Roses Are Red (Alex Cross Series #6)

\ \ \ \ Chapter One\ BRIANNE PARKER didn't look like a bank robber or a murderer – her pleasantly plump baby face fooled everyone. But she knew that she was ready to kill if she had to this morning. She would find out for sure at ten minutes past eight.\ The twenty-four-year-old woman wore khakis, a powder blue University of Maryland windbreaker, and scuffed white Nike sneakers. None of the early-morning commuters noticed her as she walked from her dented white Acura to a thick stand of evergreen trees, where she hid.\ She was outside the Citibank in Silver Spring, Maryland, just before eight. The branch was scheduled to open in ninety seconds. She knew from her talks with the Mastermind that it was a freestanding bank with two drive-through lanes. It was surrounded by what he called big-box stores: Target, PETsMART, Home Depot, Circuit City.\ At eight o'clock on the dot, Brianne approached the bank from her hiding place in the evergreens under a colorful billboard obnoxiously offering McDonald's breakfast to the public. From that angle she couldn't be seen by the female teller who was just opening the glass front door and had momentarily stepped outside.\ A few strides from the teller, she slipped on a rubbery President Clinton mask, one of the most popular masks in America and probably the one hardest to trace. She knew the bank teller's name, and she spoke it clearly as she pulled out her gun and pressed it against the small of the woman's back.\ "Inside, Ms. Jeanne Galetta. Then turn around and lock the front door again. We're going to see your boss, Mrs. Buccieri."\ Her short speech at the entrance to the bank was scripted, word for word, even the pauses. The Mastermind said it was crucial that a bank robbery proceed in a specific order, almost by rote.\ "I don't want to kill you, Jeanne. But I will if you don't do everything I say, when I say it. It's your turn to talk now, darling. Do you understand what I've just told you so far?"\ Jeanne Galetta nodded her head of short brown hair so vigorously that her wire-rimmed glasses nearly fell off. "Yes, I do. Please don't hurt me," she gasped. She was in her late twenties, attractive in a suburban sort of way, but her blue polyester pantsuit and sensible stack-heeled shoes made her look older.\ "The manager's office. Now, Ms. Jeanne. If I'm not out of here in eight minutes, you will die. I'm serious. If I'm not out of here in eight minutes, you and Mrs. Buccieri die. Don't think I won't do it because I'm a woman. I will shoot you both like dogs.\ \ \ Chapter Two\ SHE LIKED THIS AURA OF POWER and she really liked the new respect she was suddenly getting at the bank. As she followed the trembling teller past the two Diebold ATMs and then through the meeter-greeter area of the lobby, Brianne thought about the precious seconds she had already taken. The Mastermind had been explicit about the tight schedule for the robbery. He had repeated over and over that everything depended on perfect execution.\ Minutes matter, Brianne.\ Seconds matter, Brianne.\ It even matters that it's Citibank we've chosen to hit today, Brianne.\ The robbery had to be exact, precise, perfect. She got it, she got it. The Mastermind had planned it on what he called "a numerical scale of 9.9999 out of 10."\ With the heel of her left hand, Brianne shoved the teller into the manager's office. She heard the low hum of a computer coming from inside. Then she saw Betsy Buccieri sitting behind her big executive-style desk.\ "You open up your safe every morning at five past eight, so open it for me," she screamed at the manager, who was wide-eyed with surprise and fear. "Open it. Now!"\ "I can't open the vault," Mrs. Buccieri protested. "The vault is automatically opened by a computer signal from the main office in Manhattan. It never happens at the same time."\ The bank robber pointed to her own left ear. She signaled with her finger for Mrs. Betsy Buccieri to listen. To listen to what, though? "Five, four, three, two -" Brianne said. Then she reached for the phone on the manager's desk. It rang. Perfect timing.\ "It's for you," Brianne said, her voice slightly muffled by the rubbery President Clinton mask. "You listen carefully." She handed the phone to Mrs. Buccieri, but she knew the exact words the bank manager would hear, and who the speaker was.\ The scariest voice of all for the bank manager to hear was not that of the Mastermind making very real but idle-sounding threats, but someone even better. Scarier.\ "Betsy, it's Steve. There's a man here in our house. He has a gun pointed at me. He says that unless the woman in your office leaves the bank with the money by eight-ten exactly, Tommy, Anna, and I will be killed.\ "It's eight-oh-four." The phone line suddenly went dead. Her husband's voice was gone.