It wasn’t the time, place, or method Guidice might have chosen, but that was irrelevant now. He’d gotten greedy. He’d let himself watch Alex suffer for one day too many, just long enough to connect the last few dots.
But maybe that was okay. In fact, maybe it was perfect, Guidice thought, as he stood watching the door. Alex was going to take a bullet to the brain, right there on the street where he’d tried so hard—and so much in vain—to keep his little family safe.
And when he did, Detective Alex Cross, paragon of the Metropolitan Police Department, was going to single-handedly prove his own incompetence to the world, in the most definitive possible terms.
So then fine, Guidice thought. Alex wanted to come looking for him? He wouldn’t have to look very far.
CHAPTER
108
“DON’T DO THIS, ALEX!”
It was only when Bree followed me off the back porch that I remembered I’d come in through the front of the house. Usually I drove around and parked in our garage—but there was nothing usual about today.
When I turned around, she was right there.
“Just give me thirty seconds,” she said. “I’m going to tell Sampson to call this in. And then I’m coming with you. At least do that for me.”
I think she was grasping at straws. Maybe she thought she could talk me down in the car.
“Yeah, okay,” I said. “I’ll wait for you out front.”
“Good.” She looked at me one more time before she ran back into the house. “I’ll be right there.”
In fact, I had no intention of waiting for Bree. Whatever was going to happen with Guidice, it was going to be just him and me when it did. There was no sense getting her involved. Or anyone else, for that matter.
I walked up the narrow passage between our house and the neighbors’, through the locked gate, and out onto Fifth Street, where I’d parked. I didn’t look back once. I just got into the car, started it up, and pulled away from the curb. In fact, if I hadn’t taken a quick glance in the rearview mirror for oncoming traffic, I never would have seen Guidice at all. He was standing right in the middle of the street, and he raised his arm in my direction just as I spotted him. I didn’t actually see the gun, but I recognized the posture right away.
Even as I swerved, and cut the car hard to the left, my back windshield exploded in a shower of glass gravel. When I looked again, Guidice was on the move. He was coming right for me, his gun still raised.
Heart thumping, I rolled onto the seat, threw open the passenger door, and fell out onto the street. My Glock was out now, and I looked over the edge of the door to see him closing the gap between us. I could tell he was trained. He didn’t just pepper the car with bullets as he came. He was waiting for a clean shot.
So was I. There were people screaming up and down the block, and running for cover in any number of directions. At this distance, I couldn’t afford the possibility of a stray bullet. If I missed him, I might hit someone else.
Guidice didn’t have the same problem. As soon as he spotted me over the passenger door, he tried again, with a quick double tap this time. I ducked down and heard the shots hit the side of the car with two dull thuds.
I could still hear a few people running up the sidewalk behind me, too. The situation was only going to get worse if I didn’t do something.
Working mostly on instinct, I stayed close to the ground and made my way around the front of the car. Maybe—just maybe—I could catch Guidice off guard as he came within range, too close to miss.
When I got to the front, I tried another quick look. He was right there, less than ten yards away now, and moving at a run. This was it. One of us was going down.
I stood up fast, with a two-hand grip on the Glock, ready to fire—but I never got that far. At the moment I came eye to eye with Guidice, another shot sounded from farther off.
Guidice stumbled hard and fell, face-first onto the street with his arms splayed out in front of him. He didn’t even try to catch himself.
“Alex!”
I looked over and saw Bree coming down the front steps of our house. Her own Glock 19 was up, still pointed in Guidice’s direction where he lay.
“Are you all right?” she shouted.
“I’m fine,” I said.
She’d gotten him in the neck, I saw. Probably hit the carotid artery, too, from the way his blood was pumping. A pool of it had started to spread on the pavement around him.
Sampson was outside now, too, close behind Bree. “EMTs are on the way,” he said, and stopped short when he saw Guidice.
I tore my shirt off and pressed it to the wound at his neck, but there was no way to stop the bleeding. Not with a shirt. I think Guidice knew it, too. He struggled to roll over and looked me in the eye, where I was kneeling next to him.
“Congratulations,” he slurred out. “Didn’t think you had it in you—”
“Yeah, well think again,” Bree said, her own voice shaking.
“Listen to me,” I said. “Where’s Rebecca Reilly? Did you take her, Guidice? Was it you? Are you Russell?”
I was still putting the pieces all together, but if I was right about this, I also knew I didn’t have much time here. He was nearly gone already.
Guidice grabbed my arm then, and pulled himself a few inches off the pavement. He tried to swallow back whatever was clogging his throat, and his jaw went slack.
“Tell my girls . . . tell them—”
“Answer my question first!” I said. Even then I was fighting my own feelings. It was everything I could do to keep from stepping back and letting him bleed all the way out.
Before I could say anything else, Guidice convulsed. He spit up a large amount of blood all over himself, shuddered one more time, and then went still. When his head fell back on the street, his eyes were open—still on me. At least, it seemed that way.
I could hear a siren somewhere, coming closer.
