Double Cross

“ Sandy, would you come on into my office?” I said. “Anthony, I’ll see you when I’m finished with Sandy.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he answered. “I get it.”

Once I had her in my office, it took a while for the two of us to recover somewhat.

“ Sandy, I don’t even know what to say to you,” I finally said. “You knew I’d come in and catch the two of you, didn’t you?”

“I know. Of course. I’m so sorry, Dr. Cross.” Her voice shook as she squeezed out the words. I almost felt sorry for her, but not quite.

“Why do you think that happened in there?” I continued. “It’s not like you, is it?”

“It is totally unlike me.” Sandy rolled her eyes at herself. “I know how this will sound, Dr. Cross, but he’s… cute. I told you I was sexually frustrated. Oh God.” Her eyes welled up. “I am such an idiot. This is my pattern. Acting out for attention. Here we go again.”

I decided to try another tack and got up to top off my coffee from the second cup in my bag. “Let me ask you this. What was in it for you?”

“‘In it’?” Sandy asked.

“I think I know what Anthony was getting out of what was happening.” I sat down again. “What were you getting?”

Sandy lowered her eyes and looked away all at the same time. Maybe the question was too intimate for her. It was kind of interesting that she could give Anthony a hand job in the waiting room but was embarrassed to talk about it now.

“You don’t have to answer the question, but you also don’t have to be embarrassed,” I told her.

“No,” she said, “it’s fine. I’ll talk. It’s just that you’ve given me something to think about. It seems so obvious when you say it, but… I guess I hadn’t thought about it that way.” She sat up a little straighter and actually smiled at me. Strange, I thought. Not very much like the Sandy I knew.

My larger concern was about where things would go from here with the two of them. I had the feeling that Sandy and Anthony were all wrong for each other, but that didn’t mean I could stop something from happening.

Eight ten in the morning, and already it was a bad day.

Which got a little worse at nine.

Anthony wasn’t in the waiting room. He’d bolted on me. And I wondered if I’d ever see him again.

Chapter 62

AT A LITTLE PAST NINE, Sandy Quinlan and Anthony Demao met at a coffee shop on Sixth. The rendezvous had been arranged earlier. They had known that Dr. Cross was going to catch them, because they had planned the whole thing.

Anthony had a latte and a sweet roll as he waited for Sandy, who licked at the whipped-cream topping before she spoke. “He didn’t even offer me any of his,” she said, and frowned. “And he had two coffees.”

“He was angry at you for violating his space. So tell me everything. What did he say? I want to hear the pathetic details.”

Sandy smacked her lips and licked them clean before she spoke. “Well, as he always is, Dr. Cross was very empathetic, maybe even sympathetic. To me-not to you, you cad. And honest, I guess you’d call it. He finally admitted that he has a huge crush on me. Who wouldn’t? But here’s the real surprise. He wants to suck your cock!”

They both laughed and sipped their steaming drinks, then laughed some more. Finally Anthony leaned in close to Sandy. “He’s not alone on that, is he? Hey, you think he has any idea what we’re up to? What this whole thing is about?”

Sandy shook her head. “Not… a… clue. I’m quite sure of it.”

“You are? And that’s because…?”

“We’re way too good at what we do. We’re just such brilliant actors, you and I. Of course, you already know that. And I know that. Plus, the script is fabulous.”

Anthony smiled. “We are very good, aren’t we? We could fool just about anyone.”

“Make them believe anything we wanted to. Watch this.”

Sandy got up and sat on Anthony’s lap, facing him. The two of them began to make out, to kiss with their tongues deep in each other’s mouth. Their hands wandered all over, and then Sandy began to grind her pelvis against Anthony.

“Get a room,” said a serious-looking middle-aged woman using a computer a couple of tables away. “Please. I don’t need this in the morning.”

“I agree,” volunteered someone else. “Grow up and act your ages, for God’s sake.”

Sandy whispered in Anthony’s ear, “See? They think we’re still lovers.”

Then she stood and pulled Anthony up too. “Don’t any of you sweat it!” she said in a loud voice. “For God’s sake-he’s my brother!”

They were still laughing when they got outside the coffee shop.

“That was great, so much fun!” Sandy howled and did a little victory dance. Then she waved at the people inside, who were still watching through the windows.

“It was a hoot!” Anthony agreed. Then he got more serious. “I got a message from Kyle Craig. He says he can’t wait to meet DCAK.”

“Well,” said Sandy, “I can’t wait to meet the master of disaster.”

They both laughed at that one, then shared another tongue kiss for their audience in the coffee shop.

“We are so bad.” Sandy giggled.

Chapter 63

MAYBE WE WOULD FINALLY catch some kind of break tonight, because God knows we needed one. The Unhinged Tour people had been more than enthusiastic about making room for the profiler and psychologist Dr. Alex Cross on their schedule, just as Kitz had predicted they would. What I couldn’t have anticipated was the kind of reception I would get when we actually showed up.

The event was booked into a worn, barely serviceable Best Western in the southeast police district of Baltimore, just off I-95 and, appropriately enough, across the street from a cemetery. We parked in the back, close to the hotel’s conference-center entrance, then headed inside together.

“Safety in numbers,” Bree said with a hollow laugh.

The reception area was crowded with a noisy, carnival-like mix of people. The majority of them look fairly ordinary, maybe a little redneck, I thought. The others, in dark clothes and skin art, were like the show that the rest had come to see.

Vendors at tables along the wall hawked everything from mug-shot coffee cups to authentic crime-scene artifacts to CDs by groups such as Death Angel and What’s for Lunch?

Bree, Sampson, and I had just gotten in the front door when somebody tapped me on the shoulder. My hand slid down close to my Glock.

The guy behind me, all sideburns and tattoos, grinned and elbowed his girlfriend when I turned around. “See? I told you it was him.” The two of them were attached by a heavy chain strung between the black leather collars around their necks.

“Alex Cross, right?” He reached out and shook my hand, and I could already feel Bree and Sampson gearing up to give me a hard time. “There’s a picture of you on the poster -”

“Poster?” I said.