Double Cross

Chapter 63

MAYBE WE WOULD FINALLY catch some kind of break tonight, because God knows we needed one. The Unhinged Tour people had been more than enthusiastic about making room for the profiler and psychologist Dr. Alex Cross on their schedule, just as Kitz had predicted they would. What I couldn’t have anticipated was the kind of reception I would get when we actually showed up.

The event was booked into a worn, barely serviceable Best Western in the southeast police district of Baltimore, just off I-95 and, appropriately enough, across the street from a cemetery. We parked in the back, close to the hotel’s conference-center entrance, then headed inside together.

“Safety in numbers,” Bree said with a hollow laugh.

The reception area was crowded with a noisy, carnival-like mix of people. The majority of them look fairly ordinary, maybe a little redneck, I thought. The others, in dark clothes and skin art, were like the show that the rest had come to see.

Vendors at tables along the wall hawked everything from mug-shot coffee cups to authentic crime-scene artifacts to CDs by groups such as Death Angel and What’s for Lunch?

Bree, Sampson, and I had just gotten in the front door when somebody tapped me on the shoulder. My hand slid down close to my Glock.

The guy behind me, all sideburns and tattoos, grinned and elbowed his girlfriend when I turned around. “See? I told you it was him.” The two of them were attached by a heavy chain strung between the black leather collars around their necks.

“Alex Cross, right?” He reached out and shook my hand, and I could already feel Bree and Sampson gearing up to give me a hard time. “There’s a picture of you on the poster -”

“Poster?” I said.

“But I’ve read your book twice, man. I already knew what you looked like.”

“Except older,” the girlfriend added. “But you still look like your picture.”

I heard Sampson snort out the laugh he’d been trying to hold in.

“Nice to meet you,” I said. “Both of you.” I tried to turn away, but the man who’d tapped me on the back held on to my arm.

“Alex!” he called to someone across the room. “You know who this is?” Then he turned to me again. “His name’s Alex too. Is that crazy or what?”

“Crazy,” I said.

The other Alex, wearing a T-shirt with John Wayne Gacy in full clown makeup, came closer for a look. Then a small crowd began to gather around us, or, rather, around me. This was getting pretty ridiculous in a hurry. I certainly wasn’t enjoying my new celebrity status.

“You’re the profiler guy, aren’t you? Sweet. Let me ask you a serious question -”

“We’ll go and check in,” Bree said up close to my ear. “Leave you to your fans.”

“What’s, like, the gnarliest crime scene you’ve ever worked?” the other Alex asked me.

“No, wait -” I reached out to grab Bree’s elbow, but a black-fingernailed hand landed on my wrist and held there. It belonged to a frail-looking young woman whose hand seemed to have been dipped in pale-yellow wax.

“Alex Cross, right? You’re him, right? Can I get a picture with you? It would mean the world to my mom.”