Merry Christmas, Alex Cross

CHAPTER 22

Diana had turned beet red and would not meet my eyes. Dr. Nicholson was still crunched up after the kick to his ribs.

“Says a lot, that you loved her so much that seeing her with another man would crush you like that,” I told Fowler. “But is that true?”

Fowler looked at me with instant hatred. “You calling me a liar, Cross?” He pointed to his wife. “I didn’t confront her. I wanted to know how deep this went, whether he was a fling or something more. Turns out she was fucking the eyeglass maker like he was the featured artist in the stud-of-the-month club. Can you believe it? She was pissing away our marriage with a guy who makes a living by saying, ‘Now, can you read the next line? What about the line under that?’”

He glared at his ex-wife and Barry, and I feared he’d start kicking them again, or worse. Fowler shook the pistol at Dr. Nicholson and said to me, “They had a standing reservation for a room at the Four Seasons, where they’d screw their brains out and stick me with the tab.” Fowler’s face had turned bright red. He paced the room, nervously scratching his arms and chest.

“Are you beginning to understand what happened here, Cross? What drove me to debase myself? Do you see who the victim is now?”

I said nothing. I just looked at Fowler and tried to seem objective. There would be no stopping his rant. He pointed to Melissa Brandywine.

“Now, you may be wondering who this lucky holiday guest is. Well, show Mr. Cross your pretty face, Missy. I said show him your face.” He grabbed her by the chin and squeezed hard.

She cried out. “Henry, please.”

“C’mon, Missy, show the big phony smile that helped get your husband elected to Congress. While you’re at it, show him your net-worth statement, and Cross will understand why your husband really got elected to Congress.”

The congressman’s wife turned her head toward me. She looked sad, broken, and embarrassed, and I had to wonder why.

“Dear Mrs. Brandywine,” Fowler said. “The publicity expert. The woman behind all those White House luncheons and all those embassy receptions. You know who else she is?”

“Henry, please don’t,” Melissa Brandywine said.

“Nonsense,” Fowler said. “It’s time to lay all our cards on the table. Not even dear Diana knows this, but after discovering that my wife was a whore, I got drunk and decided I deserved a whore. And who better to turn to than the wife of a man whore? She’d made overtures before. I just decided to take her up on it. Little secret? She likes a finger up the-”

Diana screamed, “The children! Henry! Your children, for God’s sake! Why can’t you stop this? Why can’t you move on? Why do you have to destroy everything around you? Just let it go.”

To my astonishment, Fowler did not explode. He just stood there looking like he’d come to in the middle of a sleepwalk. Everything was suddenly quiet in the room, so eerily quiet that I thought I could hear snowflakes against the windows behind the thick curtains.

Fowler walked quickly to a sofa that faced the hostages. He sat down, waved the gun slowly at them, and said as if in a trance, “I want to let it go, Diana, but it won’t let me go.”

He looked at me. “Ever feel like that, Cross? That something just won’t let you go?”

I flashed on the dark shadow fleeing the scene as my first wife lay dying in my arms. “Sure.”

“Then you’ll understand that it’s time for you to go,” he said. “The trial’s over. All have been found guilty, and I’ve got a penalty phase to prepare for.”