\ "Steve? Steve!" Tears flowed into Betsy Buccieri's eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She stared at the masked woman and couldn't believe this was happening. "Don't hurt them. Please. I'll open the vault for you. I'll do it now. Don't hurt anyone."\ Brianne repeated the message the bank manager had already heard. "Eight-ten exactly. Not one second later. And no stupid bank tricks. No silent alarms. No dye packs."\ "Follow me. No alarms," Betsy Buccieri promised. She almost couldn't think. Steve, Tommy, Anna. The names rang loudly in her head.\ They arrived at the door of the bank's Mosler vault. It was 8:05.\ "Open the door, Betsy. We are on the clock. We're losing time. Your family is losing time. Steve, Anna, little Tommy, they could all die."\ It took a little less than two minutes for Betsy Buccieri to get into the vault, which was a polished steel thing of beauty with pistons like a locomotive. Stacks of money were plainly visible on nearly all the shelves - more money than Brianne had ever seen in her life. She snapped open two canvas duffel bags and began filling them with the cash. Mrs. Buccieri and Jeanne Galetta watched her take the money in silence. She liked seeing the fear and respect for her on their faces.\ As she'd been instructed to, Brianne counted off the minutes as she filled the duffel bags. "Eight-oh-seven . . . eight-oh-eight... " Finally, she was finished with her part in the vault.\ "I'm locking you both inside the vault. Don't say one word or I'll shoot you, then lock your dead bodies up."\ She hoisted the black duffel bags. "Don't hurt my husband or my baby," Betsy Buccieri begged. "We did what you -"\ Brianne slammed the heavy metal door on Betsy Buccieri's desperate plea. She yanked her President Clinton mask from her sweaty face.\ She was running late. She walked across the lobby, unlocked the front door with plastic-gloved hands, and went outside. She felt like running as fast as she could to her car, but she walked calmly, as if she didn't have a care in the world on this fine spring morning. She was tempted to pull out her six-shooter and put a hole into the big Egg McShit staring down on her. Yeah, she had an attitude, all right.\ When she got to the Acura, she checked her watch: 52 seconds past 8:10. And counting. She was late - but that was the way it was supposed to be. She smiled.\ She didn't call Errol at the Buccieri house where Steve, Tommy, and the nanny, Anna, were being held. She didn't tell him she had the money and she was safely in the Acura. She had been told not to by the Mastermind. The hostages were supposed to die.\ \ \ Chapter Three\ THERE'S AN OLD SAYING that I've learned to believe in my time as a detective: Don't think there are no crocodiles because the water is calm.\ The water was certainly lovely and calm that day. My young and irrepressible daughter, Jannie, had Rosie the Cat up on her hind legs and she was holding Rosie's front paws in her hands. She and "la chatte rouge" were dancing, as they often did.\ "Roses are red, violets are blue," Jannie sang in a sweet, lilting voice. It was a moment and an image I wouldn't forget. Friends, relatives, and neighbors had begun to arrive for the christening party at our house on Fifth Street. I was in a hugely celebratory mood.\ Nana Mama had prepared an amazing meal for the special occasion. There was cilantro-marinated shrimp, roasted mussels, fresh ham, Vidalia onions, and summer squash. The aroma of chicken with garlic, pork ribs, and four kinds of homemade bread filled the air. I'd even made my specialty that night, my contribution, a creamy cheesecake with fresh raspberries on top.\ One of Nana's refrigerator notes was posted on the door of the GE. It read: "'There is an incredible amount of magic and feistiness in black men that nobody has been able to wipe out. But everybody has tried.' - Toni Morrison." I smiled at the magic and feistiness of my eightysomething-year-old grandmother.\ This was so good. Jannie, Damon, little Alex, and I were greeting everybody on the front porch as they arrived. Alex was in my arms, and he was a very social little baby. He had happy smiles for everyone, even for my partner, John Sampson, who can scare little kids at first because he's mammoth - and scary.\ "The boy obviously likes to party," Sampson observed, and grinned broadly.\ Alex grinned right back at Two-John, who is six-nine and about two hundred fifty pounds.\ Sampson reached out and took the baby from me. Alex nearly disappeared in his hands, which are the size of catcher's mitts. Then Sampson laughed and began to talk to the baby in total gibberish.\ Christine appeared from the kitchen. She joined the three of us. So far, she and Alex Jr. were living apart from us. We hoped they would come join Nana, Damon, Jannie, and me in this house. Just one big family. I wanted Christine as my wife, not just as a girlfriend. I wanted to wake little Alex in the mornings, then put him to sleep at night.