I had to leave at quarter to nine to make an appointment with a new patient, an attorney at the Justice Department. In addition to my law enforcement work, I have a PhD in clinical psychology and practice on a part-time basis out of an office in the basement of our house on Fifth Street in Southeast DC.
In the northern United States or out west, six inches of snow is no big deal. But in the nation’s capital, it usually creates a state of emergency and near gridlock. I somehow managed to catch a cab, but I had to get out at the bottom of Capitol Hill and walk the rest of the way home.
The storm was clearing but a raw wind bit at my ears as I hustled along and thought about the late Senator Walker. Given her committee assignments—chairman of Energy and Natural Resources, and prominent seats on Appropriations and Agriculture—I was leaning away from the idea that a fanatic professional was behind the assassination.
As a matter of fact, I was tilting away from the idea of a fanatic at all. The entire thing felt surgical, or at least highly organized. Though I wasn’t completely dismissing the idea of a terrorist, I was thinking a pro was responsible.
But why? Why a professional assassin? What had Senator Walker done to get gunned down in cold blood in front of her house? Who had she crossed or destroyed?
Was the fact that she was shot outside her home meant as a statement, like a Mafia killing? Or was it merely a zone of opportunity?
I decided it was the latter. Before I left the crime scene, Lieutenant Lee had told me that the senator attended a yoga class Monday through Thursday. Every morning. It helped her clear her mind, he said.
It also helped her killer, I thought. The shooter knew about the pattern through personal observation or because he had been told about it.
Mr. and Mrs. Fairfax had been down in Palm Beach for two months. Mahoney believed it was possible the killer had been inside the house scouting Senator Walker multiple times and for extended periods. He had called for a second forensics team to comb the bedroom for DNA and microfibers, but I doubted they’d find much.
Making repeated trips inside the Fairfaxes’ residence felt unprofessional to me. If I were a gun for hire, I’d want to spend as little time as possible in the kill zone. Whenever a human brushes up against something, he or she leaves tiny bits of skin and hairs that people like Sally Burton can gather and analyze. A trained assassin would know that.
No, I thought as I turned down Fifth Street and saw people out shoveling their sidewalks. The killer went in there based on someone else’s intelligence, so maybe once or twice, no more than—
“Dad!”
I started, looked up, and saw a snowman in front of our house. Ali was beside it, excited and waving. I grinned. My youngest child had a real passion for life. Whatever he was into at the moment, he was fully there and usually having a heck of a good time.
“Nice one,” I said.
“I built it just since breakfast!”
“No school?”
“Snow day,” he said, beaming. “I get to play.”
“Well, your dad gets to work. Have fun and don’t get wet. You’ll catch a cold.”
“You sound like Nana.”
“Maybe there’s hope for me,” I said. I rubbed the top of his wool cap and went around the side of the house in fresh untracked snow up to my ankles to steps that led down to the basement door.
I used a key to open it and pushed the door in. Snow fell inside on the mat. So did a folded piece of paper.
I picked it up, unfolded it.
Alex Cross:
Stop Me, Please.
I turned it over. Nothing.
Behind me, in a trembling voice, a woman said, “Dr. Cross?”
I pivoted to find a very attractive woman in her thirties looking down at me through the open door. Wearing a knit cap and mittens and hugging herself in her baby-blue down coat, she had fresh tears on her cheeks. Her posture was hunched, which I read as more despondent than distressed.
“Yes, I’m Alex Cross,” I said, smiling. I stuffed the note in my jacket pocket and gestured her inside. “I’m sorry about not shoveling the path in. Ms. Davis?”
Nina Davis smiled weakly through her tears as she passed me.
“I rather like all the snow, Dr. Cross,” she said. “It reminds me of home.”