Read Double Cross for Free Online Page B

Canada. She’d accepted an inner-city teaching job in Southeast, which had endeared her to me immediately.
    Unfortunately, Sandy didn’t like herself very much. “I’ll bet you have a dozen clients like me. All these lonely, depressed single women in the big, bad city.”
    “Actually, I don’t.” I told her the truth, a terrible habit with me. “You’re my only DSW in the BBC.”
    Sandy got the joke and smiled, then went on. “Well, it’s just . . . pathetic. Nearly every woman I know is looking for the same dumb-ass thing.”
    “Happiness?” I asked.
    “I was going to say a man. Or a woman, I suppose. Somebody to love.”
    I definitely saw a different person in Sandy than she saw in herself. She chose to appear as the classic loner stereotype, nice looks hidden behind black-rimmed glasses and dark, baggy clothes. As she’d grown comfortable with me, she’d proven to be personable, interesting, and funny when she wanted to be. And she cared deeply about the children she taught. She talked about them frequently and in the warmest terms. No ambivalence whatsoever.
    “I have a real hard time seeing you as pathetic,” I finally said to her. “Sorry, it’s just an opinion. I could be all wrong about that.”
    “Well, when your therapist is probably your best friend, call it what you want.” Before I could respond, she laughed self-consciously. “Don’t worry, I don’t mean that as psycho as it sounds. I just mean that . . .”
    My human impulse was to reach out to her, but as a therapist, I couldn’t, or shouldn’t, anyway. There was something in her eyes, though—they were so needy—that I couldn’t help having a dual response. I wanted her to know that I cared about how she did. And I wanted to make sure that our relationship was clear. Maybe Sandy’s tone and that expectant glance of hers hadn’t meant anything. Then again,
everything means something
, or so I’ve read in a lot of very thick books used at schools like Georgetown and Johns Hopkins.
    I’d have to be careful with Sandy. We got through the session okay, and once she left, I was done for the day.
Or was I? Did I have a second job to go to now
?
    I was just coming down the stairs of my building when my cell rang. I didn’t recognize the number.
Now what
?
    I put the phone to my ear.
    “I’m calling for Kyle Craig,” a male voice said. He was breaking up some but had my full attention. “He can’t come to the phone right now . . . because he’s in solitary confinement in Colorado. But he wanted you to know he’s thinking about you every day, and he has a surprise planned for you. A terrific surprise, right there in Washington, DC. Remember, Kyle is the
man with the plan
. Oh, and he also wants you to know that he hasn’t seen the sun in four years—and it’s made him stronger and better at what he does.”
    The phone went dead in my hand.
    Kyle Craig—Jesus, what next?
    And what was that message supposed to mean?
“He has a surprise planned for you.”

Chapter 19

    I TRIED TO TELL MYSELF that I couldn’t spend a lot of time worrying about the homicidal maniacs I had already put away in jail. Not when some others were still walking free. Besides, nobody had ever come close to breaking out of ADX Florence. And this wasn’t the first time Craig had threatened me from his jail cell.
    Also, I wasn’t on the Job anymore. Of course, I
was
going out with the head detective on a very big, very nasty case.
    The Riverwalk homicide was already a media sensation. Everybody seemed to be talking about it. Even my patients had brought it up. The more hysterical news outlets spun some absurd theory every couple of hours. They were selling fear 24-7, doing a brisk business, and I had to admit I dealt with that particular commodity myself. Except that I tried to
relieve
the fear, as best I could, anyway; I had always attempted to stop the panic and make it go away by taking killers off the streets.
    All the MPD theories about the killer