Alex Cross: Cross Justice Part 20

"What big pools?" I asked.

"You know. Where your father swam."

I stopped and came around the front of the chair. "What do you mean? Where did my dad swim?"

My uncle looked at me in renewed confusion, said, "In those pools. All the time when we was kids. Where is he? Jason?"

Aunt Hattie and Pinkie caught up to us. My cousin was carrying the remnants of a pie, and Hattie had two bags of chicken legs.

"Jason's dead, Clifford," Hattie said.

My uncle's expression twisted into shock. "When did he die?"

Hattie said, "Jason died a long time ago. In the gorge."

Uncle Cliff started to cry. "He was like my brother, Hattie."

"I know, Cliff," Hattie said, patting him on the arm and then looking at me and Pinkie, who was upset by the whole thing. "I don't know what it is. He just gets confused and upset sometimes. I'm so sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry about," I said.

She came around behind the wheelchair, said, "It's probably better if I take him from here. Pinkie, can you bring the leftovers?"

My cousin nodded, and I stood there in the street looking after them until they'd gone inside and the lights flickered on.

Hoping to clear my head, get some perspective on the day, I texted Bree that I was going for a walk. Wandering down Loupe Street, I admitted that the evidence against Stefan felt overwhelming. My niece must have thought so too. She'd gone straight to confer with Stefan after adjournment. How was Naomi going to explain the s.e.m.e.n? How was she going to cross-examine Sharon Lawrence?

Was Marvin Bell right? Was this a lost cause? Or were my aunts and Ethel Fox right? Were Bell and his adopted son, Finn Davis, involved? Had one of them killed Sydney Fox? Were they behind the criminal enterprise that Stefan suspected was ongoing in Starksville? How would I even go about answering any of those questions?

I still had no clear idea by the time I realized I'd walked all the way to the dark, arched bridge that spanned Stark River. Standing there, hearing the water roaring down in the gorge, I flashed on that dream I'd had of my younger self on the night my father died: running along the tracks through the rain, seeing the police cars with their lights flashing, and what I hadn't told Nana Mama, what I hadn't remembered until recently-my father out there on the bridge rail, the gunshot, and my dad falling.

I walked out onto the bridge to roughly where my father had been in my dream and looked down into the blackness, hearing the river at the bottom of the gorge but unable to see it.

A car pulled onto the bridge. The headlights swung over and past me. I ignored them, staring down into the void, and- The car skidded to a halt right behind me. I pivoted in time to see three men jump out of an old white Impala.

They wore hoods and carried crowbars and a Louisville Slugger.

CHAPTER 44.

I HAD NO time to go for my backup pistol in the ankle holster. They were on me that fast.

The most important thing you can do in a situation like that is pay attention to the open s.p.a.ce rather than to attackers or weapons. The more s.p.a.ce you have or can create, the safer you are.

I had the bridge railing at my back and three men closing in on me trying to fan out, trying to limit my s.p.a.ce. I moved hard to my right, along the rail and at an angle to one of the guys with a crowbar.

He grunted with laughter, raised his weapon, and made to club me down. I stepped forward off the curb with my right foot and spun my left foot back and behind me so the crowbar was no longer headed for my upper back but my face.

Before it could get there, I threw up my hands, reaching in and under the weapon's arc to grab the guy by the wrist. With my left hand, I twisted the wrist and the crowbar away from me. With the heel of my right hand, I hammered up under the left side of his jaw.

He reeled.

I hit him again, this time with my fist, this time in the throat. There was a crunching noise and he dropped, gagging. I stripped him of the crowbar and took four steps backward, trying to create s.p.a.ce again.

One of the other two, the one with the baseball bat, understood what I was trying to do. I looked over and saw there was another guy in the car, behind the wheel of the Impala. The driver threw the car in gear. Tires squealed at me at the same time the guy with the baseball bat jumped forward, the bat raised high over his head like it was an ax.

The Impala was going to mow me down. I jumped onto the oncoming car, rolled up on the hood. The driver hit the brakes. I slammed off the windshield and whipsawed back the other way.

The bat hit me hard in the midback and I was flung off the hood and onto the pavement. The wind was knocked out of me. The headlights blinded me.

But I still held the crowbar, and some deep instinct told me to look away from the headlights and down at the pavement.

"f.u.c.ker," a man grunted. I caught a flash of shadow on the road a second before the boot caught me in the ribs.

I felt a cracking and gasped in pain.

"Cave his frickin' skull in and be done with it," snarled a second male voice behind the headlights.

I kept my head down, forcing myself beyond the pain, looking at the street surface. The second I caught a flicker in the shadows, I backhand-slashed out and up with the crowbar.

