Hope to Die (2 page)

Cross comes home to discover his niece Naomi is missing. And she’s not the only one. Finding the kidnapper won’t be easy, especially if he’s not working alone …

JACK AND JILL

A pair of ice-cold killers are picking off Washington’s rich and famous. And they have the ultimate target within their sights.

CAT AND MOUSE

An old enemy is back and wants revenge. Will Alex Cross escape unharmed, or will this be the final showdown?

POP GOES THE WEASEL

Alex Cross faces his most fearsome opponent yet. He calls himself Death. And there are three other ‘Horsemen’ who compete in his twisted game.

ROSES ARE RED

After a series of fatal bank robberies, Cross must take the ultimate risk when faced with a criminal known as the Mastermind.

VIOLETS ARE BLUE

As Alex Cross edges ever closer to the awful truth about the Mastermind, he comes dangerously close to defeat.

FOUR BLIND MICE

Preparing to resign from the Washington police force, Alex Cross is looking forward to a peaceful life. But he can’t stay away for long …

THE BIG BAD WOLF

There is a mysterious new mobster in organised crime. The FBI are stumped. Luckily for them, they now have Alex Cross on their team.

LONDON BRIDGES

The stakes have never been higher as Cross pursues two old enemies in an explosive worldwide chase.

MARY, MARY

Hollywood’s A-list are being violently killed, one-by-one. Only Alex Cross can put together the clues of this twisted case.

CROSS

Haunted by the murder of his wife thirteen years ago, Cross will stop at nothing to finally avenge her death.

DOUBLE CROSS

Alex Cross is starting to settle down – until he encounters a maniac killer who likes an audience.

CROSS COUNTRY

When an old friend becomes the latest victim of the Tiger, Cross journeys to Africa to stop a terrifying and dangerous warlord.

ALEX CROSS’S TRIAL (with Richard DiLallo)

In a family story recounted here by Alex Cross, his great-uncle Abraham faces persecution, murder and conspiracy in the era of the Ku Klux Klan.

I, ALEX CROSS

Investigating the violent murder of his niece Caroline, Alex Cross discovers an unimaginable secret that could rock the entire world.

CROSS FIRE

Alex Cross is planning his wedding to Bree, but his nemesis returns to exact revenge.

KILL ALEX CROSS

The President’s children have been kidnapped, and DC is hit by a terrorist attack. Cross must make a desperate decision that goes against everything he believes in.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, ALEX CROSS

Robbery, hostages, terrorism – will Alex Cross make it home in time for Christmas … alive?

ALEX CROSS, RUN

With his personal life in turmoil, Alex Cross can’t afford to let his guard down. Especially with three blood-thirsty killers on the rampage.

CROSS MY HEART

When a dangerous enemy targets Cross and his family, Alex finds himself playing a whole new game of life and death.

For the courageous men and women of the
Palm Beach Police Department

WHEN MARCUS SUNDAY ARRIVED
at Whodunit Books in Philadelphia around seven that evening, the manager told him not to expect much of a crowd. It was the Tuesday after Easter, lots of people were still away on vacation, and it was raining.

But Sunday and the manager were pleasantly surprised when twenty-five people showed up to hear him read and discuss his controversial true-crime book
The Perfect Criminal
.

The manager introduced him, saying, “Marcus Sunday, who has a doctorate in philosophy from Harvard, has hit bestseller lists around the country with this book, a fascinating look at two unsolved mass-murder cases explained by a truly original mind focused on the depths of the criminal soul.”

The crowd clapped, and Sunday, a tall, sturdy man who looked to be in his late thirties, stepped to the lectern wearing a black leather jacket, jeans, and a crisp white shirt.

“I appreciate you coming out on a rainy night,” he said. “And it’s a pleasure to be here at Whodunit Books.”

Then he talked about the killings.

Seven years earlier, two nights before Christmas, the five members of the Daley family of suburban Omaha had been slain in their home. Except for the wife, they were all found in their beds. Their throats had been cut with a scalpel or razor. The wife had died similarly, but in the bathroom, and naked. Either the doors had been unlocked, or the killer had had a key. There had been a snowstorm during the night, and any tracks were buried.

Fourteen months later, in the aftermath of a violent thunderstorm, the Monahan family of suburban Fort Worth was discovered in a similar state: A father and four children under the age of thirteen were found in their beds with their throats slit; the wife, also with her throat slit, was found naked on the bathroom floor. Once more, either the doors had been unlocked or the killer had had a key. Again, owing to the storm and the killer’s meticulous methods, the police found no usable evidence.

“I became interested because of that lack of evidence, that void,” Sunday informed his rapt audience.

Sunday said that the dearth of evidence had confused him at first. He talked to all the investigators working the case, but they were equally baffled. Then his academic training took over, and he began to theorize about the philosophical worldview of such a perfect killer.

“I came to the conclusion that he had to be an existentialist of some twisted sort,” he said. “Someone who thinks life is meaningless, absurd, without value. Someone who does not believe in God or laws or any other kind of moral or ethical basis to life.”

Sunday went on in this vein for some time, reading from the book and explaining how the evidence surrounding the murder scenes supported his controversial theories and led to others. The killer’s disbelief in concepts like good and evil, for example, “perfected” him as a criminal, made it impossible for him to feel guilty, which was what allowed him to commit such heinous acts with dispassionate precision.

