Page 30 of The House of Cross

“Notice anything odd about him?”

“Nah,” he said. “But a white chick with locs came out of the tents there and followed him.”

“She followed him?”

“That’s what it looked like to me. Wasn’t anyone else walking in a monsoon. She stayed right behind him about thirty yards until I lost sight of them.”

“Describe her.”

He shrugged. “Like I said, white. Had on a peasant skirt and them Ugg boots. A dark hooded raincoat too, but you could see locs sticking out.”

Mahoney called Hinkley. “We’re looking for a Caucasianfemale with locs, peasant skirt, Ugg boots, and a dark hooded raincoat.”

“Come back soon,” she said. “The symphony hall security chief will be here in fifteen minutes, and the local homicide detectives have pulled other recordings.”

CHAPTER 21

Washington, DC

NANA MAMA WAS FEELINGtired and went upstairs to lie down after breakfast. Bree was working on her laptop in the kitchen when Sampson came by after dropping Willow at school.

“How many more days off do you have?” she asked.

“Through New Year’s,” Sampson said. “I accrued a ton of comp time the past year. They told me to burn a bunch or lose it.”

“Give me a hand with something?”

“Ryan Malcomb?”

“Who else?” she said. She showed him how little was publicly known about Malcomb’s life before he founded Paladin. “Attended the University School in Hunting Valley, Ohio, graduating with high honors and winning the math prize. Then MIT. Shortly after graduating, again with high honors, he founded a private company, Algo Corporation.”

“It was also a data-mining thing?” Sampson asked.

“Yes. Malcomb brought on that CEO you and Alex met in Massachusetts.”

“Steven Vance.”

“Five years later, under Vance, they rebranded Algo as Paladin with very little fanfare. But that was always Malcomb’s modus operandi—publicity shy in the extreme, and yet his company explodes, lands some of the biggest government contracts within six years. Had all sorts of offers from people wanting to buy, but he kept it closely held.”

John thought about that. “Didn’t the aunt fund the first company?”

“Theresa May Alcott and her late husband did,” she said. “They were billionaires and his guardians.”

“The Alcott soap fortune.”

“That’s right.”

“Where were Malcomb’s real parents?”

“Dead,” she said. “Murdered, I believe, though I don’t know the details.”

“Believe?”

Bree shifted in her seat. “Remember when I went out to see Theresa May Alcott in Ohio after that fashion designer was murdered in New York?”

“Vaguely.”

“She mentioned her sister and husband had been murdered during a home invasion somewhere out west,” Bree said. “She adopted her sister’s twins, Ryan and Sean. But afterward, I remembered Alex saying that the first time you visited Paladin, you were told that his mother had just had a fall in her house in Palo Alto.”

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