\ "I'm going to walk around the party with little Alex. Shamelessly use him to pick up pretty women," Sampson said. He walked off with Alex cradled in his arms.\ "You think he'll ever get married?" Christine asked.\ "Little Alex? The Boy? Sure he will."\ "No, your partner in crime, John Sampson. Will he ever get married, settle down?" It didn't sound like it bothered her that we weren't.\ "I think he will - someday. John had a bad family model. His father walked out when John was a year old - eventually died of an overdose. John's mother was a drug addict. She lived in Southeast until a couple of years ago. Sampson was practically raised by my Aunt Tia, with help from Nana."\ We watched Sampson cruise the party with little Alex in his arms. He hit on a pretty lady named De Shawn Hawkins, who worked with Christine. "He really is using the baby to hit on women," Christine said in amazement. "De Shawn, be careful," she called to her friend.\ I laughed. "Says what he's going to do, does what he says."\ The party had started around two in the afternoon. It was still going strong at nine-thirty. I had just sung a duet with Sampson, Joe Tex's "Skinny Legs and All." It was a howling success. We got a lot of laughs and playful jeers. Sampson was starting to sing "You're the First, the Last, My Everything."\ That was when Kyle Craig from the FBI arrived. I should have told everybody to go home - the party was all but over.

\ From Barnes & NobleThe Barnes & Noble Review\ \ James Patterson, bestselling author of Pop Goes the Weasel, Cradle and All, and Kiss the Girls, returns with Roses Are Red, his latest gripping dark crime tale featuring brilliant profiler Alex Cross. As fans have come to expect from Patterson's work, this novel is fueled with high emotion and resonates with moral outrage. As always, Patterson gives his book a healthy measure of both poignant humanity and horrendous cruelty, once more demonstrating that he is at the top of his game, mining an area of psychological suspense that is all his own. \ Cross's latest case is one of his most frustrating. It concerns an ingenious criminal called the Mastermind, who forms vicious teams to rob banks and yet changes the pattern of the crime each time. If his plans are not followed precisely, he threatens to kill whole families taken as hostage -- and does so without hesitation. In another instance all the members of a bank staff are murdered without reason, simply because the Mastermind wants the police to find a scene of carnage. And in an effort to sever all ties to himself, the Mastermind slays his own lackeys as well.\ But the Mastermind isn't all that Cross has to worry about. His girlfriend, Christine, held captive for a year by the insane but brilliant Weasel, cannot overcome her fears and paranoia that she or her newborn child, Alex Jr., will once again fall prey to some madman. Cross's daughter, Jannie, suddenly becomes victim to grand mal seizures, and soon doctors discover that she has a brain tumor. The one shining light amid all his troubles is Cross's fledgling relationship with his new partner on this case, Agent Betsey Cavalierre, who offers him friendship and a stabilizing force for his disintegrating personal life.\ The Mastermind grows more and more bold, raping a young woman because he wants a child and becoming ever more dangerous and erratic. And when Cross and his team become too great an annoyance, the Mastermind decides to make his next gambit a much more personal one and exacts a horrifying vengeance.\ The novel is written in chapters that sporadically alternate between Cross's viewpoint and that of the Mastermind, giving a greater depth to both the hero and the maniacal antagonist. The major subplots focus on Cross's greatest personal fears: the illness of his child and the loss of his beloved. Cross's personal and professional lives are becoming even more difficult for him to separate, as the trials he faces at work come home to haunt him. The fact that Cross tries desperately to function on two planes -- facing madmen during the day and hoping to relax with his family at night -- tightens the novel to the breaking point as the story progresses through a series of brutal crimes that stalk closer to his loved ones.\ Patterson uses incredibly short chapters that speed the narrative along and compress the story line. The plot elements become all the more complex and gripping as we're drawn further into the realm of a lunatic's thoughts. Once again, Patterson proves that he's capable of turning in an engaging, cunningly crafted tale that transcends the serial killer subgenre. He has another guaranteed bestseller on his hands with Roses Are Red, an intense, action-packed, and thought-provoking novel that will leave the reader awestruck and gasping for breath.\ --Tom Piccirilli\ \ \ \ \ \ Daily News...twists and turns...Patterson is effective at keeping the pace and action going at a lightning clip...