Page 75 of The Family Cross

We were all choking up when the door opened and Jannie ran into the room, still in her Howard sweats, arms over her head, and everyone started to cheer the conquering hero of the Cross family.

64

I WOKE UP AT a quarter to six the following morning, crept out of bed, and went up to my attic office. I hadn’t been there in a while.

Sitting at my desk, I chuckled at the memory of Jannie doing her victory dance around the room and ending it by hugging Nana Mama.

“Finals!” Nana had said. “I there.”

Jannie looked at me. “Is that possible?”

“I would not rule anything out when it comes to your great-grandmother,” I’d said. “If it’s possible, she’ll be there.”

I wondered if it was possible. I supposed so, as long as she was stable and we were willing to pay for an air ambulance and the support to bring her. All it would take was money, and she had the money.

I set those concerns aside for the moment and dug through my drawers for an old address book. Funny how address books used to be so important and now they just gathered dust.

I turned to the Cs and found a listing for Cross, Charles with a home phone and two cell numbers, one each for Charlie and his girlfriend, Ellen—now ex-girlfriend, I’d heard. I called the home phone first, but like when I’d tried his cell the other day, I got a message that the number was no longer in service. My stomach churned.

I wanted to call the cell phone carrier and find out when Charlie’s phone had last pinged off a tower but knew that they wouldn’t tell me unless I had a warrant.

That left Ellen’s cell. Ellen was a registered nurse, and the last I’d heard, she was working in a hospital in Baltimore. Figuring nurses worked all kinds of shifts, I called despite the early hour.

It rang four times, then an automated message said that the mailbox was full.

Feeling like I wasn’t getting far, I went online to see who was on call with the medical examiner’s office. I was pleased to see that it was Janice Taylor, a highly experienced forensic pathologist.

Dr. Taylor answered on the second ring. “Alex Cross. Long time.”

“Three weeks,” I said. “Janice, I need a favor.”

“Tell me.”

I asked her if she knew about the John Doe who’d been found, shot and burned, behind an abandoned apartment building in Northeast. Taylor knew all about it—she’d performed the autopsy.

“Was avgas the accelerant?” I asked.

“Affirmative. That report came back late yesterday afternoon.”

“Any signs of healed fractures?” I asked. When we were kids, Charlie had had a bad fall from a bicycle and broken his right wrist and left tibia.

“No way to tell. There were too many new fractures,” she said. “Probably the intensity of the fire causing the bones to crack and split.”

“What about DNA? I’m going to go to the lab later and have them take a cheek swab from me. Can you compare my DNA to the corpse’s?”

“Jesus, Alex,” she said. “Who do you think this John Doe is?”

“Could be my brother Charlie,” I said. “He’s—”

Another call came in. I looked at the ID. “Gotta go—his ex is calling.”

“Good luck and I hope the John Doe isn’t him,” Taylor said.

“Me too,” I said, and clicked over. “Hi, Ellen, it’s Alex Cross.”

There was a long pause before a voice that I barely recognized said, “What do you want, Alex?”

“I’m looking for Charlie.”