I heard shuffling and voices behind me, turned, and saw my family taking their seats. Bree smiled at me bravely, mouthed, I love you.
I started to say it back to her but then stopped when I saw a sullen teenage boy in khakis and a blue dress shirt with too-short sleeves enter the courtroom. His name was Dylan Winslow. His father was Gary Soneji. His mother had been one of the shooting victims. Dylan came up to the bar, not ten feet away from where I stood, pushed back his oily dark hair, and glared at me.
“Frickin’ hell’s in session for you, Cross,” Winslow said, his smile smug and malicious. “Honestly, I can’t wait to see you go down in flames.”
Ali jumped up and said, “Like your dad did?”
I thought Winslow was going to go ballistic and attack my younger son. Damon did too, and he stood up behind Ali.
Instead of taking a swing at Ali, the teen smiled even more malevolently.
“That’s right, kid,” he said coldly. “Exactly like my dad did.”
“All rise!” the bailiff cried. “Superior Court of the District of Columbia is in session. Judge Priscilla Larch presiding.”
A woman in her mid-fifties, with thick glasses and dyed-black hair pulled back in a severe hairdo, Judge Larch stood four foot ten. She was so short she looked almost comical climbing up behind the bench.
But I was not laughing. Larch had a richly deserved reputation for being a hanging judge.
After striking her gavel twice, Judge Larch peered out through those glasses and in a smoker’s voice growled, “The People versus Alex Cross. This court will come to order.”
Chapter 4
Six weeks earlier...
John Sampson tried to remain calm, tried to tell himself that he would be okay with whatever decision awaited him on the other side of wooden double doors on the fifth floor of the Daly Building in downtown DC.
But Sampson couldn’t remain calm. He smelled his own sweat and was almost consumed by anxiety.
His stomach did a flip-flop when the secretary at last nodded to him around five p.m. and said, “He’ll see you now, Mr. Sampson.”
“Thank you,” Sampson said. He got to his feet and, like the therapists had taught him, widened his stance to counter the occasional bouts of vertigo he’d suffered since the gunshot wound to his head.
Sampson walked to the door, trying to exude confidence. He opened it, stepped in, and spotted Bryan Michaels sitting behind his desk, signing documents. Silver-haired and in amazing physical condition for a man in his mid-fifties, DC’s chief of police looked up, smiled perfunctorily, and waved Sampson to a seat.
“If it’s okay, sir, I’d rather stand,” Sampson said.
Chief Michaels’s smile disappeared, and he set his pen down as Sampson approached and stood at ease. The chief leaned back in his chair and studied the big man for several long, disquieting moments, glancing more than once at the scar on the left side of the detective’s forehead.
“You shot well in qualifying, I see,” the chief said at last.
“Not a stellar performance, but I passed, sir.”
“You did,” Michaels said. “And you almost matched your personal best in the physical tests.”
“I’ve worked very hard to be here, Chief.”
Sampson caught Michaels glancing again at the scar on his forehead.
“You have worked hard, John,” Michaels said in a tone that instantly troubled Sampson, made him feel lost and, well, about to be discarded.
The chief went on. “But I also have to use my best judgment in deciding whether or not to return an officer to the field after the kind of trauma you sustained. And I have to ask myself if you will be a liability to other officers in times of crisis.”
Sampson had wondered the same thing, but he said nothing, just gazed at the chief without expression. A beat went by, then two.
Chief Michaels broke into a smile, stood, and offered his hand. “Welcome back, Detective Sampson. You’ve been greatly missed.”
Sampson grinned, grabbed the chief’s hand, and pumped it wildly. “Thank you, Chief. You won’t regret this.”
“I know I won’t,” Michaels said. “You’re an inspiration to many of your fellow officers. I want you to know that.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“You’ll be needing a new partner,” the chief said, his face falling a bit.
There was an awkward moment before Sampson said, “I’m ready for that.”
Chief Michaels studied him a moment and then said, “I hate that there’s a gorilla in the room.”
“Yes, sir. But I believe the gorilla will win out eventually.”
Michaels softened. “I hope so. How is he?”
“Hung out his shingle to pass time until the trial,” Sampson said.
“Give Alex my best. I mean that.”
There was a sharp knock at the door, and in stepped an angular and highly agitated redheaded woman with a detective’s badge on a chain around her neck.
“Fox?” Michaels said, irritated. “I hadn’t asked you in here yet.”
Fox glanced at Sampson, then back at the chief. “I apologize, sir, but Detective Sampson and I, we just pulled a bad one. Kidnapping and shooting at Washington Latin.”
“Latin?” Sampson said. “Ali Cross goes to that school.”
Chapter 5
Ali was badly shaken but physically okay when Sampson found him on the steps of the Washington Latin Public Charter School, his backpack between his knees, wiping away his tears. A patrolman said Ali had seen the entire brutal incident. So had five other students involved in an after-school debate program.
“You okay, buddy?” Sampson said, folding his huge frame down beside Ali and putting an arm around the boy’s shoulders. It was mid-October, chilly with night falling, and he was shaking.
“My dad’s coming,” Ali said in a flat tone. “So is Bree.”
“Tell me what happened.”
Before he could, Detective Ainsley Fox said, “Detective Sampson? Could I have a word?”
She was standing at the bottom of the steps, frowning at him.
“Hang tight,” Sampson said. He patted Ali on the back, got up, and climbed down the steps to her.
In a low, scolding voice, Fox said, “You may have forgotten during your leave that we have rules against physical contact with minors.”
Sampson squinted at her. “The kid’s like my own, Fox.”
“But he’s not your own, and the rules are the rules. Shot in the head or not, you’ve got to play by them or suffer the same kind of consequences your old partner now faces.”
Sampson gritted his teeth, said, “Fox, there are five other kids to interview by the rules. They’re right over there.”
Fox hesitated, put off, but then lifted her chin and strode toward the cluster of other upset children. Sampson returned to Ali in time to see Alex Cross and Bree Stone running past the crime scene tape. Alex grabbed up Ali and hugged him fiercely. Ali hugged his dad back just as intensely and started to cry.
When they’d both calmed down, Sampson again asked Ali to describe what he’d seen.
Ali said it was dark out when he exited the charter school behind a group of his friends on the debate team. He was the youngest and shortest by far, so his view was blocked when the screaming started. Then they all started running in different directions. Ali didn’t follow them. He stood his ground and got out his cell phone.
“You called 911?” Bree asked.
“No, I videoed them.”
“You videoed them?” Sampson said, impressed.
“I wasn’t going to fight them,” Ali said, pulling out his phone and starting the video.