To no one’s surprise, Mary Smith’s credit card turned out to be hot. It belonged to an eighty-year-old woman in Sherman Oaks who didn’t even realize it was gone, a Mrs. Debbie Green. Nothing else had been charged on the card; there was no paper trail, no anything. She’s careful, and she’s organized—for such an obvious nutcase.

Galletta asked Brett the manager for a full-strength espresso. From here, it was back to the office, where she would sort through the day’s events while they were fresh in her memory. Her neighbor said he’d let the dog out. The Chinese place along the way to her office said twenty minutes for pickup. Life was good, no? No!

She wondered if she’d be home before midnight and, even then, if she’d be able to sleep.

Probably not—on both counts.

So what was the one question she needed to ask? Where was that keystone?

Or was Alex Cross just full of shit?

Chapter 41

Chapter 41

“SHE NEVER KNEW what she wanted, Sugar, and maybe she still doesn’t. I liked Christine, but she was never the same after what happened in Jamaica. She has to move on, and so do you.”

Sampson and I were holed up at Zinny’s, a favorite neighborhood dive. B.B. King’s “I Done Got Wise” was wailing on the jukebox. Nothing but the blues would do tonight, not for me anyway.

What the place lacked in cheeriness, it made up for in Raphael, a bartender who knew us by name and had a heavy pour. I contemplated the Scotch in front of me. I was trying to recall if it was my third or fourth. Man, I was feeling tired. I remembered a line from one of the Indiana Jones movies: “It’s not the years, honey. It’s the mileage.”

“Christine’s not the point, though, is she, John?” I looked sideways at Sampson. “The point is Little Alex. Ali. That’s how he calls himself. He’s already his own person.”

He patted me on the top of my head. “The point is right here on your skull, Sugar. Now you listen to me.”

He waited until I sat up and gave him my full attention. Then his gaze slowly drifted up to the ceiling. He shut his eyes and grimaced. “Shit. I forgot what I was going to say. Too bad, too. I was going to make you feel a whole lot better.”

I laughed in spite of myself. Sampson always knew when to go light with me. It had been like that since we were ten years old and growing up in D.C. together.

“Well, next best thing then,” he said. He motioned to Raphael for two more.

“You never know what’s going to happen,” I said, partly to myself. “When you’re in love. There’s no guarantee.”