Kiss the Girls (Alex Cross #2)(79)

Maybe they didn’t know about him yet. Maybe they hadn’t figured anything out. But they would eventually. There were clues. It could all be traced back to Roe Tierney and Tom Hutchinson. The unsolved golden couple murder. The very beginning for him and Will Rudolph. God, he was glad his friend was back. Rudolph always made him feel better when he was around. Rudolph truly understood desire, and ultimately, freedom. Rudolph understood him as no one else ever had.

Casanova began to jog down a brightly polished corridor in Building Two of the Medical Center.

As he quickened his pace, the sound of his slapping footsteps echoed in the empty halls. In a few minutes he was in Building Four, all the way over on the northwest side of the hospital.

He looked back one more time.

Nobody had followed. Nobody had guessed right yet. Maybe they never would.

Casanova came out into the brightly lit, almost orangish, parking area. A black jeep was parked close to the building, and he nonchalantly climbed inside.

The vehicle had MD plates, state of North Carolina. Yet another of his masks.

He was feeling strong and sure of himself again. He felt wonderfully free and alive tonight. This was exhilarating; it could be one of his finest hours, actually. He felt as if he could fly through the silky black night.

He took off to claim his victim.

Dr. Kate McTiernan was next again.

He missed her so much.

He loved her.





Chapter 90


T HE GENTLEMAN Caller was on the move. Dr. Will Rudolph passed inexorably through the night toward his unsuspecting prey. His juices were surging. Sloshing. He was going to make a house call, as an outstanding doctor should, at least a doctor who really cared.

Casanova didn’t want him out roaming the streets of Durham or Chapel Hill. He’d forbidden it, in fact. Understandable enough, admirable, but not possible. They were working together again. Besides, the danger was minimal at night and the rewards far exceeded the risks.

This next scene in the drama had to be done just right, and he was the one to do it. Will Rudolph was certain of that. He had no emotional baggage. No Achilles’ heel. Casanova did… Her name was Kate McTiernan.

In a strange way, he thought, she had become his competition. Casanova had bonded with her in a special way. She was very close to the “lover” he claimed to be obsessively searching for. As such, she was dangerous to his own special relationship with Casanova.

As he drove into Chapel Hill, he thought about his “friend.” Something was different and even more satisfying between them now. Being torn apart for almost a year made him appreciate the strange relationship. It was more powerful than ever. There was no one else he could talk to, not one person.

How very sad, Rudolph thought.

How droll.

During his year in California, Will Rudolph had remembered all too well the searing loneliness he had experienced as a boy. He’d grown up at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, then in Asheville. He was a bird colonel’s boy, an army brat, a true son of the South. Right from the beginning, he had been clever enough to keep up a fa?ade: honor student; polite, helpful, social graces to beat all. The perfect gentleman. No one had guessed the truth about his desires and needs… which was exactly why the loneliness had been so unbearable.

He knew when the loneliness had ended. Exactly when and where. He remembered the first dizzying meeting with Casanova. It had taken place right on the Duke campus, and it was a dangerous meeting for both of them.

The Gentleman remembered the scene so well. He had a small room, like any other student on campus. Casanova had shown up one night well past midnight, closer to two. Scared the shit out of him.

He seemed so sure of himself when Rudolph opened the door and saw him there. There was a theatrical suspense movie called Rope. The scene reminded him of the movie.

“You going to invite me in? I don’t think you want what I have to say broadcast out here in a public hallway.”

Rudolph had let him in. Shut the door. His heart was thundering.

“What do you want? It’s almost two in the morning. Christ.”

The smile again. So cocksure. Knowing. “You killed Roe Tierney and Thomas Hutchinson. You were stalking her for over a year. You have a loving remembrance of Roe right here in this room. Her tongue, I believe.”

It was the most dramatic moment in Will Rudolph’s life. Someone actually knew who he was. Someone had found him out.

“Don’t be frightened. I also know there’s no way they’ll ever prove you committed the murders. You committed perfect crimes. Well, near perfect. Congratulations.”

Acting as well as he could under the circumstances, Rudolph had laughed in his accuser’s face. “You’re completely out of your mind. I’d like you to leave now. That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Yes, it is,” the accuser said, “but you’ve been waiting to hear it all your life… Let me tell you something else you’ve wanted to hear. I understand what you did and why. I’ve done it myself. I’m a lot like you, Will.”

Rudolph had felt a powerful connection immediately. The first real human connection of his life. Perhaps that was what love was? Did ordinary people feel so much more than he did? Or were they deluding themselves? Creating grandiose romantic fantasies around the mundane exchange of seminal fluids?

He was at his final destination before he knew it. He stopped the car under a towering, old elm and switched off the headlamps. Two black men were standing on the porch of Kate McTiernan’s house.