蓝色紫罗兰 Word 文档 (2)

英文小说

Chapter 1

Nothing ever starts where we think it does. So of course this doesn’t begin with the vicious and cowardly murder of an FBI agent and good friend named Betsey Cavalierre. I only thought that it did. My mistake, and a really big and painful one.

I arrived at Betseys house in Woodbridge, Virginia, in the middle of the night. I’d never been there before, but I didn’t have any trouble rinding it. The FBI and EMS were already there. There were flashing red and yellow lights everywhere, seeming to paint the lawn and front porch with bright, dangerous streaks.I took a deep breath and walked inside. My sense of balance was off. I was reeling. I acknowledged a tall, blonde FBI agent I knew named Sandy Hammonds. I could see that Sandy had been crying. She was a friend of Betsey’s.

On a hallway table I saw Betsey’s service revolver. Beside it was a printed reminder for her next shooting qualifier at the FBI range. The irony stung.

I forced myself to walk down a long hallway that led from the living room to the back of the house, which looked to be close to a hundred years old. It was filled with the kind of country clutter that she’d loved when she was alive. The master bedroom was situated at the end of the hall. I knew instantly that the murder had happened in there. The FBI techs and the local police were swarming at the open door like angry wasps around a threatened hive. The house was strangely, eerily quiet. This was as bad as it gets, worse than anything else. Ever.

Another one of my partners was dead.

The second one brutally murdered in two years.

And Betsey had been much more than just a partner.

How could this have happened? What did it mean?  I saw Betsey’s small body sprawled on the hardwood floor and I went cold. My hand flew to my face, a reflex over which I had no control.

The killer had stripped off her nightclothes. I didn’t see them anywhere in the bedroom. The lower body was coated with blood.  He’d used a knife. He’d punished Betsey with it. I desperately wanted to cover her, but I knew I couldn’t.

Betsey’s brown eyes were staring up at me, but they saw nothing. I remembered kissing those eyes, and that sweet face. I remembered her laugh, high-pitched and musical. I stood there for a long time, mourning Betsey, missing her terribly. I wanted to turn away, but I didn’t. I just couldn’t leave her like this.

As I stood in the bedroom, trying to figure out something coherent about Betsey’s murder, the cell phone in my jacket pocket went off. I jumped. I grabbed it, but then hesitated. I didn’t want to answer.  ‘Alex Cross,’ I finally spoke into the

第1页下一页