Kiss the Girls (Alex Cross #2)(6)

He took off her tank top and began to fondle her breasts, like a juggler with several balls. There was nothing she could do to stop him.

He arranged her legs as if she were his art, his human sculpture, stretching the leather thong as far as it would go. He felt down between her legs. The sudden thrust made her open her eyes, and she stared up at the horrible mask. His eyes stared back at her. They were blank and emotionless, yet strangely penetrating.

He entered her, and she felt a jolt like a very powerful electric shock running through her body. He was very hard, fully aroused already. He was probing inside her as she was dying from the barbiturate. He was watching her die. That’s what this was all about.

Her body wriggled, bolted, shook. As weak as she was, she tried to scream. No, please, please, please. Don’t do this to me.

Mercifully, blackness came over her.

She didn’t know how long she’d been unconscious. Didn’t care. She woke up and she was still alive.

She started to cry, and the muffled sounds coming through the gag were agonizing. Tears ran down her cheeks. She realized how much she wanted to live.

She noticed that she’d been moved. Her arms were behind her and tied around a tree. Her legs were crossed and bound, and she was still tightly gagged. He had taken off her clothes. She didn’t see her clothes anywhere.

He was still there!

“I don’t really care if you scream,” he said. “There’s absolutely nobody to hear you out here.” His eyes gleamed out of the lifelike mask. “I just don’t want you to scare away the hungry birds and animals.” He glanced briefly at her truly beautiful body. “Too bad you disobeyed me, broke the rules,” he said.

He took off the mask and let her see his face for the first time. He fixed the image of her face in his mind. Then he bent down and kissed her on the lips.

Kiss the girls.

Finally, he walked away.





Chapter 4


M OST OF my rage had been spent on the furious footrace to St. Anthony’s with Marcus Daniels cradled in my arms. The adrenaline rush was gone now, but I felt an unnatural weariness.

The emergency-room waiting area was noise and frustrated confusion. Babies crying, parents wailing out their grief, the PA incessantly paging doctors. A bleeding man kept muttering, “Ho shit, ho shit.”

I could still see the beautiful, sad eyes of Marcus Daniels. I could still hear his soft voice.

At a little past six-thirty that night, my partner in crime arrived unexpectedly at the hospital. Something about that struck me as wrong, but I let it pass for now.

John Sampson and I have been best friends since we were both ten years old and running these same streets in D.C. Southeast. Somehow, we survived without having our throats slashed. I dirfted into abnormal psychology, and eventually got a doctorate at Johns Hopkins. Sampson went into the army. In some strange and mysterious manner, we both ended up working together on the D.C. police force.

I was sitting on a sheetless gurney parked outside the Trauma Room. Next to me was the “crash cart” they had used for Marcus. Rubber tourniquets hung like streamers from the black handles of the cart.

“How’s the boy?” Sampson asked. He knew about Marcus already. Somehow, he always knew. The rain was running down his black poncho in little streams, but he didn’t seem to care.

I sadly shook my head. I was still feeling wasted. “Don’t know yet. They won’t tell me anything. Doctor wanted to know if I was next of kin. They took him to Trauma. He cut himself real bad. So what brings you to happy hour?”

Sampson shrugged his way out of his poncho, and flopped down beside me on the straining gurney. Under the poncho, he had on one of his typical street-detective outfits: silver-and-red Nike sweatsuit, matching high-topped sneakers, thin gold bracelets, signet rings. His street look was intact.

“Where’s your gold tooth?” I managed a smile. “You need a gold tooth to complete your fly ensemble. At least a gold star on one tooth. Maybe some corn braids?”

Sampson snorted out a laugh. “I heard. I came,” he said offhandedly about his appearance at St. Anthony’s. “You okay? You look like the last of the big, bad bull elephants.”

“Little boy tried to kill himself. Sweet little boy, like Damon. Eleven years old.”

“Want me to run over to their crack crib? Shoot the boy’s parents?” Sampson asked. His eyes were obisdian-hard.

“We’ll do it later,” I said.

I was probably in the mood. The positive news was that the parents of Marcus Daniels lived together; the bad part was that they kept the boy and his four sisters in the crack house they ran near the Langley Terrace projects. The ages of the children ranged from five to twelve, and all the kids worked in the business. They were “runners.”

“What are you doing here?” I asked him for the second time. “You didn’t just happen to show up here at St. A’s. What’s up?”

Sampson tapped out a cigarette from a pack of Camels. He used only one hand. Very cool. He lit up. Doctors and nurses were everywhere.

I snatched the cigarette away and crushed it under my black Converse sneaker sole, near the hole in the big toe.

“Feel better now?” Sampson eyed me. Then he gave me a broad grin showing his large white teeth. The skit was over. Sampson had worked his magic on me, and it was magic, including the cigarette trick. I was feeling better. Skits work. Actually, I felt as if I’d just been hugged by about a half-dozen close relatives and both my kids. Sampson is my best friend for a reason. He can push my buttons better than anybody.