I felt it connect before I saw the knee buckling in silhouette. I felt the bat glance off the side of my head. It wasn't a direct hit, but it was enough to make me dizzy and uncertain of what was up and what was down.

The guy I hit was yelling and clutching at his knee. He stumbled and fell against the hood of the car, screaming and clawing at his knee now.

Grunting in pain, still fighting for air, I thought: Two left. Other one with the crowbar. And the driver.

"Shoot him!"

I twisted my head, saw the driver climbing from the car, saw him holding a scoped hunting rifle. As he turned the gun my way, I flung the crowbar at him. It whipped sideways, end over end, and shattered the driver-side window, spraying the gunman with gla.s.s.

The rifle went off; the bullet ricocheted off bridge steel.

I heard tires squealing in the distance. Beneath the Impala, I saw headlights coming onto the bridge.

"We're out of here!" the driver shouted, and he dove into the car.

Fearing he'd run me down as he escaped, I scrambled back toward the sidewalk. The one with the blown knee hopped around the car, jumped into the front seat. The guy with the other crowbar pulled the man I'd dropped into the backseat. I reached the sidewalk, swallowed the pain, and bent my body to get the Ruger from my ankle holster.

Doors slammed. Tires smoked. A pistol came out the window.

I drew mine and fired wildly at the Impala, spiderwebbing the rear pa.s.senger window as the car began to accelerate. The guy with the blown knee shot as they pa.s.sed me. The bullet pinged off steel right by my head.

"Get the f.u.c.k out of our town, Cross!" one of them yelled as they sped away. "Or you'll end up just like your cretin cousin."

CHAPTER 45.

A BLUE DODGE ram pickup with Florida plates skidded to a stop beside me.

"Alex!" Pinkie yelled as he jumped from the cab.

"Help me up," I said, gasping. "Get me out of here."

"There were shots!" he said.

"Which is why you need to get me out of here," I said, fighting to get to my feet. "I do not want to talk to the Starksville police."

Powerful hands caught me under the arms. I gritted my teeth at the pain in my ribs and hobbled to the pa.s.senger door. Pinkie lifted me into the truck and had us off the bridge before I heard the police sirens.

My cousin flipped off his headlights and turned down a road that paralleled the gorge. We were a quarter of a mile away before I saw distant blue lights go whizzing by, heading toward the bridge.

"Where to?" Pinkie asked.

"Somewhere we can wait them out for a little while," I said. "Then we'll circle back to Birney on the Eighth Street bridge."

My cell phone rang. Bree.

"Where are you?" she asked.

"With Pinkie."

"Did you hear those shots?"

"Yes," I said, and I told her what happened.

"Don't you think you should go to the hospital?" she asked.

"No," I said. "I want to stay under the radar on this."

"Why?"

"I'll explain when I get home," I said. "Give me forty-five minutes."

"You're sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine, and I love you."

"I love you too, Alex."

I hung up.

We'd left the east side of town and were heading down a long, gradual slope on a windy rural road when Pinkie finally turned his headlights back on.

"What the h.e.l.l were you doing out on the bridge anyway?" he asked.

I started to tell him about my dream but stopped when I realized that wasn't why I'd gone out there.

"It was something Cliff said about my dad."

Pinkie shot me a quick glance. "What about your dad?"

"He said there were deep pools below the gorge, and when I said I didn't know them, he told me my dad used to swim in them."

"Okay ..."

"I don't know. The conversation just made me want to go to the bridge and look at the river, you know?"

Pinkie said, "I guess I can see that."

We were almost to the bottom of the hill by then and traveling through deep forest.

"You know where those pools are?" I asked, looking out the side window.

A nearly full moon hung in the sky, throwing the woods into dark blue light.

Pinkie was quiet, but he slowed the truck and said, "Sure."

A minute later, he stopped and gestured at a muddy lane that left the pavement. "That will take you in there."

"Your truck make it?" I asked.

Pinkie hesitated, but then he turned us into a two-track that cut across a wooded pine flat. I could see by the ruts that the road was well used, but the forest pressed in from both sides, and th.o.r.n.y vines and branches scratched at the side of the truck.

Ten minutes later, we pulled into a turnaround. Pinkie stopped the truck, shut off the headlights. Here, where the trees opened up, the moon threw an even brighter light.

"Where are the pools?" I asked.

My cousin pointed at a gravel trail. "They're not far. Lot of people go swimming here."

"Got a flashlight?" I asked.

"What do you think you're looking for, Alex?"

"I don't know. I just want to see the pools."