Alex Cross: Cross Justice Part 24

"Dr. Cross," she said, not looking at Jannie. "We have a problem."

"How's that?" I said, standing.

She held out Jannie's bag by the handles. It was open.

Jannie frowned, tried to see what the coach was talking about as I climbed down. But Greene held it away from her, said, "I want your father to see first."

I stepped up and looked in the bag. There, nestled in a wrinkle of Jannie's sweatpants, was a small gla.s.s vial filled with white powder.

CHAPTER 52.

"THAT'S NOT MINE!" Jannie protested the second she saw it. "Dad, there is no chance that's mine. You know that, right?"

I nodded. "Someone put that in her bag."

"Who would do that?" Coach Greene asked. "And why?"

I looked over at Sharon Lawrence, who was stretching and talking with her friends, seemingly oblivious to what was happening across the track.

"I can think of someone, but I'll let the police deal with that," I said.

"You want me to call the police?"

"You touch it?"

Greene shook her head.

"Then yes, call the police. It's easily proved whether it's my daughter's or not," I said. "Either her fingerprints are on it or they're not."

The coach looked at Jannie. "Are they?"

"No way," Jannie said.

"Was the bag open?" I asked.

"The bag was open," Jannie said. "I got my hoodie out and came over."

"Was that how you saw it, Coach?" I asked.

"Eliza Foster, one of my athletes at Duke, noticed it and called me over."

"So it was put in there either before practice or right after Jannie put on her hoodie and came over to talk to me," I said.

"Eliza would have no reason to do anything like that," Greene said.

"I want there to be concrete evidence that this was absolutely not my daughter's. Jannie will even provide a blood sample that you can drug-test. Right?"

Jannie nodded. "Anything, Dad."

I got out my wallet, dug out a business card, and handed it to the coach. "Call this guy. Sheriff's Detective Guy Pedelini. He'll handle the situation correctly."

Greene hesitated, but then nodded. She walked away with Jannie's bag, punching in the phone number on her cell phone.

Jannie looked about to cry when she sat down beside me and Bree.

"You'll be fine," I said, hugging her.

"Why would someone put that there?" she asked, looking torn up.

"To get at me and Bree through you," I said. "But it won't work."

Detective Pedelini showed up ten minutes later. I let him speak with Greene first, waiting patiently with Jannie and Bree. He put on gloves and bagged the vial. He nodded to me and then went to talk with Eliza Foster.

When he was done, he came over and shook my hand in the twilight.

"Coach says you want it tested."

"I do."

He looked at Jannie. "You're willing?"

"Yes," Jannie said. "Definitely."

"Any idea who might do this?" Pedelini asked.

"I'd start with Marvin Bell's niece," Bree said. "If Sharon Lawrence would lie about a rape for him, she'd plant drugs for him."

The sheriff's detective pursed his lips, said, "I'll talk to her. Meantime, take Jannie to the office. I'll call ahead for someone to take the prints and blood."

Pedelini walked off toward the other girls, who were acting annoyed that they weren't being allowed to leave.

"Dad?" Jannie said as we stood up and got ready to leave. "Can you make sure I can still go down to Duke to train for the four-hundred on Sat.u.r.day?"

"Meet you at the car," I said.

I went over to Coach Greene, asked her. She hesitated.

"She's innocent until proven guilty, Coach."

"You're right and I'm sorry, Dr. Cross," she said. "In all my years coaching, I've never had anything like this happen. Unless those tests say different, Jannie can come run with us on Sat.u.r.day and any other day she wants."

I turned to leave, started toward the tunnel beneath the stands.

But Marvin Bell and his adopted son, Finn Davis, blocked the way.

"For such a big-time cop, you don't listen so well," Marvin Bell said.

"Yeah?" I said. "What did I miss?"

"Your niece brought up my name in court today," Bell said.

"Your niece was testifying in court today," I said.

"That's bulls.h.i.+t," said Finn Davis.

"It's bulls.h.i.+t that she was testifying or that she's Mr. Bell's niece?"

Bell smiled sourly. "I warned you about besmirching my name in court."

"Besmirching?"

"Slandering, whatever you want to call it," Bell said.

"It's only slander or besmirching if it's not true," I said.

Davis said, "Listen, Detective a.s.shole. That poor girl was raped by that sick f.u.c.k Stefan Tate. It took guts for her to go on that stand and face her rapist."

"No argument there," I said.

"Then quit trying to tear her down," Bell said. "You go on and think anything you want about me, but you leave Sharon out of it. She is a victim in all of this, and I won't have her made into a punching bag."

"And I won't have someone try to frame my daughter in retaliation."

"What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?"

"Someone just put a vial of white powder in her gym bag," I said. "That's a sheriff's detective out there investigating. I figure Sharon for the job."

"Horses.h.i.+t," Bell said.

I took a step, got right in their faces, said, "No, gentlemen, horses.h.i.+t is you trying to kill me and strong-arm my family. You're on notice. I am officially declaring war on the two of you."

CHAPTER 53.

BREE DIDN'T SAY much on the ride home after we'd taken Jannie to the sheriff's office, where she'd provided blood and urine for a.n.a.lysis. I asked for and received samples from the same specimens, a precaution.

When we got home and went inside, I put the samples in a brown bag in the fridge. Jannie started telling Nana Mama about everything that had happened. Ali lay on the couch, watching another episode of Uncharted with Jim Shockey.

"Where is he now?" I asked. Shockey had traded his cowboy hat for a bandanna and was wading in murky water in a jungle.

"Like, the Congo?"

"That Jim Shockey gets around," I said. "Bree come in?"

"I'm out here," she called from the porch.

I went out, found her sitting in a rocker, looking out through the screen. She wasn't happy.

"We okay?" I asked.

"Not really," she said quietly.

"Why?"

"Did you have to say that to Bell and Davis? That you were declaring war on them?"

"I was speaking from the heart."

"I get that, Alex. But now you're more of a target than you were before."

"Good," I said. "We draw them out, and we shut them down."

She looked up angrily. "Why do you always put yourself in harm's way?"

My chin retreated. "Bree, you of all people should know that it's part of-"

"The job?" she asked. "I don't think so. I don't put myself in harm's way intentionally, and you do all the time. Did you ever stop for a second and think that it's a pretty G.o.dd.a.m.n selfish habit?"

"Selfish?" I said, bewildered.

"Yes, selfish," Bree said. "You have a family that needs you. You have a wife that needs you. And yet, at the drop of a hat, you're ready to risk our happiness and well-being."

I was speechless for several moments. I'd never heard Bree talk like this before. My late wife and Ali's mother, yes. But Bree, no.

I hung my head and said, "What should I have done?"

"Defuse the situation," she said. "Make them think you're no threat until you've got d.a.m.ning evidence against them. But it's too late, you escalated the threat, Alex, and-"

"Bree," I said, holding up my hands. "I get it, and I'm sorry. In my own defense, because Jannie was being used, I got a little hot under the collar. It won't happen again."

"That's good to hear," she said, getting up from the rocker and going inside. "But you remain a target."

I stood there a moment feeling a weight that hadn't been there ten minutes before. She was right. I'd pushed when I should have been smarter and laid off.