CHAPTER 28

WHEN I FINALLY WOKE up, I had no idea where I was at first.

Then I heard a creak on the staircase outside my bedroom, realized I was home, and looked blearily at the clock.

I groaned. Nine a.m.

Bree wasn’t in our bed, and the blackout curtains had been drawn to let me sleep.

I was about to go back to that when music started playing downstairs—Mariah Carey wailing about Christmas.

I came wide awake. It was Christmas Eve morning. I knew what that meant in the Cross household and refused to miss it.

Although Mahoney and I had landed at two a.m., I forced myself up and into the shower and let the hot water beat on my neck while the events of the prior day played in my head.

Judge Pak’s girlfriend, Allie Winters, had been devastated by the news of his death. Winters, a successful artist, believed that the judge was planning to propose to her. She confirmed that he’d led a polyamorous life with his late wife but said he was done with that.

“Too much drama,” she’d said. “He was ready for a conventional existence.”

Pak’s girlfriend also said that she’d had suspicions about his gambling problems, although she knew nothing concrete.

Then the San Francisco homicide department that had been disparaged the day before came up big. Detectives Bell and Ponce and an excellent IT officer named Sally Gable managed to trace the hippie assassin for fifteen blocks; they saw her enter an alley between row houses, and she did not come out, so they theorized she might be holed up in one of the buildings.

Mahoney, the detectives, and I walked through the alley and looked in trash bins. A soaking-wet wig of locs was buried under garbage in one. The peasant skirt and hooded raincoat were in another.

“Is there a camera at the other end of this alley?” Mahoney asked as we bagged the evidence for DNA analysis.

“I’ll find out,” Bell said, and called their IT wizard. After a minute, she nodded. “There is. Sally is sending over footage.”

Mahoney called it up on his iPad. The camera caught the woman appearing from the alley; she turned her back and hurried away while she opened a black umbrella. We backed the footage up and froze it on our best look at her, which gave us about an eighth of her face. She wore Doc Martens boots, black tights, black jacket. Her hair was short, spiky, and blond.

“Judge Franklin’s killer had hair like that,” I said.

Mahoney nodded. “I say it’s her. Same athletic build. But I’m not sure we’ve got enough of her face here to use recognition software.”

“We’ve got her DNA on those clothes.”

“We do indeed.”

The fact that we had DNA on the killer bolstered our spirits on the flight home. But now, as I shaved and finished my shower, all I wanted was to set all work aside and be with my family.

I dressed in jeans, a Howard University track team hoodie, and sneakers and went down the stairs. The balsam fir was already upright in its stand in the front room, and everyone was moving in boxes of ornaments and lights. Willow trailed them with Sampson close behind.

Willow saw me and her eyes grew wide and excited. “Uncle Alex! We’re going to decorate the tree now!”

“I know! I’m glad I didn’t miss it!” I said, entering the front room.

Bree gave me a disapproving look. “You need sleep.”

Nana Mama said, “Look at the bags under that boy’s eyes.”

“I’ll take a nap this afternoon,” I said.

“No work?” Bree said. “Promise?”

“Work doesn’t exist for at least forty-eight hours.”

“Good,” my grandmother said. “You want eggs?”

“I’ll get them myself, Nana. I just want to grab a cup of coffee and enjoy the day.”

And I did.

And we did.

The simple acts of playing our favorite Christmas music, stringing the lights, and hanging familiar ornaments took me away from dead federal judges and blond assassins. Trimming the tree, listening to my kids chattering and joking, watching Willow’s excitement—it all anchored me in a way I guess I needed because when we were finished, I felt deeply content and at ease.

I made good on my promise and took a long, much-needed nap. When I got up, Bree and I went for a run with Damon and Jannie; Ali led the way on his mountain bike.

We ran past the White House, admired the National Christmas Tree. Everyone we encountered was smiling and happy despite the raw wind. Before dinner, we gathered around Nana Mama for another tradition as she read us the story of the Nativity as told in the Book of Luke.

“‘And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby,’” she read, “‘keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”’”

Willow went to the carved Nativity scene that sat on the little table by the fireplace. “Like this baby?” she said.

Nana Mama smiled. “Exactly like that baby,” she said. “That’s what we really celebrate on Christmas, Willow. Jesus’s miraculous birth.”

For Christmas Eve dinner, we surprised my grandmother with steamed clams and king crab legs, her favorites. Afterward, we sang songs until Willow fell asleep in her father’s arms.

The next day, Bree and I went to church early with Nana Mama and heard the story of the Nativity. Back at home, we opened presents with the kids. Willow was out of her mind with all the toys she got and all the attention showered on her, especially by Rebecca Cantrell, the U.S. attorney for Northern Virginia and Sampson’s new girlfriend.

Rebecca stayed with us all day, ate roast turkey with us that evening, and proclaimed it the best Christmas she’d had in years before kissing Sampson and Willow and leaving around nine. I tried to stay awake to watch a movie the kids wanted to see, but I fell asleep during the opening credits and soon after went to bed.

After a deliciously long sleep, I awoke to find Bree dressed, sitting in a chair in the corner, and looking at me with a fretful expression on her face.

“I guess it’s him, then,” she said, sounding disappointed.

I sat up, blinking. “I think I’m coming in at the end of this conversation.”

“We promised not to talk work for two wonderful days, but now I need to.”

“Okay,” I said. “Can I get some coffee?”

“Right there on your nightstand.”

I looked over and saw an insulated go-cup with a thin trail of steam rising from it. “You do need to talk.”

Bree nodded and spilled the details of her trip to Hunting Valley and her discussion with Theresa May Alcott.

“After hearing about the DNA report, I felt like I had zero grounds to be there,” Bree said. “I felt like I’d poked someone with a stick on their worst day, and I pride myself on not being that kind of person, you know?”

“I do,” I said. “And I hear and see how upset you are, but we’re investigators. We ask questions at difficult times. When you went, you thought you were doing the right thing by confronting her.”

“I got the same notice about the DNA results she did, but I didn’t look at the Google Alert before I went in.”

“Would you have done things differently if you had?”

“I don’t think I would have gone inside at all. I mean, what’s the point? Even if he was M, he’s dead, and he kept it from her. The only person I was trying to help with my questions was me so I could prove I was right.”

“How many people has Maestro killed over the years we’ve been chasing them?”

She shrugged. “More than a hundred.”

“You don’t think more than a hundred dead people played a part in your thinking? Because I know they always play a part in my mind when I’m thinking about M. Always.”

“They do for me too,” she admitted.

“There you go, then,” I said. “You went to Cleveland with a nobler purpose, caused a little unintentional agitation in service of that purpose, and now you move on.”

She shifted in her chair, her brow knitting. “And give up on identifying M?”

“Maybe give it a rest. It might help you get some perspective.”

She thought about that, nodded, and came over to the bed, smiling. “Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

Bree bent over to give me a kiss, but my cell phone started playing Ned Mahoney’s jingle before our lips could meet. “I have to answer that.”

“I know,” she said, drawing back. “Rain check?”

“Definitely,” I said, and answered the call. “Ned?”

Mahoney said, “We’ve gotten a disturbing tip that we have to run down no matter the political implications.”