Millard’s words kept coming back. Dr. Cross, regretfully, we think your family is dead.
I fixed a sandwich but only nibbled the corners away. Then I watched the news stations—CNN, CNBC, FOX—but there was almost nothing about the civil war in the Delta. Unbelievable. A Hollywood actress had killed herself in LA, and that was the big story; it was being covered on every station—almost as if they all had the same news source and used the same journalists.
Finally, I switched the story about the dead actress off, and the silence wasn’t a good thing either. I was nearly overwhelmed by sadness and fear that I had lost Nana, Ali, and Jannie.
For a long time I stayed in the kitchen, holding my head in my arms and hands. I remembered certain images, and feelings, and sensations from the past: Ali, just a little boy, and such a sweetheart; Jannie, still my “Velcro” girl, my living memory of her mother; Nana, who had saved me so many times since I’d come to DC at ten after both my parents had died.
I didn’t see how I could continue to live without them. Could I?
The phone began to ring again and I snatched up the receiver. I hoped it was the Tiger, wanting something, wanting me.
But it wasn’t.
“It’s Ian Flaherty. I just wanted to check on you. See if you’re all right. See if you remembered anything that could help.”
“Help you?” I said in a tight voice. “My family’s been taken. My family. Do you have any idea what that’s like?”
“I think I do. We want to help you, Dr. Cross. Just tell us what you know.”
“Or what, Flaherty? What else can they do to me?”
“The proper question is . . . what can they do to your family?”
Flaherty left me a number where I could reach him at any time of the day or night.
At least the bastard was staying up late too.
Chapter 136
THE SOUND OF a ringing telephone woke me from a shallow snooze on the living room couch. I picked the phone up, still half asleep, my extremities tingling.
“Cross.”
“Go to ya moto car now. We watchin’ ya house, Cross. Lights on upstairs and in di kitchen. You was sleepin’ in living room.”
A male speaking. English with a pidgin accent. I’d heard a lot of it in the past few weeks, but I was particularly tuned into it now—every syllable.
“Is my family all right?” I asked. “Where are they? Just tell me that.”
“Bring your cell phone wit you. We have numba and we wan ya follow directions. And don’t call no one or your family dead. Go now, Cross. Listen up.”
I was sitting up now, staring out the window in the living room, sliding my feet into my shoes.
I didn’t see anyone outside. No cars or lights were visible from where I was.
“Why should I listen to you?” I asked the caller.
A second voice cut in. “Because I say you should!”
The phone at the other end clicked off. The second voice had been gruff, older than the first. And I recognized it instantly.
The Tiger. He was here in Washington. He had my family.
Chapter 137
SUDDENLY I HAD even more questions.