Page 3 of Return of the Spider

Sampson nodded, said, “Look at it this way, Captain. You cleaned the streets of some serious bad guys, and you just saved the government’s justice system a whole lot of time and money.”

3

I got home aroundtwo a.m. My phone started ringing less than five hours later, at six forty.

“Cross,” I grumbled.

“It’s Kane,” the caller said. “I just got off the phone with New Jersey state police captain Alexander Barthalis.”

“I know Alexander,” I said to my chief of detectives. I got out of bed and padded into the bathroom so as not to wake Bree.

Chief Kane said, “Which is why Captain Barthalis wants you and Sampson to meet him in Batsto, New Jersey, ASAP. Got a pen?”

I shut the bathroom door. “Not handy. Text it to me. Can you tell me what—”

The line went dead. Kane had hung up on me in mid-sentence, as he often did.

As I showered and shaved, I tried not to stew over Kane’s rudeness. After I’d dressed and snuck out of my bedroom, Bree still snoozing, I saw that he’d texted me and Sampson an unfamiliar address in the Pine Barrens.

John called a minute later. “I don’t recognize it. You?”

“Never even heard of Batsto. But Alexander Barthalis requested us personally.”

Over the years, we had collaborated with Barthalis several times, including on an investigation into a serial rapist who worked the I-95 corridor between Newark and DC.

“Oh. I like Alexander. Good cop. I’ll pick you up in twenty.”

Ali, my youngest child, was already up and eating granola and bananas at the kitchen island, scrolling on his iPad while Nana Mama sat at the table drinking coffee and reading the newspaper in her nightgown and robe, her sparse gray hair looking like silk lace above her ageless face.

“Eggs?” she asked when she saw me.

“Toast and coffee will be fine,” I said. “John and I have to drive to the Pine Barrens in New Jersey.”

“Egg sandwiches for the both of you, then,” Nana Mama said, getting to her feet and starting toward the stove.

“How wasHamilton?” I asked Ali. He’d seen the play on a school trip.

He beamed at me. “Greater than great! I’d go again tomorrow.”

“I would too, actually,” I said, pouring myself coffee from the pot.

Ali said, “Did you see the Alphonso brothers getting shot, Dad? It’s on theWashington Postwebsite.”

“It was hard to see,” I said. “But we were there. Given their history and their actions last night, they gave the SWAT team no choice.”

“World’s better off without brothers like that,” Nana Mama said, frying eggs.

“I’d rather have seen them brought to trial.”

She said nothing in reply as she made two egg sandwiches on sourdough bread, with jack cheese and her special mustard.

I heard a honk out front, so I kissed Ali and Nana Mama goodbye, grabbed the sandwiches, and hurried outside.

When I got in the car and handed Sampson his breakfast, he smiled and moaned. “Did she put the special mustard in there?”

“Twice as much as usual, just the way you like it.”

Three hours later, after devouring breakfast and stopping twice for coffee, we were in a desolate area of New Jersey on a two-lane highway flanked by dense pines. We didn’t need the exact address in the end.