Kevin Hawkins managed to pull himself up from the sprawling heap. He looked back. He saw us coming. Guns everywhere.
He had a gun out, but he didn't fire. He was only a few feet away from the school bus and the children.
He left the kids alone, though. Instead, he ran to a black Camaro convertible at the head of the line of stopped cars.
What the hell was he up to now?
I could see him yelling into the driver-side window of the stopped sports car. Then blam, he fired directly into the open window.
Hawkins yanked open the car door, and a body fell out.
Jesus Christ, he'd shot the driver dead! Just like that.
I had seen it, but I couldn't believe it.
The contract killer took off in the Camaro. He'd killed someone for his car. But he'd nearly killed himself to avoid hitting a row of innocent children.
No rules... or rather, make up your own.
I stopped running and stood helplessly in the middle of the street in Silver Spring. Had we just been that close to catching Jack ?
Had it almost been over?
NANA MAMA was still up when I got home about eleven-thirty that night. Sampson was with her.
Adrenaline fired through my body the moment I saw them waiting for me. The two of them looked even worse than I felt after a long bear of a day.
Something was wrong. Something was very wrong at our house. I could tell it for sure. Sampson and Nana didn't have casual visits after eleven o'clock at night.
“What's going on? What happened?” I asked as I came in through the kitchen door. My stomach was dropping, plunging.
Nana and Sampson sat at the small dining table. They were talking, conspiring over something.
“What is it?” I asked again. “What the hell is going on?”
“Someone's been calling on the telephone all night tonight, Alex. Then they just hang up when I answer the phone,” my grandmother told me as I sat at the kitchen table beside her and Sampson.
“Why didn't you call me right away?” I asked, firmly but gently “You have my beeper number. That's what it's for, Nana.”
“I called John,” Nana answered the question. “I knew you were busy protecting the President and his family.”
I ignored her usual rancor. This wasn't the time for that, or for a tiff. “Did the caller ever say anything?” I asked. “Did you actually speak to anyone?”
“No. There were twelve calls between eight-thirty and ten or so. None since then. I could hear someone breathing on the line, Alex. I almost blew my whistle on them.” Nana keeps a silver referee's whistle near the phone. It's her own solution to obscene calls. This time I almost wished she had blown the damn whistle.
“I'm going to bed now,” she said and sighed softly, almost inaudibly.
For once, she actually looked her age. “Now that you're both here.”
She strained as she pushed herself up out of the creaking kitchen chair. She went over to Sampson first. She bent just a little and kissed him on the cheek.
“'Night, Nana,” he whispered. “There's nothing to worry about. We'll take care of everything, bad as it seems right now.”
“John, John,” she gently scolded him. “There's a great deal of worry about, and we both know it. Don't we, now?”
She came and kissed me. “Goodnight, Alex. I'm glad you're home now. This murderer stalking our neighborhood worries me so. It's very bad. Very bad. Please trust my feelings on this one.”
I held her frail body for a few seconds, and I could feel the anger building inside. I held her tightly and thought about how terrible this was, what she was intimating, this evil incarnate following me home. No one in his right mind goes after a cop's family I didn't believe the killer was in his right mind, though.
“Goodnight, Nana. Thank you for being here for us,” I whispered against her cheek, smelled her lilac talc. “I hear what you're saying. I agree with you.”
When she had left the room, Sampson shook his head. Then he finally smiled. “Tough as ever, man. She's really something else. I love her, though. I love your grandma.”
“I do, too. Most of the time.”
I was staring up at the ceiling light, trying to focus on something that I could comprehend -- like electricity, lamps, moldings.
No one can really understand a homicidal madman. They are like visitors from other planets -- literally I was almost speechless, for once in my life. I felt violated, incredibly angry, and also afraid for my family Maybe these phone calls were nothing, but I didn't know that for sure.
I got a couple of beers from the fridge, popped them open for the two of us. I needed to talk to Sampson, anyway There hadn't been a free moment all day long.
“She's afraid for the kids' sake. That gets the fur up on her neck. Claws out,” Sampson said, then took a long
