Cross and Sampson

Book 0: An Alex Cross and John Sampson Thriller

by James Patterson, Brian Sitts

Genres: Crime Fiction; Psychological Thrillers; Suspense

Synopsis

Detectives Alex Cross and John Sampson always have each other’s backs—until they’re called to separate locations to investigate a pair of serious crimes.  
 
In Washington, DC…

Metro PD detective John Sampson stands in a crater in the middle of a DC street, calling in the bomb
squad. “Dispatch, this is Sampson. Contact the FBI and the ATF. We’ve got a suspected terrorist attack
here.”

In Chapel Hill, NC…

Alex Cross searches the apartment of a missing psychology grad student—his own son Damon. Has
following in his famous father’s footsteps made Damon a target? 

From FBI headquarters, in police stations, on airplanes, and at murder scenes, the detectives track crimes committed hundreds of miles apart. It will take more than distance to weaken the partnership of Sampson & Cross.

Connect with your favorite characters in the new season of Cross, streaming now.

Release date: February 9, 2026

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Print pages: 368

Sample

ALEX CROSS SLOWLY SIPS his second cup of coffee and enjoys the sweet silence at his home on Fifth Street in Southeast DC. He’s reading the Post and finishing the last of his scrambled eggs and toast, prepared by the Cross family’s indispensable matriarch.

From the way his grandmother moves around the kitchen, it’s hard to tell that Nana Mama is in her nineties. At the moment, she’s busy cleaning and seasoning her cast-iron frying pan, the same one she’s been using for decades. No one else in the Cross household would dare touch it. Not even Alex.

Across the table, Alex’s wife, Bree, is working on her laptop, fingers flying, her hazel eyes focused on the screen. One of the rules Nana Mama enforces in the Cross household is that no electronics are allowed at the kitchen table until your meal is finished and your dishes cleared away. The rule applies to adults and children alike.

That means Bree usually eats quicker than Alex so she can get on her laptop and start her busy day. Retired from her previous jobs as a detective and FBI agent, Bree now works for the Bluestone Group, an international private security firm. She’s one of their top investigators.

These days, Alex divides his time between consulting for the FBI as a forensic psychologist and writing books about the criminal mind. Every now and then, he lectures at his alma mater, Georgetown University, and he always packs the house.

With the two older Cross kids away at college—Janelle at Howard, Damon now in grad school at the University of North Carolina—and Ali off to middle school nearby, the day is starting quietly and peacefully in the warm, cozy kitchen.

Alex looks over at Bree. “What’s getting you going this morning?”

“Just a sec, just a sec,” Bree replies, not looking up.

Alex smiles. When Bree is working hard, “just a sec” could mean a minute, a half hour, or even an hour. She has an amazing capacity for blocking out distractions, including her husband.

No matter. Alex has his own project, going over the notes for a new book. The deadline is looming and his publisher is getting anxious. Time to bear down and—

Alex’s iPhone rings, interrupting his thoughts.

He looks at the screen. The caller ID says UNC—Damon’s school.

He puts the phone on speaker. “Hello?”

“Dr. Cross?” A woman’s voice. Hesitant.

“Yes, this is Alex Cross. How can I help you?”

“This is Professor Clarisse Pope. I’m calling about your son Damon. He’s in my Abnormal Psychology class, and I’m also his academic adviser.”

Bree looks up from her work.

“Good morning, Professor. I’ve read some of your books, and Damon mentioned he really likes the course. What’s he up to now?”

Damon’s a dedicated student, but he’s been known to miss a class here and there when he’s doing something else that really matters to him. That used to be basketball but now it’s more likely to be political activism, trying to save the world. A passion he shares with his younger brother, Ali.

“Go ahead, Professor,” Alex says. “I have you on speaker. My wife, Bree, is here too. Is there an issue with Damon’s academics?”

Pope’s delivery is a bit halting: “No, no. Nothing like that. Damon’s a great student. Very diligent. Always on top of things. Which is why I’m calling. I was just wondering… have you heard from him recently?”

Alex can see Nana Mama listening from across the kitchen, leaning in toward the conversation.

“No,” says Alex, a cold sensation seeping into his gut. “At least, I haven’t.” He glances at his wife. Like a lot of college students, Damon is a sporadic communicator. It isn’t unusual for him to be out of touch now and then. Alex and Bree have learned to give him some space.

