Damon mimicked his sister. “You look beautiful, Daddy. What a little brownnoser. What do you want from Daddy, Jannie?”

“Do I look good?” I turned to Damon.

He rolled his eyes. “You look all right. How come you’re all duded up? You can tell me. Man to man. What’s the big deal?”

“Answer the poor children!” Nana finally said.

I looked her way and offered up a wide grin. “Don’t use the ‘poor children’ to try to get your gossip quotient for the day. Well, I’m off,” I announced. “I’ll be home before sunrise. Mooha-ha-ha.” I did my favorite monster imitation, and all three of them rolled their eyes.

It was a minute or so before eight, and as I stepped onto the porch, a black Lincoln Town Car pulled up in front of the house. It was right on time, and I didn’t want to be late.

“A limousine?” Jannie gasped, and nearly swooned on the front porch. “You’re going out in a limousine?”

“Alex Cross!” Nana said. “What is going on?”

I practically danced down the steps. I got into the waiting car, shut the door, told the driver to go. I waved out the back window and stuck out my tongue as the car smoothly pulled away from our house.

Chapter 19

MY LAST IMAGE was of the three of them — Jannie, Damon, and Nana — all mugging and sticking out their tongues at me. We do have some fabulously good times together, I was thinking as the car headed over to Prince Georges County, where I had once confronted a homicidal twelve-year-old during the halcyon days of the Jack and Jill killers, and where Christine Johnson lived.

I had my mantra all set for tonight: Heart leads head. I needed to believe that was so.

“A private car? A limousine?” Christine exclaimed when I picked her up at her house in Mitchellville.

She looked as stunningly beautiful as I’ve ever seen her, and that’s saying a lot. She wore a long, sleeveless black shift, black satin pumps with straps, and had a floral brocade jacket draped over her arm. The heels made her a little over six feet tall. God, how I loved this woman, everything about her.

We walked to the car and got inside.

“You haven’t told me where we’re going tonight, Alex. Just that it was fancy. Someplace special.”

“Ah, but I’ve told our driver,” I said. I tapped the partition window, and the Town Car moved off into the summer night. Alex the mysterious.