“That’s it,” Sampson said. “He’s gone.”
“He can rot in hell,” Bree said.
When I looked at her, she had an expression on her face I’d never seen before. She’s the most caring person I know. In a way, it was as if everything I’d been feeling had shifted to her.
She was crying again, too. Thinking about poor Ava, no doubt. Whatever else Guidice may have done, he’d used her as nothing more than a pawn, just to get back at me.
The most we could say now was that no more lives would be wasted in Ron Guidice’s name. I suppose if this were any other case, it might feel good to know that.
But not this time. Rebecca Reilly was still out there somewhere. And Ava was dead. Nothing was going to make us feel better about how all of this had gone down. Certainly not right away. We’d have to get there on our own, and in our own time.
Still, somehow, I knew we would.
Epilogue
CIRCLE OF LIFE
CHAPTER
109
NOT LONG AFTER RON GUIDICE DIED, HIS FULL SITUATION CAME TO LIGHT. It was his mother who called the authorities, when her son’s name became a national headline.
It took another five days after that and two independent DNA tests to confirm that the baby in Lydia Guidice’s care was in fact Rebecca Reilly. Also, that her sister, Emma Lee Guidice, was the biological daughter of both Ron Guidice and Amanda Simms, the first pregnant girl in our pregnant girl cases.
It brought up all kinds of reverberating speculation about Ava, and what Guidice might have had planned for her before she died. But Ava’s cremation was already behind us now. A small, intimate memorial service had been held. She had no dental records at all, and her remains had been identified to the extent that they could.
But that was it. None of us were prepared to confront the possibility that she’d been pregnant at the end. That question was just going to have to fade off into the great unknown, which was probably for the best.
But I’ll always wonder, of course. I’ll wonder about a lot of things from this case.
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When Child and Family Services took custody of Guidice’s two daughters, Bree and I worked with the agency to make sure Mrs. Guidice could see the girls from time to time. She may not have been competent to raise them, but she also wasn’t criminally negligent here. I felt sorry for her more than anything.
Stephanie agreed to shepherd their case, and she also promised not to give up until she found a home where both girls could live together. In the meantime, they were placed into emergency foster care at a small, well-run facility in Foggy Bottom.
Taking in Rebecca and Emma Lee ourselves wasn’t something we could even contemplate, starting with the fact that we’d just lost Ava. But Bree and I did make several visits to the home in those early months.
“Look at you,” I said, the first time Bree actually met Rebecca. She was cradling the baby in a rocking chair, going slowly back and forth like she’d done it a million times. “You’re good at that.”
Bree just shrugged and kept her eyes on Rebecca in the way that—yes, I’m going to say it—only a woman can look at a baby.
The subject of having our own kids wasn’t really on the table anymore. We’d talked about it before we got married, and had already put it behind us. But life’s a circle sometimes, isn’t it? The thing you thought you left behind can come back around, until it’s sitting right there in front of you, all over again.
I’m not saying Bree and I made any kind of new plans that day, or even that there were going to be any new plans. But if I had to guess, I’d say that we were probably feeling some of the same things as she sat there, rocking Rebecca back to sleep.
After a while, Bree looked up and caught me staring at her.
“What is it?” she said.
“Nothing,” I said.
She smiled like she could read my mind. “Nothing, huh?”
Now it was my turn to shrug. “You just look really beautiful right now,” I told her. “That’s all.”
“It’s this little girl,” she said. “She looks good on me.”
And I couldn’t argue with that.
CHAPTER
110
“ALEX, COME ON IN. HAVE A SEAT. IT’S GOOD TO SEE YOU.”
I admire Adele Finaly quite a bit. I think she’s one of the finest psychotherapists I’ve ever seen in action.
I guess that’s why I put up with her No Shoes rule during sessions. I didn’t even think about it anymore. I just left my trainers on the mat by the door of her plant-filled office, and went to sit in my usual spot on the couch.
“It’s been a while,” she said, settling into her own flowered armchair. “Was there anything specific that precipitated this call?”
She reminds me of Audrey Hepburn, or Lena Horne. Adele has a way of being incredibly smart and accessible at the same time.
“Just the oldest question in the book,” I said. “My book, anyway.”
“Ah.” She smiled sympathetically. “That one.”
I spent a good chunk of the session with her just explaining everything that had happened in the last month. She knew who Ava was, but not how badly it had all turned out.
I told her about Ron Guidice, too. Not just what he’d done, but what had happened to me on that last day—and also what might have happened if things had turned out differently. I don’t know that I’ve ever been so consumed by my own hatred of someone before, and it scared me.
“I tell myself it was different this time,” I said. “It was personal. Having Ava involved changed everything, and I got in over my head. That’s not even accounting for the two other major cases I had going.”
“Well, yes,” Adele said. “It was different. You had this girl living in your home, and very possibly lining up to become a legal part of your family. She would have been your daughter.”
I nodded, not really sure I could talk about that part without breaking up.
“But Alex,” Adele said. She leaned over and put a hand on my wrist. “It’s always different with you. There’s always a reason why you end up pushing yourself—and why you land back in those very dark places.”
