"Any violence in the job outside Philly?" I asked her.
She shook her head and her shiny black hair flipped to one side," No, none."
With all the resources of the FBI and hundreds of local police departments, we were still nowhere on the robbery-murders. Something was very wrong with this picture. We still weren't thinking like the killers.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I got back to St. Anthony's around four-thirty in the afternoon. Jannie wasn't in her room, which surprised me. Nana and Damon were sitting reading. Nana said she had been taken for tests ordered by her neurologist, Dr. Petito.
Jannie returned at a quarter to five. She looked tired. She was so young to be going through this kind of ordeal. She and Damon had always been healthy, even as babies, which made this even more of a shock.
When Jannie rolled into the room in a wheelchair, Damon suddenly choked up. So did I. "Give us a big bear hug, Daddy," Jannie looked at us and said, 'like you used to when we were little."
The vivid image came flooding back to me. I remembered the feeling of holding them both in my arms when they were much smaller. I did what Jannie asked: I bear-hugged my two babies.
As the three of us embraced, Nana came back from a walk down the hall. She had someone tagging along.
Christine entered the room behind Nana. She wore a silver-gray blouse with a dark blue skirt and matching shoes. She must have come to the hospital from school. She seemed a little distant to me, but at least she was there for Jannie.
"Here's everybody," Christine said. She never made eye contact with me," I wish I had my camera."
"Oh, we're always like this," Jannie said to her," This is just our family."
We talked some, but mostly we listened to Jannie describe her long, scary day. She seemed so vulnerable suddenly, so small. She was brought dinner at five. Rather than complain about the bland hospital food, she compared it favorably to her favorite dishes prepared by Nana.
That got a laugh out of everybody, except Nana, who pretended to be miffed. "Well, we can just order out from the hospital when you get home," Nana said as she gave Jannie the evil eye. "Save me a lot of aggravation and work."
"Oh, you like to work," Jannie told Nana. "And you love aggravation,"
"Almost as much as you love to tease me," Nana countered.
As Christine was getting up to leave, the nurse brought a phone from the nurses' station. She announced that there was an important call for Detective Cross. I groaned and shook my head. Everybody stared at me as I took the phone.
"It's okay, Daddy," Jannie said.
Kyle Craig was on the line. He had bad news," I'm on my way to the First Virginia branch in Rosslyn. They hit another bank, Alex."
Nana shot poisoned darts at me with her eyes. Christine wouldn't look at me. I felt guilty and ashamed, and I hadn't done anything wrong.
"I have to go for an hour or so," I finally said. "I'm sorry."
Chapter Twenty-Three
The bank robberies were coming too fast, one after the other, like dominoes tumbling. Whoever was behind them didn't want to give us a chance to think, to catch a breath, or to organize ourselves.
Rosslyn was only about fifteen minutes from St. Anthony's Hospital. I didn't know what I would find out there: The possible brutalities; the number of dead bodies.
The branch of First Virginia was only a block away from Bell Atlantic headquarters. It was another freestanding bank. Did that mean some-; ;.. thing to the perps? Probably. What, though? The few clues we had so is;, far weren't adding up to anything. Not for me anyway. I noticed a Dunkin' Donuts and a Blockbuster Video directly across the street. People were going in and out. The suburban neighborhood was busy and operating as if nothing had happened.
Something had definitely happened.
I spotted four dark sedans clustered together in the bank parking lot. I suspected they were FBI cars and pulled in beside them. There were no police cars on the scene yet. Kyle had called me, but he hadn't called in the Rosslyn police. Not a good sign.
I showed my detective's badge to a tall, lanky agent posted at the back door. He looked to be in his late twenties. Nervous and scared.
"The SAC is inside. He's expecting you, Detective Cross," the agent said in a soft Virginia accent, not unlike Kyle's.
"Casualties in there?" I asked.
The agent shook his dark crew-cut, bullet-shaped head. He was trying not to show that he was nervous, maybe afraid. "We just arrived, sir. I don't know the casualty situation inside. I was told to wait out here by Senior Agent Cavalierre. It's her case."
"Yes, I know."
I opened the glass door. I paused for a beat alongside the ATMs in the vestibule. Focused. Prepared myself a little. I saw Kyle and Betsey Cavalierre across the lobby.
They were talking to a silver-haired man who looked like he might be the bank's manager, or possibly the assistant manager. It didn't look as if anyone had been hurt. Jesus. Was that possible?
Kyle saw me and immediately walked my way. Agent Cavalierre stayed close at his side, so close she almost seemed glued to Kyle.
It’s a miracle," Kyle said. "No one's hurt here. They took the money and got away clean, though. We're going to the manager's house. His wife and daughter were held hostage, Alex. The phones at the house are dead."
"Call the Rosslyn police, Kyle. They'll have squad cars there."
"We're three minutes away. Let's go!" Kyle barked. He and Agent Cavalierre were already heading toward the door.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The message from Kyle was loud and clear: The FBI was in charge of the robbery-murders bank investigation. I was welcome to join up, or leave. For the moment, I went along. It was Cavalierre and Kyle's case and their huge headache, their time in the pressure cooker.
No one spoke as we rode through Rosslyn in one of the FBI sedans. One pattern of the robberies had been clear so far: Somebody died when a robbery took place. It almost seemed that a serial killer was robbing banks.
The bank alarm went directly to the FBI?" I finally spoke up about something that had bothered me since I got Kyle's call at St. Anthony's.
Betsey Cavalierre turned toward me from the front seat. "First Union, Chase, First Virginia, and Citibank are all connected to us for the time being. It was their decision we didn't pressure them. We moved several dozen extra agents into the DC area, so we'd be ready when and if another bank was hit. We arrived at the branch in Rosslyn in less than ten minutes. They got out anyway."
"You call the Rosslyn PD yet?" I asked.
Kyle nodded. "We called, Alex. We don't want to step on anybody's toes if we don't have to. They're on their way to the bank branch." I shook my head and rolled my eyes. "Not to the bank manager's house, though."
"We want to check the house ourselves first." Agent Cavalierre answered for Kyle. "The killers aren't making any mistakes. Neither can we." She was brusque and impatient with me. I didn't much like her tone, and she didn't seem to care what I thought.
"Rosslyn has a very good police force," I told her. "I've worked with them before. Have you?" I felt I had to defend some of the people I knew and respected.