“Here,” she said. “I used to see her over on Eastern, talkin’ to him in that jeep, see? Ava didn’t even know I took it, but once I showed it to her, she stopped talkin’ shit about not havin’ no boyfriend.”

The picture had been snapped from maybe half a block away. Ava had her back to the camera, but I easily recognized her long, thin frame, and the suede boots she’d worn almost constantly since Bree bought them for her.

That wasn’t all. I also recognized the gray-green jeep in the photo, and the tall, bearded man behind the wheel.

It was Ron Guidice.

CHAPTER

106

I DON’T KNOW IF I CAN EXPLAIN WHAT HAPPENED TO ME NEXT. OR IF I EVEN fully understand it myself.

When I left Howard House, it was as if there were no words for anything I was feeling. There was nothing inside me at all but pure, white-hot anger. That, and the image from Nessa’s phone, burning into my brain, as clear as anything else.

I barely remember driving home. When I came in, Bree was there, with Sampson and Billie at the kitchen table. I must have looked like hell, because they all stopped what they were doing and stared at me.

“Alex?” Bree said. “What is it?”

I stood at the head of the table, holding myself up with both hands on the back of a kitchen chair.

“Where are the kids?” I said.

“On a walk with Nana. Billie wanted some cornstarch from the store. Why? What’s going on?”

“It was Guidice,” I said. Already, I was walking out of the room. I headed up the hall toward the stairs at the front.

“Wait—what?” Bree said, catching up behind me. “What was Guidice?”

I took the stairs two at a time, even as I tried to explain to Bree what Nessa had shown me. The words practically stuck in my throat. It was hard focusing on anything except what I’d come here to do.

“Did you call it in?” Bree asked as we came into the bedroom.

“No. I’m going out to find him myself.”

I opened the closet door and started working the combination on the safe. No electric keypad here—it was twenty-three right, thirty-nine left, nine right.

I took out my Glock and a magazine, slapped it home, and stuck the gun in my jacket pocket. I didn’t bother with a holster.

“Hold on,” Bree said. She grabbed her own gun out of the safe before I closed the door. “If you’re arresting him, I’m coming, too.”

“I’m not arresting him,” I said.

She grabbed my arm then and looked me deep in the eyes. If I’d been anywhere near myself, I might have seen enough right there to stop what I was doing and pick up the phone. Or even to send Sampson out instead of me. But I didn’t.

The only thing I knew for sure in that moment was that nobody had ever deserved to die as much as Ron Guidice did.

Before Bree could stop me, I was already out of the bedroom, down the stairs, and heading for the back door. Maybe I’d find some sense, or a reason not to do this, by the time I tracked Guidice down. And maybe I wouldn’t.

I truly didn’t know.

CHAPTER

107

RON GUIDICE TORE HIS HEADPHONES OFF, PULLED THE BERETTA 9MM OUT FROM under the driver’s seat, and got out of the jeep.

It was like a starter pistol had gone off. This was all fast-twitch muscle stuff coming back to him, the way his body had been trained to respond without the interference of the mind. The moment he’d heard Alex mention his name, Guidice knew. This operation was about to come to a sudden end.

Looking up Fifth Street from where he’d parked, he could see the front door of Alex’s house. There was no sign of him yet, but it wouldn’t be long now. His car was right there at the curb. He’d left it wide open when he went inside just moments earlier.

Guidice kept the Beretta pulled up inside the sleeve of his jacket, out of sight. There were several people on the street. A man clipping his hedges. A woman with two small kids riding their trikes up the sidewalk. There was no sense drawing any attention to himself yet. When this happened, it was going to be out in the open, and he needed a certain element of surprise.

It wasn’t the time, place, or method Guidice might have chosen, but that was irrelevant now. He’d gotten greedy. He’d let himself watch Alex suffer for one day too many, just long enough to connect the last few dots.

But maybe that was okay. In fact, maybe it was perfect, Guidice thought, as he stood watching the door. Alex was going to take a bullet to the brain, right there on the street where he’d tried so hard—and so much in vain—to keep his little family safe.

And when he did, Detective Alex Cross, paragon of the Metropolitan Police Department, was going to single-handedly prove his own incompetence to the world, in the most definitive possible terms.

So then fine, Guidice thought. Alex wanted to come looking for him? He wouldn’t have to look very far.

CHAPTER

108

“DON’T DO THIS, ALEX!”

It was only when Bree followed me off the back porch that I remembered I’d come in through the front of the house. Usually I drove around and parked in our garage—but there was nothing usual about today.

When I turned around, she was right there.

“Just give me thirty seconds,” she said. “I’m going to tell Sampson to call this in. And then I’m coming with you. At least do that for me.”

I think she was grasping at straws. Maybe she thought she could talk me down in the car.

“Yeah, okay,” I said. “I’ll wait for you out front.”

“Good.” She looked at me one more time before she ran back into the house. “I’ll be right there.”

In fact, I had no intention of waiting for Bree. Whatever was going to happen with Guidice, it was going to be just him and me when it did. There was no sense getting her involved. Or anyone else, for that matter.

I walked up the narrow passage between our house and the neighbors’, through the locked gate, and out onto Fifth Street, where I’d parked. I didn’t look back once. I just got into the car, started it up, and pulled away from the curb. In fact, if I hadn’t taken a quick glance in the rearview mirror for oncoming traffic, I never would have seen Guidice at all. He was standing right in the middle of the street, and he raised his arm in my direction just as I spotted him. I didn’t actually see the gun, but I recognized the posture right away.

Even as I swerved, and cut the car hard to the left, my back windshield exploded in a shower of glass gravel. When I looked again, Guidice was on the move. He was coming right for me, his gun still raised.

Heart thumping, I rolled onto the seat, threw open the passenger door, and fell out onto the street. My Glock was out now, and I looked over the edge of the door to see him closing the gap between us. I could tell he was trained. He didn’t just pepper the car with bullets as he came. He was waiting for a clean shot.

So was I. There were people screaming up and down the block, and running for cover in any number of directions. At this distance, I couldn’t afford the possibility of a stray bullet. If I missed him, I might hit someone else.

Guidice didn’t have the same problem. As soon as he spotted me over the passenger door, he tried again, with a quick double tap this time. I ducked down and heard the shots hit the side of the car with two dull thuds.

I could still hear a few people running up the sidewalk behind me, too. The situation was only going to get worse if I didn’t do something.

Working mostly on instinct, I stayed close to the ground and made my way around the front of the car. Maybe—just maybe—I could catch Guidice off guard as he came within range, too close to miss.

When I got to the front, I tried another quick look. He was right there, less than ten yards away now, and moving at a run. This was it. One of us was going down.