Kiss the Girls (Alex Cross #2)(45)

Nothing could match this physical and emotional feeling: adrenaline pumping, heart beating loudly, total exhilaration in every part of his body. He brought warm milk in a glass pitcher. Also a small wicker basket with a special surprise for Anna.

In truth, it was something he’d been planning for Dr. Kate. He’d wanted to share this moment with her.

He had put on the loud rock ‘n’ so that Anna would know it was time to get ready. It was a signal. He was certainly ready for her. Pitcher full of warm milk. Long rubber tubing with a nozzle. Cuddly present in the wicker basket. Let the games begin.





Chapter 54


C ASANOVA COULDN’T take his eyes off Anna Miller. The air around him seemed to roar. Everything was charged with high expectations. He was feeling more than a little out of control. Not like himself. More like the Gentleman Caller.

He looked down on his art his creation. He held a thought: Anna has never looked like this for anyone else.

Anna Miller lay on the bare wooden floor of the downstairs bedroom. She was naked, except for her jewelry, which he wanted her to wear. Her arms were bound with leather behind her back. A comfortable pillow was propped underneath her buttocks.

Anna’s perfect legs hung from a rope tied to a ceiling beam. This was how he wanted her; this was exactly the way he’d imagined her so many times.

You can do anything that you want to do, he thought.

And so, he did.

Most of the warm milk was already inside her. He’d used the rubber hose and nozzle to do that.

She reminded him a little of Annette Bening, he was thinking, except that she was his now. She wasn’t a flickering image on some Cineplex movie screen. She would help him get over Kate McTiernan, and the sooner the better.

Anna wasn’t so haughty anymore; she wasn’t supremely untouchable, either. He was always curious about how much it took to break someone’s will. Not so much, usually. Not in this age of cowards and spoiled brats.

“Please take it away. Don’t do this to me. I’ve been good, haven’t I?” Anna pleaded convincingly. She had such a beautiful and interesting face in happiness and especially in sorrow.

Her cheeks rose sharply whenever she spoke. He memorized the look, everything he could about this special moment. Details to dream about later on. Like the exact tilting angle of her derriere.

“It can’t harm you, Anna,” he told her truthfully. “Its mouth is sewn shut. I sewed it myself. The snake is harmless. I would never hurt you.”

“You’re sick and vile,” Anna suddenly snapped at him. “You’re a sadist!”

He merely nodded. He had wanted to see the real Anna, and there she was: another snapping dragon.

Casanova watched the milk as it slowly dripped from her anus. So did the small black snake. The sweet fragrance of the milk drew it forward across the wooden two-by-fours of the bedroom floor. It was quite magnificent to observe. This truly was an image for beauty and the best.

The cautiously alert black snake paused, then suddenly jutted its head forward. The head smoothly slid inside Anna Miller. The black snake cleverly gathered itself in folds and slid farther inside.

Casanova closely watched Anna’s beautiful eyes widen. How many other men had ever seen this, or felt anything like what he was experiencing now? How many of those men were still alive?

He had first heard of this sexual practice for enlarging the anus on his trips to Thailand and Cambodia. Now he’d performed the ceremony himself. It made him feel so much better about the loss of Kate, about other losses.

That was the exquisite and surprising beauty of the games he chose to play at his hideaway. He loved them. He couldn’t possibly stop himself.

And neither could anyone else. Not the police, not the FBI, and not Dr. Alex Cross.





Chapter 55


K ATE STILL couldn’t remember much from the actual day of her escape from hell. She agreed to be hypnotized, at least to let me try, though she thought her natural defenses might be too strong. We decided to do it late at night in the hospital, when she was already tired and might be more susceptible.

Hypnotism can be a relatively simple process. First, I asked Kate to close her eyes, then to breathe slowly and evenly. Maybe I would finally meet Casanova tonight. Maybe through Kate’s eyes I’d see how he worked.

“In with the good air, out with the bad,” Kate said, keeping her good humor most of the time. “Something like that. Right, Dr. Cross?”

“Clear your mind as much as you can, Kate,” I said.

“I don’t know about the wisdom of that.” She smiled. “There’s an awful lot bumping around in there right now. Rather like an old, old attic filled with unopened dressers and portmanteaus.” Her voice was beginning to sound a little sleepy. That was a hopeful sign.

“Now just count back slowly from a hundred. Begin whenever you feel like it,” I told her.

She went under easily. That probably meant that she trusted me somewhat. With the trust came responsibility on my part.

Kate was vulnerable now. I didn’t want to hurt her under any circumstances. For the first few minutes, we talked as we often did when she was fully conscious and awake. We had enjoyed talking to each other from the start.

“Can you remember being kept in the house with Casanova?” I finally asked her a leading question.