Kill Alex Cross

She nodded as she put away the picture. “Rod changed. I mean — to be fair, we both changed. But he just got so … paranoid. And so angry, angry, angry. I think on some level, he blamed himself. Like he never got to be the doctor who could save his own son, you know? But on the outside, he blamed everyone else.”

“And when you say everyone —”

“I mean everyone,” she answered. “The doctors, the hospital, the whole messed-up healthcare system. We didn’t have any insurance at the time, so you can imagine. If you’d asked him then, he probably would have said it was the system’s fault that Zach got sick in the first place.”

Molly stopped suddenly and turned to me, as if something had just occurred to her. “What’s he done, anyway? Is Rod in some kind of trouble?” she asked.

I’d been gauging her carefully the whole time, trying to figure out how much was too much to say here. I didn’t want to leave without getting everything I could, so I went ahead and took a calculated risk.

“Molly, I told you before that Rodney’s been in Washington for the last three years. But what I didn’t say was that he’s been working at the Branaff School for most of that time.”

She looked at me blankly. Apparently, the name didn’t mean anything to her.

“It’s where Zoe and Ethan Coyle are enrolled. It’s where the kidnapping occurred.”

“Wait,” she said. “Are you saying Rod’s a suspect in that kidnapping?”

“Technically, anyone who works at the school is on our list,” I said. It was the kind of answer I had to give, but she understood perfectly.

Now her whole demeanor changed. Suddenly she seemed twice as shaky and nervous as before. Her hand treaded back up to the crucifix and her eyebrows knitted together.

“I just can’t believe that. No. I mean … he couldn’t possibly … could he?”

“I don’t know, Molly,” I said quietly. “Could he?”

It took her a long time to answer. She bowed her head and closed her eyes for several seconds. Her fingers were all over the cross and I wondered if she was saying a prayer. And also if she was involved herself.

When she looked up again, she was trembling all over.

“There’s something I have to tell you,” she said. “Maybe something important.”

“IT WAS A few months after Zachary died,” Molly Johnson started in. “Things had gotten pretty awful between me and Rod. But then one night, out of the blue, he came home and said he wanted us to go for a drive.”

She was still staring off into the distance, not really focusing on anything — except maybe the memory of that night. We’d obviously opened some kind of Pandora’s box. I kept my mouth shut for the time being and just listened to her.

“Honestly, Detective, the last thing I wanted at that point was to go anywhere with him, but we’d been fighting so much, it just seemed easier to say yes. So I got in the car and he started driving.

“After a while, Rod took out this thermos he used for work. He told me he’d filled it on the way home, at this place where I always liked the hot chocolate. It seemed like he was trying really hard to be nice, so I went ahead and drank some. I didn’t even think about it until later, but he never had any of the cocoa. Just me.”

It seemed pretty clear where this was headed now. I could feel the dread climbing up my neck, thinking about Molly, but also about Ethan and Zoe.

“Pretty soon, I started feeling sleepy,” she went on. “Like weirdly sleepy. It came on so fast, I didn’t even get to wonder what was happening.

“The next thing I knew, I was waking up in this … place. Like a basement, or a cellar. I don’t even know what it was. I remember it smelled like dirt, if that makes any sense.”

“Molly, do you have any idea where this was?” I asked. I couldn’t hold back my questions anymore. “Do you remember where he took you? Anything about the ride there?”

She shook her head. “Believe me, I’ve wondered, but that whole time is just a foggy dream in my mind. He left a cooler with sandwiches, and some water, and I’m sure the food and water had more of whatever was in that hot chocolate. But it was like I didn’t even care. I barely remember any of it. Sometimes I even wonder if it happened at all.”

“I think it did, Molly. Please go on. How long were you there?” I asked.

“Three days. I was in and out the whole time. Then, at some point, I woke up again and I was just … back home. In my bed. There was a note from Rod, trying to apologize, and all of his things were gone.”

She took a long, deep breath and looked over at me for the first time since she’d started her story. She was still shaking, but not as much as before.

“That was it. A week later, I called a lawyer and filed for divorce. Rod didn’t contest it.”

“And you never pressed charges?” I asked.

“I never told anyone about this,” she said. “Not a soul. I know how that must sound, but … I don’t know. After losing Zach and everything else that happened, I just couldn’t stand to look back anymore. Like I’d go crazy if I thought about it too much. All I wanted was to move on.” She smiled again, sadly, down into her lap. “You must think I’m pretty pathetic.”

“No,” I said. I reached over and took her hand, fighting back my own tears. “Just the opposite. I think you might be a hero.”