Roses Are Red

Chapter Three

I went along with him. The two of us stood over the boy, who was now asleep amidst colorful stuffed bears and balls in a port-a-crib in Nana's room. He held on to his favorite bear, which was named Pinky.

"The poor little boy. What a bad, bad break," Kyle whispered as he looked down at Alex. "He looks like you instead of Christine. How are you two doing anyway?"

"We're settling back into things okay," I said, which wasn't the truth, unfortunately. Christine had been gone from Washington for a year, and since she'd been back, we hadn't done as well as I would have hoped. I missed the intimacy more than I could say. It was killing me. But I wasn't able to tell anyone about it, not even Sampson or Nana.

"Please, Kyle. Just leave me alone for tonight."

"I wish this could wait, Alex. I'm afraid it can't. I'm on my way back to Quantico now. Where can we talk?"

I shook my head and felt anger building up inside. I led him to the sun porch, where I keep an old upright piano that still plays about as well as I do. I sat down on the creaky piano bench, and tapped out a few notes of Gershwin's "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off."

Kyle recognized the tune and he grinned. "I am sorry about this."

"Not sorry enough, obviously. Go ahead."

"You heard about the Citibank-branch robbery out in Silver Spring? The murders at the bank manager's house?" he asked. "Manager's husband, their nanny, three-year-old son?"

"How could I not hear about it?" I said and looked away from Kyle. The brutal, senseless murders had saddened me and knotted my stomach when I read about them. The story was all over the papers and TV. Even cops in DC were outraged.

"I didn't really understand what I heard so far. What the hell happened at the manager's house? The perps had the money, right? Why did they have to kill the hostages if they had the money? That's what you're here to tell me, right?"

Kyle nodded his head. "They were late getting out of the bank. The explicit order was that the crew member inside had to be out with the money by eight-ten exactly. Alex, the crew member at the bank was less than a minute late. Less than a minute! So they murdered the thirty-three-year-old father, the three-year-old boy, and the couple's nanny. The nanny was twenty-five, and she was pregnant. They executed the father, the three-year-old, the nanny. You see the murder scene, Alex?"

I rolled my shoulders, twisted my neck. I could feel the tension invading my body. I saw it, all right. How could they have murdered those people for no reason?

I really wasn't in the mood for police business, though, not even a bad case like this one. "Which brings you out to my house tonight? On my son's christening day?"

"Oh, hell." Kyle suddenly smiled and lightened his tone. "I had to come over to see the promised child anyway. Unfortunately, this case is really intense. There's a possibility the crew is from DC. Even if they're not from Washington, there's still a possibility somebody here might know them, Alex. I need you to look for the killers before they do it again. We have the feeling this isn't a one-shot. Alex, your baby is a beauty, though."

"Yeah, you're a beauty too," I said to Kyle. "You are truly beyond compare."

"Three-year-old boy, the father, a nanny," Kyle said one more time before he left the party. He was about to go out through the door in the sun porch when he turned to me and said, "You're the right person for this. They murdered a family, Alex."

As soon as Kyle was gone, I went looking for Christine, but she had already left. My heart sank. She had taken Alex and left without saying goodbye, without a single word.