Merry Christmas, Alex Cross

“And broken your hip,” Bree said as she began packing up the ornaments and lights that had not made the tree this year. “Thank you, Damon. She looks beautiful up there.”

Nana Mama sighed, said, “I don’t understand why the top of the tree is always the last thing we decorate. It should be the first, so the angel can look down on us while we decorate the tree. That makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?”

Damon didn’t reply. No one replied. No one except Nana Mama had felt much like talking since Alex left.

But Nana just kept going. “Jannie, what do you think?” she asked.

“With all due respect, Nana,” Jannie said, “I think that you think that if you keep talking, we’ll forget Dad is out on a case and might get hurt on Christmas.”

Nana walked to Jannie and hugged her tightly. “You are one smart girl, Jannie. Smart women run in this family.”

Damon rolled his eyes. Bree smiled slightly, and Nana tried her hardest to snap back into her sensible self. She said, “That Alex. He’s my fault. I admit it: I didn’t raise that boy right. If I had, he’d never be foolish enough to go out on a nasty case on Christmas.”

Again, nobody said a word.

Then Bree looked up from her packing and said, “Listen. It’s pretty obvious that Alex won’t be home for a while. Maybe quite a while. So let’s just make the best of it. Merry Christmas to all.”

Ava added, “And to all a good night.”

Nana tried to smile, but her eyes filled with tears. “Yes,” she choked out. “A good night. Please, dear Lord, let it be a good night.”

Damon melted, went to his great-grandmother, hugged her, and said, “It will be, Nana. I promise you, it will be.”

CHAPTER 7

The sounds of the six rapid-fire gunshots rang in my skull.

Six hostages, I thought. Was it over? Were we looking for bodies?

And then we heard the hysterical cries of children. “Daddy, no!”

They were quickly drowned out by an angry and ugly voice blaring over the speakers in the van: “I could have taken out every one of these sad excuses for humanity, each and every one of these sad pieces of shit. But I didn’t. You know why? Because you don’t unwrap your presents on Christmas Eve. You wait until the high holy day of consumerism to do that. Isn’t that right? Well, not this time, folks! I just unwrapped them all!”

Fowler started laughing like a happy madman.

“Please, Daddy!” a girl’s voice sobbed. Chloe Fowler.

“Please what?” Fowler snarled. “‘Please don’t shoot Barbie, Daddy? If you shoot Barbie, who will Ken love, Daddy?’”

A male voice was then heard. Dr. Nicholson. “You’re terrifying her, Fowler. She’s your own daughter.”

“No!” Fowler snorted derisively. “Is that right, Barry? You know everything, don’t you, Barry? Mr. Optometrist-fucking cash-flow doctor of the year.”

A gun blasted. We heard glass breaking and more crying.

Fowler was shouting. “See that? See that, Mr. Optometrist? Shut the hell up, Mr. Optometrist! Or you’re going to look just like everything else under the Christmas tree.” He began to sing: “‘O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum!’”

“Mr. Fowler!” Ramiro yelled into his phone.

“‘How lovely are thy branches!’” Fowler sang, and then he stopped. We heard footsteps. The phone was picked up.

Fowler whispered, “What did old Henry the magic man and his magic wand take out, ladies and gentlemen of the jury? Anyone? Anyone?”

He paused. McGoey, Nu, and Ramiro glanced at me, confused. Before I could even think about how to interpret Fowler’s ravings, he said, “Awww, let’s see. A nice new iPad. Got it right in the apple…and here we have what used to be an Xbox Kinect. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, plaintiff should be thanking me, not suing me. Now my idiot sons will have more time for homework. And my ex-wife’s Tiffany bauble? I mean, c’mon, have you ever seen such overpriced crap? There ought to be a law against Tiffany and Nordstrom. I mean, look at that beautiful blue polo sweater of Barry’s. Cashmere does not stop buckshot, now, does it, ladies and gentlemen?”

Fowler stopped talking. All we could hear was his rushed breath, and I wondered if he was on drugs or drinking or both.

“Hey, Mr. Fowler,” Ramiro said calmly, carefully, almost softly-the way they teach you in the FBI courses about hostage negotiation.

“Who the hell are you?” Fowler shot back.

“My name is Ramiro. I’m glad to hear that the people you’ve got in there are okay. That’s good news.”

Fowler exploded: “What are you, another whiny-ass cop? These people in here are not doing okay, Officer Whiny Ass. Once the sun rises and all the Cindy Lou Whos down in Whoville have sung their song, I’m going to blow their heads off once and for all.”

The children began to cry again.

Ramiro glanced at me. I made a downward motion with my hands. Stay calm. Do everything calmly.

“I understand what you’re saying, Mr. Fowler,” Ramiro said. “How about we talk, work things out?” Good, I thought. Calmly engage him. Establish common ground.

“You some kind of hostage negotiator?” Fowler asked.

Ramiro hesitated. Not a good thing. He said, “I’m just a guy who wants to hear what you have to say, Mr. Fowler.”

“Tell it to the jury, whiny ass!” Fowler shouted. “I am never talking to you ever again. Ever.”

Click.

CHAPTER 8

Outside, the wind began to pick up, slashing the snow sideways. The lawn in front of the Nicholsons’ house had disappeared beneath the three inches that had already fallen.

“How do we handle this guy, Alex?” Ramiro said. “He sounds psychotic.”

“Or wasted on something stronger than pathological rage,” I said.

Adam Nu was on the phone with Congressman Brandywine, assuring him that as far as we knew, his wife was still alive among the hostages inside. I studied the notes I’d jotted down after Fowler hung up, trying to see some kind of pattern to his ravings.

He’d talked to us as if we were the jury and he were arguing his case in civil court. He admitted shooting the Christmas presents. He’d called his ex-wife’s husband “Mr. Optometrist-fucking cash-flow doctor of the year.” He clearly loathed Barry Nicholson. He clearly had deep-seated money resentment. Called Christmas the “high holy day of consumerism.” Ranted about Tiffany. He had even referred to Cindy Lou Who and Whoville, from the Grinch story.

Was that how he saw himself, in some deluded way? As the Grinch? I tapped on the notebook and realized something. I hadn’t heard the two women, had I? Maybe one there, right at the outset, before Fowler started shooting. But from that point onward, no women’s voices at all. Were they dead?

No. He would have made a reference to shooting them. So they were there, but not talking. Why? So they didn’t disturb-

“Alex,” McGoey said.

I looked up. The detective handed me a computer tablet, said, “Guys downtown just sent over the file on