “On rope. Climbing.”





CHAPTER 4





WATCHING YOUR CHILD CLIMB A sheer face, even roped in, is an experience somewhere between breathtaking and panic-inducing. At least that’s how I felt seeing Jannie boldly ascend the cliff, sure with her hands and feet, using her safety gear exactly the way Mury had taught us.

“Great job!” Mury called when she disappeared over the top.

Ali and I clapped and whistled, and unseen high above us, Jannie let loose a scream of triumph.

“I’m on now!” Ali said.

My son was less sure as he climbed, but every time he stalled and tried to figure out his next move, Mury would shout up some encouragement or instruction. Twenty minutes after he began, Ali disappeared over the top.

“I am the human fly!” I heard him shout.

Mury laughed. “Your kid’s a piece of work, Dr. Cross.”

“Call me Alex, and he is that.” I chuckled. “He never ceases to amaze me.”

“Ready, Alex?”

My stomach did a little flip-flop, I’ll admit it. Heights aren’t my thing, but once I commit to something, I commit.

“As I’ll ever be,” I said, going to the rope.

Mury helped rig me. As I climbed, I’d work the jumar on the main line and the Prusik knot on the rope beside it. Like the mechanical device, the knot allowed a rope to pass through only in one direction. Any weight on the safety rope attached to my harness, and the knot would cause it to cinch tight. In the unlikely failure of the jumar, the Prusik would save me a long and potentially fatal fall.