“I got a text from him last week,” says Bree, her jaw tensing. “He sent a cartoon—something about smart doctors who can’t remember their own phone numbers.”

“Right,” says Alex. “I remember now. I got the same thing. I wrote back, telling him it wasn’t as funny as he thought it was.” He looks at the phone. “Professor Pope, is something wrong? What’s going on?”

There’s a quick intake of breath on the other end of the line. “Dr. Cross, I’m not sure what it means, but Damon wasn’t in class this week, and he missed our regular appointment. I checked with some other members of the faculty, and he hasn’t shown up for their classes either. I called his cell phone, but it goes right to voicemail. He hasn’t replied to my texts. I reached out to his girlfriend, Melissa, but I haven’t heard back from her.”

Alex locks eyes with Bree.

“Dr. Cross,” the professor says, “I think your son is missing.”

Nana drops her cast-iron pan to the floor, and a loud bang echoes in the kitchen.

ALEX MOVES UP TO his attic office while continuing to talk with Clarisse Pope. During their conversation, he opens up his laptop and composes an email to Damon. Subject line: URGENT. Message: CALL HOME NOW!

“Professor Pope, are you sure about this?” Alex asks, trying to keep the fear out of his voice. “Maybe Damon’s just been sick for a day or two.”

“I don’t think so. It’s been three days now. I sent one of Damon’s friends from class over to his apartment this morning to check on him, but his door was locked and the lights were out. Nobody answered.”

“Have you contacted the police?” Alex asks. “Or campus security?”

“Actually, that’s why I called,” says Pope. “Damon is an adult, so a missing person report needs to be filed by a family member. But I’m worried, Dr. Cross.”

“Me too,” says Alex. He feels uneasy. His chest is tight and throbbing, reminding him that not so long ago he took a bullet in the line of duty and ended up in the ICU. He has his best friend and former police partner, John Sampson, to thank for being alive today.

“How did Damon seem in your classes?” Alex asks. “Was he his usual self? Did he seem concerned or moody, like something was bothering him?”

How many times has he questioned witnesses just like this, seeking answers to some mystery or crime? Including crimes against his own family.

“No, not at all,” says Pope. “He seemed fine, joking, answering questions, like always.”

“And still nothing from Melissa?”

“I texted her again just before I called you. No response.”

Melissa and Damon met as undergrads back at Davidson and have been living together off campus. She’s a grad student at UNC like Damon and a busy teaching assistant besides. Melissa is a smart, pretty girl who knows what she wants and where she’s going. Alex can’t imagine her taking part in some sort of prank or hoax.

He also can’t imagine her not calling to let them know Damon is missing.

Did they take off somewhere together? Is Melissa missing too? Are they both off the grid?

“Have you reached out to Melissa’s parents?” asks Alex.

“I believe they’re traveling in Europe,” says Pope. “My assistant is working on contacting them. But I wanted to get in touch with you.”

He hears footsteps on the stairs and Bree walks into his office, her face drawn.

“If I find out anything new,” says Pope, “I’ll let you know.”

“Thanks for calling,” says Alex. “We’ll talk soon.”

“Wait!” says Pope. “Let me give you the names and numbers for campus security and the Chapel Hill police.”

“I’ve got them already,” says Alex, tapping on his laptop. “But no worries. In a couple hours, I’ll be seeing them face to face.”

ALEX GETS UP FROM his desk and walks over to Bree. They hug, tight.

Her scent, her touch, everything about her comforts him. Always has.

“I’ve been calling and texting both Damon and Melissa,” says Bree. “Calls go to voicemail, and there’re no replies to my texts.”

“There has to be a good reason why he’s been out of touch.” Alex frowns. “I just sent him an email. Let’s see if he responds.”

Bree breaks the hug. “Alex, I love that boy like he is my own blood. When we find him, I’ll give him a big kiss—then a good slap on the butt for scaring the hell out of us.”

Alex caresses her cheek. “I’m with you. He might be an adult now, but I’ll find a way to ground him if this turns out to be a prank.”

They’re both just trying to buck each other up. They head down the stairs. Two packed bags sit in the second-floor hallway.

“I called Bluestone’s travel people. They’ve booked us on American,” says Bree. “Direct to Raleigh. Leaves from Reagan in ninety minutes. There’ll be a Hertz rental for us at RDU. They’re also sending an Uber to take us. It should be here any minute.”

“Thank God for Bluestone.”

Alex calls in a few favors to fast-track approval for getting their weapons on the plane under the TSA’s Law Enforcement Officer Flying Armed program.

