Cross Justice by James Patterson Read Free Book Online Page B

back.”
    Lizzie’s grandfather grinned for all sorts of reasons as he walked down a long hallway and into a richly furnished library office. He ignored the books that filled the shelves. They were all his wife’s idea. He hadn’t read a tenth of them, but they looked good when guests came by.
    He picked up a cheap cell phone sitting on the desk, said, “Talk.”
    “We have problems,” said a man with a deep, hoarse voice.
    “Tell me.”
    “She’s not listening to reason,” he said. “She’s talking.”
    Lizzie’s grandfather squinted, calculated. “You’re sure?”
    “Yes.”
    “How do you want it handled?”
    “We’ll take care of it.”
    This surprised him. “Are you sure? There are others we can turn to.”
    “Our mess. We’ll handle it.”
    Grandfather accepted the decision, set it aside, said, “Other problems?”
    “Naomi Cross threw in a wild card. Brought in her uncle. Alex Cross. Google him. Ex–FBI profiler, now a homicide detective in Washington, DC.”
    “Reputation?”
    “Formidable.”
    Grandfather factored that into his thinking. “We’re clean otherwise?”
    “As it stands, yes.”
    “Then we don’t have a choice. Take care of that situation as you see fit.”
    A moment passed before the man on the other end said, “Agreed.”
    “Talk to me when it’s done.”
    Grandfather hung up and destroyed the phone. Then he left the office and walked back down the hallway, eager for tea with little Lizzie.

Part Two
     

A FASHION STATEMENT
     

CHAPTER 13
     
Palm Beach, Florida
     
    “‘ I FEEL PRETTY, oh so pretty,’” Coco sang softly as he looked in the mirror, aware of the dead woman in a black nightgown hanging by her neck from the chandelier behind him but much more focused on assessing the new outfit.
    The tangerine linen skirt hugged his hips sublimely. The matching jockey coat was snug through the shoulders, but workable. The Dries van Noten high-heeled sling-backs were a bit toe-crunching. The Carolina Herrera silk taffeta blouse was simply remarkable. And the pearl earrings and choker? Just the right air of sophistication.
    All he needed now was the right do.
    Coco reached into the box and came up with a lush, shoulder-length, radiant amber wig. It was old, early 1970s, if he remembered correctly. His mother would have known the exact date, of course, but no matter. Once settled on the two-sided tape with the last strands of hair combed into place, the wig made Coco look like another person altogether.
    Mysterious. Sexy. Alluring. Unreachable.
    “I name you Tangerine Dream, Queen of the Garden Party,” Coco cooed to the woman staring back at him. “A vision of …”
    He turned and looked at the petite dead woman dangling by a drapery cord from the chandelier. “Ruth? What would you say? I’m thinking a cross between Julianne Moore in
Boogie Nights
and Ginger on
Gilligan’s Island
—the haircut, anyway. Am I right, or am I just a foolish little girl?”
    Coco giggled ever so softly before picking up the Prada shopping bag and other goodies pilfered from Ruth’s collection. He started to leave the master suite, then paused to listen. Though he knew that the staff had been given the day off and that Ruth’s husband, Dr. Stanley Abrams, aka “the Boob King of West Palm,” was in Zurich attending a medical symposium, it still paid to be careful.
    Sure of himself now, Coco pushed on down a gallery rich with artwork, although the only piece he stopped to look at was an oil painting of the deceased.
There you are,
he thought, studying Ruth’s beauty.
Caught at the moment of your ripeness, my dear, a gift to the universe.
    Ruth and Stanley’s home was enormous and entirely too modern for Coco’s taste. But then again, what would you expect from the house that fake tits built? There was a great deal to be said for classic understatement, he believed.
    As his mother liked to say:
When it comes to your art, Coco, and fashion is art, take your motif to the limit and