A man raised his hand. “You sound like you admire the killer, sir.”

Sunday shook his head. “I tried to describe his worldview accurately and let readers draw their own conclusions.”

A woman with dirty-blond hair, more handsome than beautiful, raised her hand, revealing a sleeve tattoo that depicted a panther in a colorful jungle setting.

“I’ve read your book,” she said in a southern accent. “I liked it.”

“That’s a relief,” Sunday said.

Several people in the audience chuckled.

The woman smiled, said, “Can you talk a little about your theory of the perfect criminal’s opposite, the perfect detective?”

Sunday hesitated, and then said, “I speculated that the only way the perfect killer would ever get caught was by a detective who was his direct antithesis—someone who believed absolutely in God, someone who was emblematic of the moral, ethical universe and of a meaningful life. The problem is that the perfect detective does not exist, and cannot exist.”

“Why is that?” she asked.

“Because detectives are human, not monsters like the perfect killer,” he said, seeing some confusion in the audience.

Sunday smiled, said, “Let me put it this way. Can you imagine a real cold-blooded, calculating mass or serial murderer suddenly turning noble, doing the right thing, saving the day?”

Most of the audience shook their heads.

“Exactly,” he went on. “The perfect killer is who he is. An animal like that doesn’t change.”

Sunday paused for effect.

“But how hard is it to imagine a noble detective brought low by the horrors of his job? How hard is it to imagine him abandoning God? How hard is it to imagine him so beaten down by events that he finds life meaningless, valueless, and hopeless to the point that he becomes an existential monster and a perfect killer himself? That’s not hard at all to imagine, now, is it?”

AFTER SIGNING TWO DOZEN
books, Sunday politely turned down the bookstore manager’s offer to take him to dinner, saying that he had a previous engagement with an old friend. The rain had stopped by the time he left the store and started down the sidewalk.

He crossed Twentieth Street and was walking past a Dunkin’ Donuts when the woman with the panther tattoo fell in step beside him and said, “That went well.”

“Always helps to have the mysterious Acadia Le Duc in the audience.”

Acadia laughed, put her arm through his, and asked, “Shall we get something to eat before we drive back to DC?”

“I want to see it leave first,” he replied.

“It’s fine,” she said in a reassuring tone. “I watched you seal it myself. We’re good for sixty—no, make that about fifty-eight hours now. Almost seventy hours, if we had to push it.”

“I know,” he said. “Just call me obsessive.”

“All right.” Acadia sighed. “And then we’re doing Thai food.”

“I promise,” Sunday said.

They went to a late-model Dodge Durango parked two blocks away, and Sunday drove through the city until they were abreast of the empty Eagles stadium on Darien Street. He turned left into the vast lot at Monti Wholesale Foods opposite the stadium and parked at the far end, up against the iron fence, where they could look beneath the Delaware Expressway and across into the South Philadelphia rail yard.

Sunday picked up a pair of binoculars and found what he was looking for about a hundred yards in: a line of freight cars, and one in particular, a forty-five-foot rust-red container, the top of which was fitted front to back with solar panels. A reefer—a refrigeration and heating unit—stuck out of the front of the container. He lowered the binoculars, checked his watch, and said, “It should be rolling out of here in another fifteen minutes.”

Bored, Acadia slouched in her seat, said, “So when is Mulch going to contact Cross?”

“Dr. Alex will get a message loud and clear on Friday morning,” he said. “It will be a week. He’ll be ready.”

“We have to be in St. Louis by five p.m. on Friday at the absolute latest,” she said.

Sunday felt irritated. Acadia was the smartest, most unpredictable woman he’d ever known. But she had an annoying habit of constantly reminding him about things of which he was well aware.

Before he could tell her just that, he caught a flash of movement in the rail yard. He raised the binoculars again and saw a young black guy dressed in dark clothing slinking along the freight cars. He was wearing gloves and carrying a small knapsack and a crowbar. He stopped and looked up at the solar panels.

“Shit,” Sunday said, watching the man.

“What?”

“Looks like … shit!”

“What?” Acadia said again.

“Some asshole’s trying to break into our car,” he said.

“No way,” she said, sitting forward to peer into the shadows of the rail yard. “How would he—”

“He wouldn’t,” Sunday said. “It’s random, or he saw the solar panels.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Only thing we can do,” he replied.

Sixty seconds later, Sunday and Acadia were over the fence. They split up beneath the overpass and hurried in opposite directions, both keeping low behind an earthen berm that ran next to the nearest set of tracks. Sunday carried a tire iron and was seventy yards past the rust-red container car before he stopped. The rail yard was lit, not as well as it was to the north, but he’d be visible until he reached the shadows along the freight train.

He had no choice. Sunday clambered over the berm and angled out into the yard, dancing across the tracks, aware of Acadia doing the same to the north, trying not to make noise until he reached the shadows where he’d seen the black guy slinking. The container with the solar panels was six cars ahead. He stood there until he felt his phone buzz, alerting him to a text.

Sunday started forward quickly, keeping his steps light until he was alongside the rust-red car. Hearing metal scraping metal, the sound of the crowbar working that lock, he slowed to a creep and then stopped at the corner.