It was true. In fact, I didn’t even know what to say to that. So Adele went on. I can always count on her to show me both sides of any coin.
“You know what else is true?” she said. “There are evil people out there in the world. Someone has to do the work that you do, and we’re all very lucky that you do it so well.
“But that doesn’t mean you can’t care too much sometimes, Alex. I think you do. And that’s when I worry about you—about what this might be doing to . . . well, to your soul.”
“You worry about me?” I said, grinning. “Adele, I’m touched.”
She knew I was trying to sidestep something and didn’t take the bait. Instead, she kept pushing.
“Maybe we should stop asking why you are this way, and start focusing on what, if anything, you want to do about it,” she said.
I looked at her, a little sheepish. “I want to keep showing up here until I’m so sick of hearing myself talk that I finally make a change. A real one.”
Adele sat back and looked at me like I’d just won the spelling bee.
“That’s a pretty good answer. For a start.”
“What about you?” I said. “If you were a betting woman, would you say I was going to be seeing you for the rest of my life? Coming in here, and asking the same damn questions, over and over?”
“My God, I hope not. You’re twenty years younger than me.”
Adele’s always good for a well-timed laugh. She gets me, in that way.
“You know what I mean,” I said. “When are we going to figure this one out, Adele?”
“If you keep coming in to see me?” she said. “Then . . . eventually.”
“Eventually? That’s your answer?”
“And I’m sticking to it,” she said.
In fact, she was probably right. We would get there one of these days. We’d figure it out.
Unless, of course, we didn’t. Nobody knows better than me that eventually is an idea, not a given. There’s no guarantee I’m going to eventually make it to anything, including breakfast tomorrow. But by the same token, I have to allow for the possibility.
Otherwise, I’ve got nothing. And that’s not me.
THE NEW WOMEN’S MURDER CLUB NOVEL
FOR AN EXCERPT,
TURN THE PAGE
Mercifully, Joe and the baby were both sleeping. In the same room. In the same bed. At the same time. It was unbelievable, but true.
I filled Martha’s bowl with yummy kibble and brought in the morning paper from the hall.
The headline read, FAYE FARMER DEAD AT 27.
I didn’t stop to make coffee, just spread the paper out over the kitchen counter. The shocking story had been written by my great friend Cindy Thomas, charter member of the Women’s Murder Club, engaged to marry my partner, Rich Conklin, and a bulldog of a reporter.
Unrelenting tenacity can be an annoying trait in a friend, but it had made Cindy a successful crime reporter with a huge future. Her story on Faye Farmer had shot past the second section of the paper and was on the front page above the fold.
Cindy had written, “Designer Faye Farmer, 27, known for her red carpet styling and must-have wear for the young and famous, was found dead in her car last night on Twenty-Ninth Street and Noe.
“Captain Warren Jacobi has told the Chronicle that Ms. Farmer had been the victim of a gunshot wound to the head. An autopsy has been scheduled for Tuesday.”
It was almost impossible to believe that such a bright, vivacious young woman was dead, her promising life just . . . over. Had someone taken her life? Or had she killed herself?
I kept reading.
The article went on to say that Faye Farmer lived with football great Jeffrey Kennedy, who was not a suspect and was cooperating fully with the police.
I’d watched Jeff Kennedy many times from the stands at Candlestick Park. At twenty-five, he was already the NFL’s best outside linebacker. H
is defensive skills and film-star looks had made him an immediate fan favorite, and with a guaranteed ten million dollars a year he was the league’s fifth-highest earner.
Faye Farmer had been photographed with Kennedy frequently over the last couple of years and had been quoted as saying that she was going to be married—“to someone.” The way it sounded, she wanted to get married to Kennedy, but he wasn’t at the until-death-do-us-part stage.
I was dying for more information. This was what’s termed a “suspicious death,” and my mind just cannot rest until a puzzle is solved.
Claire Washburn didn’t mind putting on a dog-and-pony show as long as nobody sneezed or puked on the body. A high-profile case like this one would be scrutinized for mistakes, and the last thing she wanted was to have to explain to the court how random DNA got on the victim.
There was a bark of laughter outside the frosted glass of her office door. Claire sighed once, forwarded her phone calls to the front desk, and then went to the conference room.
The twelve people who were waiting for her turned as one.
Claire couldn’t stop herself from laughing. To a man, and to a woman, her visitors were dressed in baby-yellow paper scrubs and Tyvek gowns. Most hilarious of all was Rich Conklin, former Mr. September in the Law Enforcement Officer Beefsteak Calendar for 2011.
Great big handsome man, outfitted like a hospital kitchen worker.
Claire said, “Good morning, Easter chicks,” and she laughed again, this time joined by the group of cops, junior techs from CSU, and the law school grads from the DA’s office who were getting on-the-job education this morning.
She caught her breath and said, “If we’ve never met, I’m Dr. Washburn, Chief Medical Examiner, and before I begin this morning’s autopsy, please introduce yourselves.”