Kiss the Girls (Alex Cross #2)(43)

“There were thick, thick woods. Carolina pines, hanging moss everywhere…. I remember, I swear to God… the house… wherever we were being kept, it disappeared. The house where we were being held captive just disappeared on me.”

Kate McTiernan slowly shook her head of long brown hair back and forth. Her eyes were wide with astonishment. She seemed amazed at her own story. “That’s what I remember. How could that be? How could a house disappear?”

I could tell that she was reliving her very recent, terrifying past. I was right there with her. I was the first one to hear the story of her escape, the only one so far to hear our witness speak.





Chapter 51


C ASANOVA WAS still disturbed and highly agitated about the loss of Dr. Kate McTiernan. He was restless and had been wide-awake for hours. He rolled over and over in bed. This was no good. This was dangerous. He had made his first mistake.

Then someone whispered in the darkness.

“Are you all right? Are you okay?”

The woman’s voice startled him at first. He had been Casanova. Now he seamlessly switched over to his other persona: the good husband.

He reached out and gently rubbed his wife’s bare shoulder. “I’m okay. No problem. Just a little trouble sleeping tonight”.

“I noticed. How could I not? The human Mexican jumping bean strikes again.” There was a smile in her sleepy voice. She was a good person, and she loved him.

“Sorry,” Casanova whispered, and kissed his wife’s shoulder. He stroked her hair as he thought about Kate McTiernan. Kate had much longer brown hair.

He kept stroking his wife’s hair, but he drifted back into his own tortured thoughts again. He really didn’t have anyone to talk to, did he? Not anymore. Not around here in North Carolina certainly, not even in the highfalutin Research Triangle belt.

He finally climbed out of bed and trudged downstairs. He shuffled into his den and quietly shut and locked the door.

He looked at his wristwatch. It was 3:00 A.M. That would make it twelve out in Los Angeles. He made the call.

Actually, Casanova did have someone to talk to. One person in the world.

“It’s me,” he said, when he heard the familiar voice on the line. “I’m feeling a little crazy tonight. I thought of you, of course.”

“Are you implying that I lead a wanton and half-mad life?” the Gentleman Caller asked with a chuckle.

“That goes without saying.” Casanova was feeling better already. There was someone he could talk to and share secrets with. “I took another one yesterday. Let me tell you about Anna Miller. She’s exquisite, my friend.”





Chapter 52


C ASANOVA HAD struck again.

Another student, a bright beautiful woman named Anna Miller, had been abducted from a garden apartment she shared with her lawyer-boyfriend near the State University of North Carolina in Raleigh. The boyfriend had been murdered in their bed, which was a new twist for Casanova. He left no note, and no other clues at the crime scene. After a mistake, he was showing us he was letter-perfect again.

I spent several hours with Kate McTiernan at the University of North Carolina hospital. We got along well; I felt that we were becoming friends. She wanted to help me with the psychological profile on Casanova. She was telling me everything that she knew about Casanova and his women captives.

As far as she could tell, there had been six women held as hostages, including herself. It was possible that there were more than six

Casanova was extremely well organized, according to Kate. He was capable of planning weeks and weeks ahead, of studying his prey in amazing detail.

He seemed to have “built” the house of horrors by himself. He had installed plumbing, a special sound system, and air conditioning, apparently for the comfort of his women captives. Kate had only seen the house in a drugged state, though, and she couldn’t describe it very well.

Casanova could be a control freak who was violently jealous and extremely possessive. He was sexually active and capable of several erections in a night. He was obsessed with sex and the male sexual urge.

He could be thoughtful in his way. He could also be “romantic,” his own word. He loved to cuddle and kiss and talk to the women for hours. He said that he loved them.

In midweek, the FBI and the Durham police finally agreed on a secure place in the hospital for Kate McTiernan to meet with the press for the first time. The news conference was held in a wide entrance corridor on her floor.

The all-white hallway was jam-packed to the glowing red exit signs with reporters clutching their notepads, and TV people with minicams hoisted on their shoulders. Policemen with automatic weapons were also present. Just in case. Homicide detectives Nick Ruskin and Davey Sikes stayed close to Kate during the course of the TV taping.

Kate McTiernan was well on her way to becoming a national figure. Now the general public would get to actually meet the woman who had escaped from the house of horrors. I felt sure that Casanova would be watching, too. I hoped he wasn’t right there in the hospital with us.

A male nurse, who was clearly a bodybuilder, pushed Kate into the noisy, crowded hallway. The hospital wanted her in a wheelchair. She had on baggy UNC sweatpants and a simple white cotton T-shirt. Her long brown hair was full and shiny. The bruising and swelling around her face was down a lot. “I almost look like my old self,” she had told me. “But I don’t feel like my old self, Alex. Not inside.”