Alex Cross 16 - I, Alex Cross by Patterson James

Author:Patterson, James [James, Patterson,]
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 0316018783
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2010-06-06T04:00:00+00:00

I, Alex Cross

Chapter 61

WHEN I WASN’T sleeping that night, or getting out of the nurses’ way every few hours while they checked their patient, I was talking to Nana. At first, I stuck to the soft stuff—how much we loved her, how much we were pulling for her, and even just what was going on in the room.

But eventually it sank in for me that all Nana ever wanted was the truth, whatever that happened to be. So I started to tell her about my day. Just like we had always talked, never thinking about the reality that our talks would have to end eventually.

“I had to kill someone today,” I said.

It seemed like there should have been more to say about that, once I’d said it out loud, but I just sat there quietly. I guess this was where Nana was supposed to come in.

And then she kind of did—a memory, anyway, from an earlier time when we had a similar conversation.

Did he have a family, Alex?

Nana had asked me that before anything else. I was twenty-eight at the time. It was an armed robbery, at a little grocery store in Southeast. I wasn’t even on duty when it happened, just on my way home. The man’s name, I’ll never forget, was Eddie Clemmons. It was the first time anyone had ever shot at me, and the first time I’d ever fired in self-defense.

And yes, I told Nana, he had a wife, though he didn’t live with her. And two children.

I remember standing there in the front hall on Fifth Street with my coat still on. Nana had been carrying a basket of wash when I came in, and we ended up sitting down on the stairs, folding clothes and talking about the shooting. I thought it was strange at first, how she kept handing me things to fold. Then, after a while, I realized that at some point, my life would start to feel normal again.

You’re going to be fine, she had said to me. Maybe not quite the same, but still, just fine. You’re a police officer.

She was right, of course. Maybe that was why I needed so badly to have the same conversation again now. It was strange, but all I really wanted was for her to tell me it was going to be okay.

I picked up her hand and kissed it and pressed it against my cheek—anything to connect with her, I guess.

“Everything’s going to be all right, Nana,” I said.

But I couldn’t tell if that was the truth or not, or exactly whom I might be lying to.

I, Alex Cross

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