Kill Alex Cross

“It’s more of the same,” I said. “He’s turning up the torture. He wants Coyle to watch his kids waste away, just like Rodney Glass had to watch his own son die.”

Lindley nodded sedately. He took back the computer case and shut it up tight.

“I’m inclined to agree,” he said. “That’s why we think it’s time to put everything on the table.”

I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that. “What does that mean?”

“It means if we’re lucky, we’ve got one last chance to save Ethan and Zoe. We’re pulling Glass in for further questioning.”

“What?”

“I know it’s a risk,” he said. “But all we have is circumstantial evidence — at best. We need him to think he’s cornered. A confession’s our only shot.”

“Hang on. Did we just see the same video?” I said. “What do you think happens to Ethan and Zoe if you take him out of commission?”

Lindley didn’t like to have his authority questioned. I could see it in the way he set his jaw when he looked at me.

“What are you suggesting, Cross? We do nothing about this? We wait him out?”

“I’m saying let’s consider all our options while we still can.” I got up and started moving, trying to think clearly. After weeks of walking through molasses on this, it was all happening too fast. “Maybe we create a false story. We say we have his print on the videotape. Something to let Glass think he’s got no room to maneuver.”

But Lindley wasn’t even listening anymore. His phone had just buzzed. He looked down to check whatever message had come in.

“Too late,” he told me. “Glass is already here.”

RODNEY GLASS WAS a damn good actor. He seemed genuinely perplexed about why he’d been pulled in for another interview. But he didn’t fool me for a second. He’d been to medical school. Of course he was bright.

“How many times do I have to say this?” he asked, less than a minute into the interview. “I was treating Ryan Townsend for a bloody nose just after Ethan and Zoe went missing. I’ve got Ryan himself, not to mention at least one Secret Service agent, to back me up on this. So can someone please explain what I’m doing here?”

He had a cocky, almost adolescent quality to him, all the way down to his NBA kicks. Was that part of the act, too? Just another way to get the kids at Branaff to trust him? I also had the impression Glass had taken something, maybe even just a Klonopin, to keep himself loose while he was here. He certainly knew his way around pharmaceuticals.

“What about just before Ethan and Zoe disappeared?” I asked. “Where were you then?”

“Isn’t this already in your files, or whatever?” he asked.

“Humor us,” Lindley said. After our initial argument, Peter and I had agreed on one thing. Now that Glass was here, we needed to hit him with everything we had. And maybe some things we didn’t have.

“I was in the faculty restroom, okay? Taking a dump, if you really want to know.”

Lindley scribbled something in his file.

“And how long does it take to walk from the faculty restroom back to the infirmary?” I asked.

Glass shook his head and frowned. “I don’t know. A minute and a half? You tell me.”

“Just about a minute and a half,” I said. “But you weren’t coming back from the restroom, were you?”

“And that’s not really a question, is it?” he said.

“It also takes about a minute and a half to get back from the tunnel under the school, if you hurry,” I told him. “I timed it myself.”

“Yeah, good for you,” he said.

I hated this guy. I really did. The stakes couldn’t have been higher, and I was feeling edgier by the second. I didn’t care anymore that he’d lost a son. That didn’t excuse what he was doing now.

“Before that, you were using the phone from Emma Allison’s locker to send Zoe Coyle a text. One that would get her down into that tunnel just after homeroom,” I went on. “I guess the only thing I’m wondering is whether you planned for Ethan to be there, too, or if you had to improvise.”

Glass actually grinned and looked around at everyone else in the room. There were five of us, including two of Lindley’s agents, recording the interview with a camera and a laptop.

“Why do I feel like I’m being set up here?” he said right into the camera.

Lindley put down his pen and closed the file in front of him as if we were just getting started.

“Mr. Glass, was there some sort of incident, between you and your ex-wife in March of 2007?” he asked.

Glass did an exaggerated double take, looking back and forth between Lindley and me. “I’m getting whiplash in here. What are you talking about? I’m lost.”

“She says you drugged her and held her hostage for three days, shortly after the death of your son.”

“What?” His face dropped. For the first time, he actually seemed surprised. “So this is how you want to play it? The dead-kid card? Are you joking?”

I stood up. I couldn’t sit still for this anymore. “Do we look like we’re joking?” I said.