Kiss the Girls (Alex Cross #2)(34)

“Y’all,” Jannie said back at me. She giggled wildly and did an impromptu dance turn. She was like the cutest puppy kept in the house for an afternoon. Then you come home and she’s all over you like sticky flypaper. Just like Naomi was when she was a little girl.

I pulled out Duke University NCAA champion basketball T-shirts for Jannie and Damon. The trick with those two is they have to get the same thing. Same exact design. Same exact color. That will last for another couple of years, and then neither one of them will be caught dead in anything vaguely associated with the other.

“Thank you, y’all,” the kids said one after the other. I could feel their love it was so good to be home. On leave, or otherwise. Safe and sound for a few hours.

I turned to Nana. “You probably thought I forgot all about you,” I said to her.

“You will never forget me, Alex.” Nana Mama squinted her brown eyes hard at me.

“You got that right, old woman.” I grinned.

“I surely do.” She had to have the last word.

I took a beautifully wrapped package from my duffel bag of wonders and surprises. Nana unwrapped it, and she found the most handsome handmade sweater that I had ever seen anywhere. It had been created in Hillsborough, North Carolina, by eighty-and ninety-year-old women who still worked for a living.

For once, Nana Mama had nothing to say. No smart comebacks. I helped her on with the hand-knitted sweater, and she wore it for the rest of the day. She looked proud, happy, and beautiful, and I loved seeing her like that.

“This is the nicest gift,” she finally said with a tiny crack in her voice, “other than you being home, Alex. I know you’re supposed to be a tough hombre, but I worried about you down there in North Carolina.”

Nana Mama knew enough not to ask too much about Scootchie yet. She also knew exactly what my silence meant.





Chapter 39


I N THE late afternoon, thirty or of my very closest friends and relatives swarmed through the house on Fifth Street. The investigation in North Carolina was the topic of discussion. This was natural even though they knew I would have told them if I had any good news to report. I made up hopeful leads that just weren’t there. It was the best I could do for them.

Sampson and I finally got together on the back porch after we’d had a little too much imported beer and rare beefsteaks. Sampson needed to listen; I needed some cop talk with my friend and partner.

I told him everything that had happened so far in North Carolina. He understood the difficulty of the investigation and manhunt. He’d been there with me before, on cases without a single clue.

“At first, they shut me out completely. Wouldn’t listen to squat from me. Lately, it’s been a little better,” I said to him. “Detectives Ruskin and Sikes dutifully check in and keep me up to date. Ruskin does, anyway. Occasionally, he even tries to be helpful. Kyle Craig is on the case, too. The FBI still won’t tell me what they know.”

“Any guesses, Alex?” Sampson wanted to know. He was intense as he listened and occasionally made a point.

“Maybe one of the kidnapped women is connected to somebody important. Maybe the number of victims is a lot higher than they’re letting on. Maybe the killer is connected to somebody with power or influence.”

“You don’t have to go back down there,” Sampson said after he’d heard all the details. “Sounds like they’ve got enough ‘professionals’ on the case. Don’t start on one of your vendettas, Alex.”

“It’s already started,” I told him. “I think Casanova’s enjoying the fact that he has us stumped with his perfect crimes. I think he likes it that I’m stumped and frustrated, too. There’s something else, but I can’t figure it out yet. I think he’s in heat now.”

“Mmm, hmm. Well it sounds to me like you’re in heat, too. Back the hell off him, Alex. Don’t play Sherlock fuckin’ Holmes with this kinky madman.”

I didn’t say anything. I just shook my head, my very hard head.

“What if you can’t get him,” Sampson finally said. “What if you can’t solve this case? You have to think about that, Sugar.”

That was the one possibility I wouldn’t consider.





Chapter 40


W HEN KATE McTiernan woke up, she knew immediately that something was very wrong, that her impossible situation had gotten even worse.

She didn’t know what time it was, what day it was, where she was being held. Her vision was blurred. Her pulse was jumpy. All her vital signs seemed off kilter.

She had gone from extreme feelings of detachment, to depression, to panic, in just the few moments she had been conscious. What had he given her? What drug would produce these symptoms? If she could solve that puzzle, it would prove she was still sane, at least still competent to think things through clearly.

Maybe he’d given her Klonopin, Kate considered.

Ironically, Klonopin was usually prescribed as an antianxiety medication. But if he started her at a high-enough dosage, say five to ten milligrams, she would experience approximately the same side effects she was feeling now.

Or maybe he’d used Marinol capsules? They were prescribed for treatment of nausea during chemotherapy. Kate knew Marinol was a real beaut! If he put her on, say, two hundred milligrams a day, she’d be bouncing off the walls. Cottonmouth. Disorientation. Periods of manic depression. A dosage of fifteen hundred to two thousand milligrams would be lethal.