Cross Country
Chapter 64
“PLEASE? I CAN tell you what happened in the house. Everything.” The boy's small voice came muted through the glass. Bree was thinking that he couldn't be more than eleven or twelve.
He was either scared or a good little actor-or maybe he was both.
Sampson was in the bedroom behind her now. Neither of them drew a weapon; not that they trusted the boy for a second.
Bree had a hand on her piece.
“Tell me what you know about this,” she said.
She and Sampson approached the window from opposite angles. Bree moved in first. She had to duck her head to get inside the dormer alcove.
From here, she could see that the boy had his feet on a lip of decorative brickwork outside.
Beneath that was the roof of the back porch, and a small, November-dead garden maybe ten feet below.
“No further,” the boy warned, “or I run away. I can run very fast. You never catch me.”
“Okay. Let me get this out of the way, though.”
The old rope-and-pulley window sash took some coaxing, but finally Bree forced it up about six inches.
“What are you doing out there?” she asked.
“I know how it happened. They kill the girl and boy in dis very room. The others down de hall.”
His accent was African. Nigerian was Bree's guess.
“How do you know so much?” she asked. “Why should I believe you?”
“I am the lookout, but soon they will make me go with them to kill others.” He looked past Bree and Sampson to the scene inside. “I do not want to do dis. Please-I am Cat'lie.”
“It's all right,” Bree told him, “You don't have to hurt anyone. I'm Catholic too. Why don't you come down from there, and we can-”
“No” He took a hand off again, threatening to jump and run. “Don't try nah tricks on me!”
“Okay, okay.” Bree held up her hands, palms out. Then she knelt down a little closer. “Just talk to me. Tell me more. What's your name?”
“Benjamin.”
“Benjamin, do you know anything about a man they call the Tiger? Was he here?” Alex had told her about the Tiger during their phone call. Supposedly the killer was in Africa now, but maybe Alex's information was wrong.
The boy nodded slowly. “I know, yes.” Then he said, “More than one, though. Not just one Tiger.”
That certainly stunned Bree-and she assumed it would surprise the hell out of Alex too.
“Many men are called the Tiger?” she asked. “You're sure about that?”
Another nod from the boy.
“Here in Washington?”
“Yes. Maybe two or three.”
“And in Nigeria?”
“Yes.”
“How many Tigers, Benjamin? Do you know?” “They do not tell me, but there are many. Bosses of gangs are all Tigers.”
Bree looked over her shoulder at Sampson, then back again at the boy. “Benjamin, do you want to hear a secret?”
The question seemed to confuse him. His eyes went from side to side; he looked down again, checking his escape route.
And when he did that, Bree moved. Fast! Much faster than Benjamin thought she could.
Cross Country
Chapter 65
SHE REACHED IN through the bars and got her hand around the lookout's skinny wrist.
“Sampson, go!”
“Let go of me!” the boy yelled at her.
