Page 21 of Return of the Spider

I whispered, “You know, if you get shorter when we get older, I’m going to throw out my back every time we kiss.”

“One of the hurdles you have to face if you want to keep this goddess happy,” Maria said with a wink. She gestured down at her belly and laughed again.

“Bring on the bad back, baby doll. Can I look in on Damon?”

“Give it a little bit,” she said. “He woke up a while ago and just went back down again. I’m reheating dinner.”

“Your mom’s sauce?”

“Not tonight.”

I sighed. “Still cracks me up that your mother has a secret spaghetti sauce.”

Maria stirred a pot on the stove with a wooden spoon. “How many times have I told you my mother’s godmother was Sicilian?”

“I know, I know. She helped raise your mother, taught her to cook.”

“And me,” Maria said. She turned and smiled, and I fell in love all over again.

It had been like that since the beginning. Maria was a social worker at St. Anthony’s Hospital in DC, and the first time I sawher, I knew that, despite her small stature, she had one of the biggest spirits I’d ever encountered.

I’d been talking with a couple of cops in the ER at St. Anthony’s when Maria Simpson came in with Hector Munoz, a nineteen-year-old gangbanger who’d been shot in a drive-by.

Munoz had a through-and-through bullet wound to his abdomen, but he basically refused to talk to anyone. After the docs gave him morphine for the pain, he relaxed quite a bit but maintained his silence with the Metro patrol officers who were trying to interview him.

Things changed when a young woman walked over to the cops who were talking to Hector. She was wearing high heels and a snug navy-blue dress that flattered her compact gymnast’s build. Her features were elegant, as if a higher power had decided to emphasize her large almond eyes and high cheekbones.

As soon as I saw this angel, I wanted to know everything about her. I took a step toward her and saw the name on the badge she wore on a lanyard around her neck:MARIA SIMPSON.

She glanced at me shyly, nodded, then turned to Hector and rattled off a series of questions. Munoz seemed as taken by Maria’s beauty as I was. He talked to her slowly and lazily, as if he were flirting with her. She took it in stride and joked and teased information out of him.

Munoz claimed not to know who shot him. He said he’d been out for a walk with some friends and a guy on a motorcycle drove by with a gunman riding on the back.

Maria told the cops, “He says to go back to his neighborhood. Maybe someone saw the shooter. Hector just got shot and went down.”

A nurse arrived. “There’s an OR opening up for Mr. Munoz in fifteen minutes. I have to take him for prep.”

Maria smiled at all of us. “Sorry I couldn’t have been more help.”

I was honestly so dazzled to have her looking at me that I couldn’t say a word.

“Well,” she said, “tell whoever is investigating this that if they have questions, I’m available in social services.”

She walked off, and I stared dumbly after her, then felt compelled to follow.

“Excuse me, Ms. Simpson?” I managed. “I have some questions.”

She turned and looked at me. I felt like melting when she asked, “Who are you?”

“Uh, I’m Alex Cross. I have a PhD in psychology from Johns Hopkins with a focus on violent criminality and its ripple effects.”

“Nice to meet you, Alex Cross, PhD,” she said, holding out her small, delicate hand. “And I know a thing or two about the ripple effects of violent crime.”

“I bet you do,” I said. “Could I buy you a cup of coffee? Pick your brain?”

“I’ll have to take a rain check on that, I’m afraid,” she said.

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