\ \ \ Sunday OklahomanThe book has plenty of action plus more on the personal side of Cross and an ing...definitely requiring a sequel...\ \ \ \ \ From The CriticsThis was my first James Patterson book, though his name was familiar, as were the titles of several of his novels. I am never completely comfortable jumping into the middle of a series, but I knew it was time I gave Patterson a look. His newest turns out to be a dandy place to start. The police in Washington, D.C., are working with the FBI to solve a flurry of extraordinarily brutal bank robberies, and an old FBI friend brings in cop-psychologist Alex Cross. The timing couldn't be worse for Cross and his friends and family, whom he seems to have a knack for placing in harm's way. Patterson tells his story without embellishment—there is nothing elevated in his language or his structure—but after a while this book becomes unbearable to put down. The exceedingly short chapters are chock full of action;very few scenes lack a suspenseful closer or cliffhanger, and so you impulsively turn one more page. Even the ending left me aching in suspense. Big fun, easy on the eyes, Roses Are Red has me looking for Patterson's earlier works. And the next one.\ —Randy Michael Signor\ \ \ \ \ Publishers WeeklyAlex Cross is back--and that alone will have this novel crowning bestseller lists, a feat Patterson's books have achieved often of late, both his Cross (Pop Goes the Weasel) and non-Cross (Cradle and All) thrillers. Patterson won an Edgar for his first novel, The Thomas Berryman Number, but he hasn't won one since. One reason is that his prose, though sturdy as a trusted rowboat, is just as wooden; another is that his plotting--here detailing Washington, D.C., homicide detective Cross's pursuit of a crazed but crafty homicidal criminal known as the Mastermind--is about as sophisticated as that of a Frank and Joe Hardy tale. So why are the Cross novels so popular? In part because Patterson constructs them out of short, simple sentences, paragraphs and chapters that practically define the brisk, fun, E-Z read, and in part because, here and elsewhere, he engages in the smart and unusual tactic of alternating third- and first-person (from Cross's POV) narrative. Mostly, though, readers adore them because Cross is such a lovable hero, a family-oriented African-American whose compassion warmly balances the icy cruelty of Patterson's villains and their sometimes graphically depicted crimes (as is the case here). In the new novel, Cross suffers lady problems as his old love, who's in terror of Cross's job, leaves him, and he fumbles toward a new romance with an FBI agent; he also suffers personal trauma as his beloved daughter develops a brain tumor. That's back-burner action, though. The main focus here is, first, on a series of shocking Mastermind-engineered bank robbery/kidnappings involving wanton killings and, second, on the hunt to ID the Mastermind--a hunt both absorbing and annoying for its several (rather smelly) red herrings, and concluding with a revelation that screams sequel. While there's nothing subtle in this novel, every blatant element is packaged for maximum effect: roses may be red, but Patterson's newest is green all the way. U.K. and translation rights, Arthur Pine Associates. 1.25 million first printing; Literary Guild and Doubleday Direct main selections; simultaneous Random House large-print edition and Time Warner Audio. (Nov.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\ \ \ \ \ Library JournalThe latest "nursery rhyme" adventures of Dr. Alex Cross pick up where Pop Goes the Weasel (LJ 7/99) left off. Girlfriend Christine has just had baby Alex Jr. but is still haunted by her kidnapping and can't face life with a policeman. Alex is off catching yet another maniacal murderer, a creep who calls himself Mastermind and is terrorizing suburban Washington, DC, by robbing banks and killing indiscriminately. Working with the FBI rather than dependable partner John Sampson, Alex is frustrated again and again as the killer eludes them, until finally a break in the case leads them to their quarry--or does it? Patterson's formulaic suspense machine is once again in high gear, and fans of his usual breakneck plotting won't mind that the story is implausible and the surprise ending so surprising that any hint of motivation is sacrificed. They'll be waiting for the next installment. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 7/00.]--Rebecca House Stankowski, Purdue Univ. Calumet Lib., Hammond, IN Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\ \ \ \ \ Kirkus ReviewsWho's robbing all those banks and kidnapping all those people and killing all those accomplices? It's somebody calling himself the Mastermind—a comicbook sobriquet that represents everything that's wrong with the latest installment in Patterson's Alex Cross franchise.\ \