CHAPTER 109

THREE WEEKS LATER, ON Valentine’s Day, I got out of my car and started toward the house with a dozen red roses for Bree and a dozen yellow roses for Nana Mama.

The uproar over the killing of Justice Mayweather, the shock at the attempt on Justice Blevins’s life, and the greater story of Maestro continued.

Paladin had been seized and nationalized by the new administration. The intellectual property, the algorithms, and the supercomputers would be shared by the NSA, FBI, CIA, and other U.S. law enforcement agencies. Every employee of the company was being investigated, as was Theresa May Alcott, who’d been thrown off the judicial nominating committee by an enraged President Susan Winter.

Congress was set to hold hearings on Malcomb, Paladin, Maestro, and the plot to shift the balance of power inside the highest court in the land. And the media was speculating wildly over who Winter would nominate to take the late Justice Mayweather’s seat.

At the same time, secretly and with great intensity, according to Ned Mahoney, FBI and Pentagon scientists and engineers were studying the device that had killed Mayweather, concussed the justice’s guards, and liquefied the brain of Katrina White.

Despite all the scrutiny and media attention, despite a global manhunt, and despite his own computers and algorithms being used against him, Ryan Malcomb had not been found.

As I climbed up our front steps with the roses, I heard playing inside. I could hear people chattering with excitement as I crossed the porch. It was a Saturday, late afternoon, and we’d decided Valentine’s Day was the perfect occasion to have a proper engagement party for Rebecca Cantrell and John Sampson, who’d been home from British Columbia for two weeks.

Bree had organized the whole celebration, from the caterer to the DJ to the bartender. All I had to do was show up and show love to all the important people in my life.

What could be better? I asked myself as I set Bree’s roses on the porch swing and reached for the front doorknob.

My cell phone buzzed with a text and then began to ring. I didn’t recognize the number, checked the text.

Answer, Cross.—M

I answered and said, “Give yourself up. We’re coming for you, Malcomb.”

He said, his voice hoarse, weak, “You’ll never find me.”

“We will if it takes a lifetime.”

Malcomb began to laugh, which turned into racking coughs. “That’s the rub, Cross. I’m dying. Days to live now, my doctors tell me.”

“You’re lying.”

“Not this time. I’m over. Maestro’s over. Enough, Cross. Enough. You win. Go to your party and enjoy yourself and forgive me and forget about me.”

The call ended.

I stood there for a long moment looking at my phone until I heard my family and friends explode with laughter. I opened the door, picked up the flowers, and went inside to them, knowing that even if Maestro was over and even if Ryan Malcomb was terminally ill, he would never be forgotten or forgiven.

Not a chance.