“Do you really think we’ll need our guns?” asks Bree.

“I hope not,” says Alex, putting his in a holster.

They each pick up a bag and go downstairs. Nana Mama meets them at the bottom of the stairs, her eyes red and teary. She holds out two Tupperware containers.

“I packed you some food,” she says. “I know how you two work. You’ll get so focused on asking questions, you’ll forget to eat or end up at some greasy-spoon diner.”

“You’re right as always,” says Alex. “You know us too well.”

Bree and Alex take the containers of food and tuck them into the pockets of their luggage. When they look up again, Nana Mama seems ready to cry. Without a word, the three of them wrap one another up in a group hug.

Alex kisses one of Nana’s wrinkled cheeks. Bree kisses the other. Nana squeezes them both. “I’ll be praying for you, every minute, every hour.”

“We know you will,” says Alex.

Another hard squeeze from his grandmother. “You find that boy.”

“We will, Nana Mama,” says Bree. “We will.”

Nana breaks the embrace and turns toward the front window. “Your ride’s here. Get going.”

LIFE AS A SINGLE parent is not easy. But it has its moments.

One of my most treasured rituals is walking my daughter, Willow, to school, her small hand dwarfed in my own big mitt. I know the time will come when she’ll be too grown up to hold Daddy’s hand. I’m not looking forward to that day.

But at this moment, I’ve got something else to worry about.

Our morning ritual was just interrupted by an unexpected phone call from Alex Cross. Damon, he tells me, is apparently missing down in North Carolina.

Willow walks ahead and starts talking and giggling with her friends as I stand outside her school, holding my phone tight to my ear. “Alex, have you talked to the Chapel Hill police or campus security?”

My feet feel rooted to the concrete sidewalk. I’m trying to stay grounded, not to jump to any worst-case scenarios. Bad things have happened to the Cross family before. But I’m hoping this is just some kind of mistake or miscommunication.

“Not yet,” he says. “Bree and I will be in Raleigh in just over two hours. We’ll get a rental and head to campus. We want to meet with the police in person. You know what it’s like—it’s hard to ignore somebody who’s sitting right in front of you.”

“I agree. In person is best. Look, I can be down there later today.”

“Can you really?” asks Alex. “I didn’t think you had any vacation time left.”

“I’ll find the time. You get there safe, start your search, and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

A brief pause from the other end of the line, then: “I love you, John Sampson.”

“I know you do, and I love you too, Alex, and everyone else in your family. If you don’t think it would be too taxing on Nana Mama, I’ll have Willow stay at your house while I’m down there with you two.”

“I’m sure that will be fine. You know Nana Mama just loves your little girl. And Ali… well, he can be a handful, but Willow’s like a little sister to him, and she can hold her own,” Alex says. “Gotta go, we’re pulling up to the airport now.”

“Later. You two travel safe.”

I disconnect and walk over to Willow. She looks up at me with that 1,000-watt smile and hugs me. My baby is tall—she takes after her daddy—but her head still barely reaches my midriff. I decide not to say anything to her now. I’ll set everything up and tell her about Damon later, when I pick her up this afternoon, I think. No need to have her spend the day worrying.

“Daddy?”

“Right here,” I say.

She laughs. “Remember you said you’d get me a new backpack? This one is still too heavy.”

I pat her hair. “Sure. I guess I can do that.”

“Yay!” Then her voice gets serious: “Daddy, when are we going to see Rebecca again? Are we still getting married?”

Her question makes me wince a little. I can’t help it.

Rebecca is Rebecca Cantrell, the U.S. attorney for Northern Virginia. She’s been an important part of my life, and Willow’s too. When I’d asked Rebecca to marry me, Willow had cried out, “And me!”

But since then, Rebecca’s put things on hold. It’s been painful, but she has her reasons, and I have a hard time arguing with them.

“I’ve seen your scars, John,” she told me. “And I know the way you work. You were first to make entry at that hostage situation at Fort Dupont Dwellings. You got shot twice and your vest saved you. I can’t go through that again. Please, just give me some time.”

So that’s what I’m doing.

I look down at Willow. “We’re just taking a little break from each other, that’s all. I’m sure it’ll all work out in the end.”

I hope.

“Okaaay,” says Willow. The tone of her voice tells me she doesn’t quite trust what she’s hearing.

