Along Came a Spider (Alex Cross #1)(84)

“Tell me everything that’s been happening. What’s it like to fall off the earth?” I asked. Her hair smelled so fresh and clean. Everything about her seemed new and refreshed.

“It’s pretty good, actually, falling off the earth. I haven’t not worked since I was sixteen years old. It was scary the first few days. Then it was fine,” she said with her head still buried in my chest. “There was only one thing I missed,” she whispered. “I wanted you there with me. If that sounds corny, too bad.”

That was one of the things I wanted to hear. “I would have come,” I said.

“I needed to do it the way I did. I had to think everything through one time. I didn’t call anybody else, Alex. Not one other person. I found out a lot about myself. Maybe I even found out who Jezzie Flanagan really is.”

I raised her chin up, and looked into her eyes. “Tell me what you found out. Tell me who Jezzie is.”

Arm in arm, we went inside the house.

But Jezzie didn’t talk very much about who she was, or what she’d found out about herself down at her lake cottage. We fell into old habits, and ones that, I must admit, I had missed. I wondered if she still cared for me, and just how much she’d wanted to come back to D.C. I needed a sign from her.

Jezzie began to unbutton my shirt, and there was no way I was going to stop her. “I did miss you so much,” she whispered against my chest. “Did you miss me, Alex?”

I had to smile. My physical condition at that moment was the obvious answer to her question. “Now what do you think? Take a guess.”

Jezzie and I got a little wild that afternoon. I couldn’t help remembering the night the National Star showed up outside our motel room. She was definitely leaner and tighter, and she’d been in playing shape before she’d gone away. Jezzie was also tan all over.

“Who’s darker?” I asked her and grinned.

“I definitely am. Brown as a berry, as they say around the lake.”

“You’re just dazzling me with your brilliance,” I told her.

“Uh huh. How long can we keep this up? Talking and looking, not touching. Will you unbutton the rest of your shirt buttons? Please.”

“Does that excite you?” I asked. My voice caught in my throat a little.

“Uh huh. Actually, you can take the shirt off.”

“You were going to tell me something about who you are, what you learned on your retreat,” I reminded her. Confessor and lover. A sexy concept in itself.

“You can kiss me now. If you want to, Alex. Can you kiss me without anything but our lips touching?’

“Uhm, I’m not sure about that. Let me turn a little this way. And that way. Are you trying to shut me up, by the way?”

“Why would I want to do that? Doctor Detective?”





CHAPTER 70


I THREW MYSELF into work again. I had promised myself that I’d solve the kidnapping case somehow. The Black Knight would not be vanquished.

One miserable, cold, rainy night I trudged out by myself to see Nina Cerisier again. The Cerisier girl was still the only person who’d actually seen Gary Soneji’s “accomplice.” I was in the neighborhood, anyway. Right.

Why was I in the Langley Terrace projects, at night, in a cold, drizzling rain? Because I had become a nut case who couldn’t get enough information about an eighteen-month-old kidnapping. Because I was a perfectionist who had been that way for at least thirty years of my life. Because I needed to know what had really happened to Maggie Rose Dunne. Because I couldn’t escape the gaze of Mustaf Sanders. Because I wanted the truth about Soneji/Murphy. Or so I kept telling myself.

Glory Cerisier wasn’t real happy to see me camped on her front doorstep. I’d been standing on the porch for ten minutes before she finally opened the door. I’d knocked on the dented aluminum door a half-dozen times.

“Detective Cross, it’s late, you know. Can’t we be allowed to move on with our lives?” she asked as she finally swung open the door. “It’s hard for us to forget the Sanderses. We don’t need you to remind us over and over.”

“I know you don’t,” I agreed with the tall, late-fortyish woman eyeballing me. Almond-shaped eyes. Pretty eyes on a not-very-pretty face. “These are murder cases, though, Mrs. Cerisier, terrible murders.”

“The killer has been caught,” she said to me. “Do you know that, Detective Cross? Have you heard? Do you read newspapers?”

I felt like crap being out there again. I believe she suspected I was crazy. She was a smart lady.

“Oh, Jesus Christ.” I shook my head and laughed out loud. “You know, you’re absolutely right. I’m just fucked up. I’m sorry, I really am.”

That caught her off guard, and Glory Cerisier smiled back at me. It was a kindly, crooked-toothed grin that you see sometimes in the projects.

“Invite this poor nigger in for some coffee,” I said. “I’m crazy, but at least I know it. Open the door for me.”

“All right, all right. Why don’t you come in then, Detective. We can talk one more time. That’s it, though.”

“That’s it,” I agreed with her. I had broken through by simply telling her the truth about myself.

We drank bad instant coffee in her tiny kitchen. Actually, she loved to talk. Glory Cerisier asked me all sorts of questions about the trial.