Kiss the Girls (Alex Cross #2)(33)

Now where was the lovely Anna? She had slipped into Victoria’s Secret to buy something campy for her boyfriend, no doubt. Anna Miller and Chris Chapin had been in law school together at North Carolina State. Now Chris was an associate in a law firm. They liked to dress in each other’s clothes. Cross-dress to get their kicks. He knew all about them.

He had watched Anna whenever he could for almost two weeks. She was a startling, dark-haired twenty-three-year-old beauty, maybe not another Dr. Kate McTiernan, but close enough.

He watched Anna finally leave Victoria’s Secret and walk almost directly toward him. The click of her high heels made her sound so wonderfully haughty. She knew she was an extraordinary young beauty. That was the very best thing about her. Her supreme confidence nearly matched his own.

She had such a nicely arrogant, long-legged stride. Perfect slender lines up and down her body. Legs wrapped in dark nylons; heels for her part-time job in Raleigh as a paralegal. Sculptured breasts that he wanted to caress. He could see the subtle lines of her underwear under a clinging tan skirt. Why was she so provocative? Because she could be.

She seemed intelligent, too. Promising, anyway. She had just missed Law Review. Anna was warm, sweet, nice to be around. A keeper. Her lover called her “Anna Banana.” He loved the sweet, stupid intimacy of the nickname.

All he had to do was take her. It was that easy.

Another very attractive woman suddenly broke into his field of vision. She smiled at him, and he smiled back. He stood up and stretched, then walked toward her. She had store packages and bags piled high in both arms.

“Hi there, beautiful,” he said when he got close. “Can I take some of those? Ease your heavy load, sweet darlin’?”

“You’re such a sweet, handsome thing yourself,” the woman said to him. “But then you always were. Always the romantic, too.”

Casanova kissed his wife on the cheek and helped her with the packages. She was an elegant-looking woman, self-possessed. She had on jeans, a loose-fitting workshirt, a brown, tweed jacket. She wore clothes well. She was effective in many ways. He had picked her with the greatest care.

As he took some bags, he held the nicest, warmest thought: They couldn’t catch me in a thousand years. They wouldn’t know where to start to look. They couldn’t possibly see past this wonderful, wonderful disguise, this mask of sanity. I am above suspicion.

“I saw you watching the young chippie. Nice legs,” his wife said with a knowing smile and a roll of her eyes. “Just as long as all you do is watch.”

“You caught me,” Casanova said to his wife. “But her legs aren’t as nice as yours.”

He smiled in his easy and charming way. Even as he did so, a name exploded inside his brain. Anna Miller. He had to have her.





Chapter 38


T HIS WAS harder than hard.

I slapped on a happy, make-believe smile as I barged through my own front door back home in Washington. A day off from the chase was necessary. More important, I had promised the family a meeting, a report on Naomi’s situation. I was also missing my kids and Nana. I felt as if I were home on leave from a war.

The last thing I wanted Nana and the kids to know was how anxious I was about Scootchie.

“No luck yet,” I told Nana as I stooped and kissed her cheek. “We’re making a little progress, though.” I stepped away from her before she could cross-examine me.

Standing in the living room, I launched into my best working-father lounge act. I sang “Daddy’s Home, Daddy’s Home.” Not Shep and the Limelites’ version; my own original tune. I scooped up Jannie and Damon in my arms.

“Damon, you got bigger and stronger and you’re handsome as a prince of Morocco!” I told my son. “Jannie, you got bigger and stronger and beautiful as a princess!” I told my daughter.

“So did you, Daddy!” The kids squealed the same kind of sweet nonsense right back at me.

I threatened to scoop up my grandmother, too, but Nana Mama made a serious-looking cross with her fingers to ward me off. Our family sign. “You just stay away from me, Alex,” she said. She was smiling, and issuing a baleful stare. She can do that. “Decades of practice,” she likes to say. “ Centuries, ” I always come back at her.

I gave Nana another big kiss. Then I more or less “palmed” the kids. I held them out the way big men can hold basketballs as if they were nothing but an extension of their arms.

“Have you two been good little rapscallions?” I began my interrogation techniques with my very own repeat of fenders. “Clean your rooms, do your chores, eat your brussels sprouts?”

“Yes, Daddy!” they shouted in unison. “We been good as gold,” Jannie added as convincing detail.

“You lyin’ to me? Brussels sprouts? Broccoli, too? You wouldn’t lie so brazenly to your daddy? I called home at ten-thirty the other night, both of you were still up. And you say to me that you’ve been good. Good as gold! ”

“Nana let us watch pro hoops! ” Damon howled with laughter and undisguised glee. That young con man can get away with anything, which worries me sometimes. He is a natural mimic, but also an ingenious creator of his own original material. At this point, his humor level is about that of the TV hit In Living Color.

I finally reached into my travel satchel for their cache of presents. “Well, in that case, I’ve brought y’all something from my trip down South. I say y’all now. I learned it in North Carolina.”