I kiss the top of her head and nudge her toward the school entrance. “You run in, now, sugar. Don’t be late.”

Willow waves and heads through the door, her backpack hanging low.

I’m sure it is heavy, but I’m not ready to replace it just yet. Willow doesn’t know it, but that backpack has bullet-resistant panels sewn into the fabric. I bought it for her a little while back, when DC and the country seemed to be trembling on a knife-edge, violence breaking out everywhere for no apparent reason.

I wanted to give my daughter some protection if a shooter ever attacked her school. Sign of the times. A sad one.

Still, it’s been peaceful and quiet in DC recently. Maybe I’m just being a paranoid parent. Maybe it’s time to replace her tactical backpack with the old-fashioned kind, something fun and appropriate for a little girl, without all the bulletproofing.

My phone rings. What I hear next makes that hopeful thought disappear like a spiderweb caught in a high wind.

“John!” It’s my supervisor, Detective Sergeant Moore Taylor. “Get over to N Street and Thirteenth Street Northwest, quick as you can!”

“On my way. What’s up?”

Taylor’s voice is tight and hard: “Bombing. Multiple victims. Fire and EMTs are en route. I need you to get over there and take charge!”

There goes my peaceful, quiet city.

Up in flames again.

IT TAKES ME THREE minutes to get back to my house and jump in my car. I start up lights and sirens, then run every red light on the way to the scene. Along the way, I call Pam Doolittle, a neighbor who works from home as an IT consultant. Pam’s my logistical backup on the home front when duty calls. Her son, Tomas, is a year younger than Willow but goes to the same school.

Pam agrees to pick up Willow after school and take her to the Cross house. I don’t even need to call over there. Nana Mama says my daughter is welcome anytime for any reason. No questions asked. A standing invitation.

Even with all the lights flashing and sirens wailing, I hit gridlock about a block away from the bombing scene and get stuck behind a mass of unmoving vehicles, some of them abandoned. I realize that this is as close as I’m going to get.

I pull up on the sidewalk, grab my go bag from the trunk, and run past clumps of civilians, some with hands up to their mouths in shock, others standing on concrete planters or atop stopped cars to see what’s going on. A lot of them have their phones raised, taking photos or videos. Two news helicopters and a blue-and-white police helicopter are hovering overhead, the sound of their rotors echoing against the buildings.

The smell hits me like a hard memory of other bombing aftermaths from my years on the police force and my time in the army in Iraq and Afghanistan, that acrid scent of smoke and burning rubber. When I finally reach the scene, two Metro cops are yelling at pedestrians to stay back, to little effect.

“You!” I shout, flashing my badge and pointing to the nearest uniform. “Get some barricade tape up! We’ve got to secure this scene!”

Smoke is still eddying around the intersection. I see two shattered cars plus what’s left of a van, flames flickering in the wreckage, and a huge crater in the middle of the street. A broken water main is spraying out water, flooding the whole area.

This is a four-lane road—two lanes southbound and two northbound—with trees lining the sidewalks. The windows in nearby office buildings have been shattered, and the trees nearest the blast have been stripped of their leaves. Branches are bent or snapped off, lying in the road. Up and down the block, car alarms are screeching.

I get closer, and the smells are more intense and more horrific, a choking mixture of spilled gasoline, burned fabric, and scorched flesh.

A woman in a business suit is writhing on the ground about twenty feet away, screaming, her hands squeezing her bloody abdomen. A man is sitting on a concrete planter, his face blackened, shirt torn away, looking down with wide eyes at his left leg, missing from the knee down, while a woman next to him desperately attempts to secure a leather belt around his tattered thigh.

On the asphalt around me, I count at least four lumps of ripped flesh that must have recently belonged to healthy men and women caught in the blast zone. Alive one minute, blown apart the next.

I have a strong impulse to assist the wounded, but well-trained crews from DC’s fire and EMS department are already racing past me, carrying bulging shoulder bags and backboards, followed by others pushing gurneys, their wheels rattling as they go by. I need to let them do their jobs. It’s time to do mine.

I bring up my handheld radio. “Dispatch, this is Sampson, D-five. We have a mass casualty event at the intersection of Thirteenth Street and N Street Northwest. We need units to block off traffic in a three-block radius. Tell DC Fire to roll as many buses as they can—and get the Metropolitan bomb squad out here!”

“Copy, Detective.”

I look down the street and see more survivors, some holding bloody handkerchiefs to their heads as they slowly navigate between t. . .